This annotated bibliography is compiled and customized by the Center for Positive Practices for the Black Lives & Me website. Some of the authors featured on this page include Gloria Ladson-Billings, Ann Merriwether, Andrea G. Hunter, Brent Simpson, Shelley Pearsall, L. Monique Ward, Julie A. Phillips, Elice Rogers, Crystal Keels, and Robert Schoen.
(2004). Survey Shows Blacks Not Concerned Enough about Kidney Disease. Health officials may have an uphill battle in educating Blacks about a disease that's being called a "silent killer," a recent survey shows. Kidney disease is an illness that's become more prevalent, especially in the nation's Black population, but a survey conducted in Jackson, Atlanta, Baltimore and Cleveland shows only 15 percent of those surveyed thought they were at risk for getting the disease. This document briefly analyses the results of the survey. Descriptors: Diseases, African Americans, Risk, Health Promotion
(2004). Who's that Girl: Television's Role in the Body Image Development of Young White and Black Women, Psychology of Women Quarterly. Although findings indicate a connection between frequent media use and greater body dissatisfaction, little attention has focused on the role of race. Accordingly, this study investigates the relation between television viewing and body image among 87 Black and 584 White women. Participants reported monthly viewing amounts of mainstream and Black-oriented television programs as well as body attitudes as measured by the Eating Disorders Inventory, the Body Esteem Scale, and the Body Shape Questionnaire. Results suggest different patterns predicting body image for White and Black women. Among White women, viewing mainstream television predicted poorer body image, while viewing Black-oriented media was unrelated to body image. Among Black women, viewing Black-oriented television predicted healthier body image, while viewing mainstream television was unrelated to body image. Ethnic identity also predicted healthier body image among Black women, and appeared to moderate, to some extent, the contributions of viewing Black-oriented programming. [More] Descriptors: African Americans, Whites, Females, Self Concept
(2006). "If Only My Eyes Were Different": The Loss of Identity and the Under-Utilization of Black Children's Educational Potential–Rethinking Social Justice and Assimilation, International Review of Education. This study explores how social identity is formed in the United States of America. In particular, it examines the social, economic and educational problems experienced by under achieving Black American children and issues of social inequality along with their implications for social justice. Against the background of matters of group identity and its maintenance or loss, the author reflects on the under-utilization of Black American children's educational and human potential. She also suggests a rationale for re-conceiving the goal of social justice and how it is to be achieved, as well as the paradigm of cultural assimilation. [More] Descriptors: African American Children, Justice, Racial Identification, Academic Aptitude
(2006). Once upon a Time when Patriotism Was What You Did, Phi Delta Kappan. In this article, the author hopes to address the challenge of patriotism in this current age. She wants to challenge those who are patriotic enough to criticize common discourses about the nation and national policies to work on recapturing the language so that real debate is not only possible but valued. She makes her argument in a time when this bold kind of patriotism is being eroded in favor of a "new patriotism" that is more akin to indoctrination than critical and analytic citizenship and civic discourse. Borrowing the words of a courageous school board member, the author reminds everyone that "patriotism is not what you say; patriotism is what you do." One cannot legislate or bully people into patriotic submission. One must inspire them to patriotic action. [More] Descriptors: Boards of Education, Patriotism, Politics of Education, Democratic Values
(2004). Trouble Don't Last, Voices from the Middle. Even as a child, Pearsall questioned social injustice and prejudice. In her own community in Ohio and, as she grew, all over the world, she saw social inequities she could neither understand nor accept. Her novel "Trouble Don't Last," takes place during the era of the Underground Railroad. The chapter included here pulls us in immediately with a sense of urgency and fear. [More] Descriptors: Justice, Freedom, Bias, Novels
(2006). The Poverty of Trust in the Southern United States, Social Forces. This paper bridges two lines of research. One line shows that social relations in the southern United States are more "collectivist" than social relations in non-southern regions. The second line of work argues that collectivist social relations generate lower levels of general trust than individualist social relations. At the intersection of these two arguments is the prediction that Southerners are, on average, less trusting than non-Southerners. I test this prediction using trust measures taken from the General Social Survey. As expected, results from whites, but not blacks, show the predicted regional differences. Importantly, regional differences in trust occur after controlling for regional variation in other factors related to trust. I conclude by outlining various implications of the findings and questions for future research. [More] Descriptors: Trust (Psychology), Prediction, Regional Characteristics, Individualism
(2004). Scholar of Note: Young Educators Bring Their Passion and Excitement for Teaching, Research and Training to the Forefront of the Academy, Black Issues in Higher Education. As the exceptional scholars presented here note, in addition to their attraction to intellectual matters, the academy affords them the opportunity to teach, which some describe as their calling, their mission and their life's work. In concert with the value of their research, publications, awards, fellowships and civic service, these scholars emphasize the significance of their very presence in the academic arena. Some were the only person of color in their graduate programs and some the first person of color ever to earn tenure in their departments. Some are first-generation scholars and some the offspring of scholars and educators themselves. All of the academicians featured in Black Issues In Higher Education's third annual edition highlighting outstanding young scholars seem to appreciate that, as people of color at work in universities and colleges across the country–be they historically Black, predominantly White or any other institutional configuration–they can challenge students' perceptions in general, and inspire a new generation of scholars of African descent in particular. The scholars featured in this issue are: (1) Daina Ramey Berry;(2) Devon Carbado; (3) Paula Hammond Cunningham; (4) Brent Hayes Edwards; (5) Edray Herber Goins; (6) Charles L. Isbell Jr.; (7) Tammy Kernoodle; and (8) Earl Wright II. Descriptors: Scientific Research, Justice, Scholarship, African Americans
(2004). Cohabitation and Children's Family Instability, Journal of Marriage and Family. This study estimates how much children's family instability is missed when we do not count transitions into and out of cohabitation, and examines early life course trajectories of children to see whether children who experience maternal cohabitation face more family instability than children who do not. Using data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, analyses show that adding transitions into and out of cohabitation to those into and out of marriage increases our measure of family instability by about 30% for White children (N=1575) and over 100% for Black children (N=774). We conclude that future research on the impact of children's family composition while growing up should take into account transitions into and out of cohabitation. [More] Descriptors: Interpersonal Relationship, African American Children, Children, Whites
(2006). Teaching the Classics in Family Studies: E. Franklin Frazier's "The Negro Family in the United States", Family Relations. This paper (a) reintroduces E. Franklin Frazier's 1939 book, "The Negro Family in the United States," to family scholars and graduate students and highlights its importance as a groundbreaking and classic text, (b) provides both an introduction to the major thesis of this monograph and a reading of the text, and (c) discusses the challenges of reading classic works and suggests strategies that can be used to guide graduate students in a critical reading of classic works. [More] Descriptors: Reading Materials, Reading Strategies, Classics (Literature), African American Family
(2006). Partner Choice and the Differential Retreat from Marriage, Journal of Marriage and Family. The contemporary retreat from marriage in the United States has had a differential impact across socioeconomic and racial groups. Here, 1990 marriage rates and propensities for Virginia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin are analyzed regarding (a) the likelihood that persons in different groups ever marry and (b) patterns of partner choice with respect to race and educational level. Marriage remains strong in most race-education groups but is substantially lower among Blacks and among those with less than 12 years of education. Patterns of partner choice have shifted to show greater symmetry between the educational levels of brides and grooms. Changes have been modest with regard to the level and pattern of interracial (Black-White) marriage. Marriage is increasingly a union of equals, but a union chosen more by Whites than by Blacks and more by the well educated than by the poorly educated. [More] Descriptors: Marriage, African Americans, Racial Relations, Whites
(2004). Giants in the Classroom: Twenty Influential Scholars Whose Work Has Inspired Others and Made a Significant Impact on the Academy. Over the past two decades, Black Issues writers and editors have featured hundreds, perhaps thousands, of faculty in the magazine's stories and interviews. Deciding on 20 faculty members whose research, teaching and service set them above their peers in excellence has not proven an easy task. 20 individuals who have had a significant impact in the academy, and whose work has inspired and will continue to inspire others, have been selected. This document briefly profiles the 20 individuals selected. Descriptors: College Faculty, African Americans, Asian Americans, Profiles
(2004). Black Women's Leadership and Learning: From Politics to Afritics in the Context of Community, Convergence. Until recently, the academy of higher education did not perceive that the leadership of black women merited scholarly analysis. Thus, the knowledge about how black women in the United States learned to lead and the political forces driving such learning remained primarily oral or described in private correspondence (White, 1999). Those studies about the leadership of women that surfaced in the 1970s and 1980s tended to examine middle- to upper-class white women without commensurate attention to women from other classes or women of colour (Collins, 2000; White, 1999). Collins (1998) challenged that the generic application of the term feminism within these studies emphasised gender and sexist issues and disrupted notions of racial solidarity vital to survival for black women. They failed to consider carefully the impact of the modern-day stereotype of the black female professional, i.e. the black lady, who is portrayed as de-sexed and assertive, carrying out the authority of the dominant corporate culture through quasi-administrative leadership roles (Collins, 2000). With beginning acknowledgement by the academies in the late 1980s and 1990s of the legitimacy of black feminist and black womanist scholarship, a few studies shifted the focus of black women's leadership from the margin to the centre of examination and challenged the gender and racial neutral presumptions (Collins, 2000). White's (1999) analysis of the history of black women's leadership within five black women's national organisations in the United States between 1894 and 1994 is one such study. Through her painstaking investigation of newspaper clippings, meeting minutes, personal correspondence and interviews she explored how and why black women such as Mary Church Turrell, Mary McLeod Bethune, Helena Wilson, Johnnie Tillmon, and Brenda Eichelberger respectively led the National Association of Colored Women, the National Council of Negro Women, the Ladies Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the National Welfare Rights Organization, and the National Black Feminist Organization. Believing that neither black men nor white women were effectively addressing issues confronting the black community in the United States, these five women crusaded extensively to bond together local black women's clubs into national social advocacy and political organisations throughout the twentieth century. [More] Descriptors: Gender Bias, Leadership, Females, African Americans
(2004). The Measured Black-White Wage Gap among Women Is Too Small, Journal of Political Economy. Existing work suggests that black-white gaps in potential wages are much larger among men than women and further that black-white differences in patterns of female labor supply are unimportant. However, panel data on wages and income sources demonstrate that the modal young black woman who does not engage in market work is a single mother receiving government aid whereas her white counterpart is a married mother receiving support from a working spouse. The median black-white gap in log potential wages among young adult women in 1990 was likely at least 60 percent larger than the gap implied by reported earnings and hours worked in the Current Populations Surveys. Descriptors: Wages, Young Adults, Mothers, Labor Supply
(2004). Understanding Racial Differences in Marital Disruption: Recent Trends and Explanations, Journal of Marriage and Family. We use data from the Current Population Survey to investigate racial differences in recent patterns of marital disruption. Although a leveling in the trend of disruption has occurred for White women since 1980, our results suggest less stabilization in rates of disruption among Black women. We also observe significant differences by race in the effects of key compositional factors on the risk of marital disruption, including age at marriage, education, premarital childbearing, and region of residence. Differences in population composition with respect to these characteristics, however, cannot alone explain the overall racial gap in disruption. [More] Descriptors: Females, Whites, Marital Instability, Racial Differences
(2006). Black, White, Greek…Like Who?: Howard University Student Perceptions of a White Fraternity on Campus, Educational Foundations. On March 2, 1867, the Historically Black College or University (HBCU) Howard University (HU) was founded in Washington, D. C. Almost exactly one year later, the all white fraternity of Pi Kappa Alpha was founded at the University of Virginia. Over 100 years later, on February 18 2006, fifty-five HU students became charter members of Pi Kappa Alpha ("Pike"), making the Pikes the first traditionally White social Greek organization to begin a colony at HU. Using recent interviews with HU students as a touchstone for analysis, this author presents a six-part typology of student ideological responses to the Pike colony. These responses are described nominally and arranged in order of ascending racial consciousness. The first is the "Color-Blind Copasetic," who argues for a post-race political utopia. Next is the "Agreeable Assimilationist," who views HU's predominantly Black campus culture as disingenuous and possibly misinformative. Next is the "Campus Conventionist," who views non-Black changes to tradition as negative. There is also the "Munificent Multiculturalist," who believes that racial diversity, no matter the form, is positive. In addition, there is the "Radical Racialist," who expresses a dislike of the Pikes on campus because of their White traditionalism and racist past. Last is "Antonio's Ghost," who believes that the Pikes can be used by Black students to advance Black interests. While these labels are surely reductive, they nonetheless capture a certain version of the HU student realities of culturally specific ideologies that make meaning and sense out of the HU Pike presence. [More] [More] Descriptors: Ideology, Fraternities, Whites, Black Colleges