African-American Student Perceptions of Predominately White Campuses: The Importance of Institutional Characteristics Relating to Racial Climate

2003 ◽  
Vol os-20 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda T. King ◽  
Thomas E. Ford

The Campus Climate Survey was developed to identify the institutional characteristics of predominately white colleges or universities (PWCUs) that African-American students perceive as important predictors of the quality of the campus environment. We examined whether African-American and White students differentially consider institutional characteristics relating to racial climate to evaluate the campus environment. The survey was administered to 131 African-American and 247 White high school seniors and college students. Results suggest that African-Americans were especially attuned to racial climate characteristics. Furthermore, these racial climate characteristics are uniquely important for African-American students: they mattered to them but not to Whites. Indeed, the general institutional characteristics (non-racial climate related) were more important for determining social comfort for White students.

1999 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto F. Cabrera ◽  
Amaury Nora ◽  
Patrick T. Terenzini ◽  
Ernest Pascarella ◽  
Linda Serra Hagedorn

1995 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 478-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Lee Hoxter ◽  
David Lester

Among 241 college students, both white and African-American adults were less willing to be personal friends with people of the other ethnic group than with people of their own ethnic group. African-American students were also less willing to be friends with Asian Americans than were white students.


2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Wildhagen

Background/Context The fulfillment of academic potential is an underdeveloped area of inquiry as it relates to explaining racial differences in academic outcomes. Examining this issue is important for addressing not only differences in the typical outcomes for African American and White students but also the severe underrepresentation of African American students among the highest achieving students. Whereas other studies have operationalized lost academic potential as unfulfilled expectations for educational attainment, this study takes a different approach, measuring whether students earn higher or lower grades than the grades predicted by earlier tests of academic skills. Students whose grades are equal to or exceed those predicted by their earlier test scores are said to have fulfilled their academic potential, whereas those whose grades are lower than predicted have not realized their potential. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study finds that African American high school students are less likely than their White peers to realize their academic potential. The analyses test several explanations for the racial gap in the realization of academic potential, focusing on the students themselves, their teachers, and their schools. Research Design This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to analyze data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Conclusions/Recommendations The results suggest that teachers perceive African American students as exerting less classroom effort than White students, which accounts for a substantial proportion of the racial gap in unrealized academic potential, even with several student characteristics held constant. At the school level, there are larger racial gaps in unrealized academic potential in segregated schools and schools with strict disciplinary climates. Strikingly, the negative effect of strict disciplinary climate exists net of students’ own receipt of disciplinary actions. That is, the negative association between strict disciplinary climate and the realization of academic potential for African American students applies to African American students regardless of whether they themselves have been in trouble at school. This study reveals that characteristics of schools that lack immediately obvious racial implications, such as a school's approach to student discipline, may be just as harmful as overtly racialized inequality within and between schools.


2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel H. Brown ◽  
Gulbahar H. Beckett ◽  
Kelvin S. Beckett

Recent research on Brown v. Board of Education has emphasized continuing disparities in the education of White and African American students. This research has used the failure of desegregation to account for persisting gaps in White and Black school funding, teacher qualifications, and student achievement. But the current focus on the failure of desegregation has overshadowed an equally significant but underreported success in the area of improving education for African American students. According to the most recent findings on student achievement, for example, the gaps between African American and White students are again narrowing, in some cases approaching zero. The present article shows that the failure of desegregation is not the only, nor is it likely to prove to be the most enduring, legacy of Brown. At the same time that desegregation was being resisted and ultimately reversed in Cincinnati, as elsewhere, Brown was inspiring an emphasis on quality education that resulted in two of the city's worst-performing Black schools’ being transformed into schools of excellence.


Author(s):  
Brian Bourke ◽  
Nathaniel Bray

Persistence in college among African American students continues to remain low compared to persistence among White students. Often, the focus in examining this issue has been on institution-wide retention efforts, which can ignore socio-cultural elements that can influence the decisions of individual students to persist at an institution; however, persistence may rely on a combination of institutional factors and socio-cultural elements. The purpose of this article is to present findings from a research project that highlight institutional factors and socio-cultural elements that influence the persistence of African American students at a predominantly White institution. The findings from focus groups with African American students suggest that they persist despite a “cold” campus climate and ongoing experiences with racism and prejudice at Southern State University [pseudonym].


NASPA Journal ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lamont A. Flowers

The effects of living on campus on educational gains were estimated for a sample of African American college students. This study also examined the effects of specific residence hall experiences on African American students' educational gains in college. Controlling for an extensive array of demographic characteristics, institutional characteristics, and academic and nonacademic experiences in college, the results indicated that African American students who lived on campus reported significantly higher gains in personal and social development than African American students who did not live on campus.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2156759X0901200
Author(s):  
Angelia M. Bruce ◽  
Yvette Q. Getch ◽  
Jolie Ziomek-Daigle

This article evaluated the impact of a group counseling intervention on African-American students’ achievement rates during the spring administration of high-stakes testing at a rural high school in Georgia. Eighty percent ofeligible students who participated in the intervention received passing scores on the four sections tested during the spring administration of the Georgia High School Graduation Tests (GHSGT), and all participating students received passing scores on the English Language Arts and Math sections of the GHSGT. Additionally, the achievement gap between African-American students and White students on the Enhanced Math narrowed during the 2007-2008 testing period, with 63.2% of African-American students achieving pass rates as compared to 70.5% of White students. The pass rate increased from the 38.7% pass rate among African-American students from the previous school year, indicating that the intervention was successful in improving pass rates on high-stakes testing. Implications for professional school counselors include utilizing the practice of group counseling and disaggregating data to promote achievement among underachieving student subsets.


1998 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Mcintyre ◽  
Juan Battle

The responses of 209 youngsters in 11 programs for students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (E/BD) were examined regarding their perceptions of four trait categories of so-called good teachers: Personality Traits, Respectful Treatment of Students, Behavior Management Practices, and Instructional Skills. Results demonstrated that African-American students perceived Personality Traits and Respectful Treatment of Students as being more important than their white counterparts; females felt that all four of the trait configurations were more important than their male counterparts felt they were; and as the age of students increased, each of the four trait configurations was viewed as being less important. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.


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