Culturally Congruent Strategies for Addressing the Behavioral Needs of Urban, African American Male Adolescents.

Abstract

Urban, African American male adolescents experience disproportionately higher rates of discipline referrals, suspension, and expulsion, which have been attributed to numerous ecological factors, including cultural conflicts and misunderstandings between the student's culture of origin and school. Efforts to reduce discipline problems must recognize that a reciprocal relationship exists between cultural thought and the expression of certain behaviors. This article helps school counselors understand the logic that guides certain behaviors of urban African American adolescents in order that they may develop culturally congruent intervention strategies that improve discipline out comes. ********** Nationwide, African American youngsters account for 16.9% of the student population yet the), constitute 33.4% of all suspensions (Education Trust, 1998). Several experts acknowledge that these figures arise at least in part from racial and gender discrepancies in the dispensation of disciplinary measures that result in more severe consequences for African American males, the proliferation of zero tolerance policies in urban schools that do not abound in suburban communities, interpersonal and cultural misunderstanding, vague and ambiguous policies that can give way to bias, the attitudes of school personnel, and parenting styles that do not foster in children a sense of accountability, (Bireda, 2002; Tucker, 1999). Cartledge and Middleton (1996) argued that the dynamic interaction between race and poverty doubly jeopardizes urban African American adolescents who misbehave and leads teachers to make more negative attributions about infractions committed by African Americans than their other race and gendered peers. Ecological factors can exacerbate disciplinary actions taken against African American male adolescents in particular. For instance, factors that strain a youngster's ability to conform to school demands and profit from the educational enterprise include the high density, of students in urban schools, students whose culture of origin remains unsynchronized with the demands and expectations prescribed within mainstream educational settings, dilapidated facilities, inadequately prepared teachers, inconsistent school rules and regulations, heightened levels of crime and violence, large unemployment rates, substandard housing, poor health care, persistent poverty, family challenges, substance abuse, and large immigrant populations (Holcomb-McCoy, 1998; Patton & Day-Vines, 2004). All too often, chronic discipline problems lead to academic underachievement and subsequent school dropout. ADDRESSING DISCIPLINE ISSUES RELATED TO URBAN AFRICAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS Much has been written about the academic underachievement of tar too many African American adolescents (Ogbu, 2003; Tucker, 1999). According to the Education Trust (2003a, 2003b), 61% of African American students performed below basic levels on an eighth-grade measure of math attainment, in comparison to 21% of Caucasian students. Similarly, 7% of African American students earned proficient and advanced scores on this same instrument, compared with 36% of Caucasian students. Sadly, by the end of high school, African American students have math and reading skills that are comparable to White eighth graders (Education Trust, 2003b). Poverty contributes significantly to academic underachievement as well. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2003), 24% of children residing in large metropolitan areas live in poverty and significant proportions of African American youngsters are more heavily concentrated in the highest poverty schools. Regrettably, an inverse relationship exists between the percentage of students eligible for free lunch and student performance. As an example, 56% of poor students in comparison to 25% of middle and affluent youngsters performed below basic levels on an eighth-grade math achievement measure (Education Trust, 2003a). …

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