The Psychology and Education of African American Children and Youth

A Forum — November 29, 2000

"Each of us is a seed of divinely inspired possibility, which when nurtured in its proper context can and will grow into the fullest expression of all we are supposed to become." African Proverb

At the breakfast workshop co-sponsored with the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center, Thomas Parham, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Counseling and Health Services and Director of the Counseling Center, University of California-Irvine, admonished education practitioners to set aside cultural biases and make a commitment to doing things differently for the education of all children, specifically African American children. He challenged participants to explore the implications of culturally sensitive educational practices and think about raising the bar of what passes for competence.

According to Parham, "Culture is a complex constellation of values, mores, norms, customs, and traditions that provide a general design for living and a pattern for interpreting reality." We often mistake manifestations of culture—celebrations, food, music, dance, dress, holidays—as culture, but they are not.

He discussed educational reforms implemented without true cultural awareness, such as:

• desegregation of students, faculty and, to an extent, curriculum, without real integration or the goal of expanding (rather than narrowing) cultural enlightenment;
• teacher preparation that includes little, if any, teaching experience; and
• leadership that functions with only a superficial recognition of the value that culture plays in education.

According to Parham, these "low bar" reforms have resulted in a body of practitioners that function:

• without the requisite knowledge of culturally-based educational theory or research;
• without a thorough understanding of the personality make-up of students;
• with biased institutional methodologies and assumptions that further support ineffective leadership and practices; and
• with little support from or connections to the community.

The importance of the latter has been the focus of the work of Reginald Clark showing that it is not the family composition, but rather the family disposition toward learning that makes the biggest difference in the educational achievement of African American youngsters. Clark’s research has focused on how educational achievement in African American communities has historically been facilitated by the collaboration of the home, school and community.

Lacking a deep knowledge of the cultural context in which teaching and learning are imbedded, Parham charges that much of our education policy and practice has been based on primary and secondary dimensions of diversity. These are ways of conveniently placing people into categories or boxes and from that knowledge, regulating our behavior toward them. He says that we have not thoroughly accounted for the six primary dimensions of diversity in our education practices. These dimensions are race, ethnicity, gender, age, physical ability/disability and sexual orientation—immutable differences or characteristics with which individuals are born (though the latter is often debated). Nor have we done so for the secondary dimensions of diversity—the effects of things you acquire in a lifetime, such as educational station, socio-economic status, political or religious or geographical location and affiliations. He stressed the need for a new definition of diversity that better reflects the demographics of our students, our teaching staff and our communities, and asked whether the policies and practices of our institutions should change as a function of demographics.

Currently, U.S. education operates within the framework of a Euro-centric view of psychology, which, according to Parham, has become the norm for accepted behavior, generalized to everyone. Behavior that differs becomes the deficit model. Through the Euro-centric lens of psychology, African Americans, women, and working-class people appear weak and inferior. As the "dominant" (Euro-centric) culture has sought to simplify and consolidate its world view, what has held sway is a narrow conception of behaviors of African Americans based on numerous "studies" of one disadvantaged segment of the African American population. Parham says this "ghetto-centric" focus highlights self-hating, not self-praising and affirming behaviors which, although they are natural reactions to years of coping with negative conditions within American society, have been characterized as not normal or healthy.

According to Parham, there is need for a different worldview, which emerges from an African frame of reference. He asserts that African-centered psychology, in contrast to Euro-centric psychology, examines the processes that allow for the illumination and liberty of the spirit. It recognizes:

• a natural order of human existence in which the spirit permeates everything;
• the notion that everything in the universe is interconnected; and
• that the collective (versus the independent, self-sufficient model of Euro-centric thought) is the most salient element of existence.

Based on this worldview, Parham challenges education practitioners to rethink their response to children of color and develop instructional strategies in line with this worldview. He charged those present to think hard about the core principles our children need to master to be successful and how this list converges or diverges from what we teach them. Finally, he admonished the group to raise the bar for what passes for competence and to modify our institutions to make learning meaningful, exciting and effective for all students.

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