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A portrait of fictive kinship of African-American students in two secondary science classrooms
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to present an ethnographic portrait of fictive kinship of African American secondary students in two science classrooms of an urban Midwestern school district. The issue leading to this study is the fact that despite their socioeconomic disadvantages as a group, African American begin school with test scores that are fairly close to the test scores of Whites their age (Steele, 1992). The longer they stay in school, however, the more their scores fall behind. The focus of this study was to determine possible contributions to this underachievement. The model for the study was the fictive kinship model proposed by Signithia Fordham (1987). The ethnographic design involved classroom observations, transcripts, video tapes of the class, research notes on events at school and within the community. Themes were constructed from interpretation of documents, events and statements. Four themes developed in this ethnographic portrait. The themes were (1) feelings about school; (2) involvement in school; (3) progress in school; (4) career aspirations and goals. Family, culture and environment were found to be factors that influence the schooling of the Black students in the study. Black students wanted to achieve academically but their efforts did not match their desire to do so. A similar pattern was evident when the students talked about their career aspirations and their preparation for the career. Black students in this study associated academic achievement with acting white and unconsciously felt that they had to depart from their culture to achieve academically. Such information can provide direction for practitioners, administrators, teachers, science educators, students, parents and community leaders in promoting minority student learning and achievement.
Subject Area
Curricula|Teaching|Science education|Teacher education
Recommended Citation
Mitchell, Carol Temperance Taylor, "A portrait of fictive kinship of African-American students in two secondary science classrooms" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9611063.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9611063