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FROM THE VOICES OF RISING STARS: EXAMINING STUDENT PERSPECTIVES
IN ONE ACADEMIC OUTREACH PROGRAM FOR
UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITIES

By

Alexa D. Edwards

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Counseling, Educational
Psychology, and Special Education

2007

ABSTRACT
FROM THE VOICES OF RISING STARS: EXAMINING STUDENT PERSPECTIVES
IN ONE ACADEMIC OUTREACH PROGRAM FOR
UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITIES
By
Alexa D. Edwards
Far too often black males are deﬁned by terms associated with criminality and
juvenile delinquency, thereby establishing barriers to them receiving appropriate
developmental and educational supports (Pittman, 2000). Quality research should work to’
challenge pessimistic conceptions of this group of students and seek to celebrate
successful approaches and practices in schools and other academic contexts (Raywind,
2001). This study explored the views and perspectives of four African American male
adolescents participating in an outreach program geared toward facilitating college
expectancy and academic achievement. Seeking to gain an understanding of adolescent
experiences in this program led to two primary research questions: What are the
participant’s general perspectives of the program and how do the participants see the
program contributing to their academic and social development? By providing these
young males a vehicle of articulation, insights were gained into their thoughts on the
structures, practices, and strategies used in the Truth Tubman Douglas program that
enhanced their future goals and personal attitudes and beliefs. Findings yielded
information about staff-student ﬁctive kin relationships, responses to high expectations,
construction of cultural identities, establishing future goals, and the development of
academic skills. Students are making meaning of and responding to their participation in

programming outside of school and if the ﬁeld of education is to acquire a holistic view

of the students it serves it must engage in thoughtful, comprehensive analysis that brings
multiple educational practices and contexts to the forefront. It is expected that this
research will inform both program facilitators on how to implement programs that
directly address the articulated needs of those they serve and educators seeking to

understand the educational experiences of these students beyond the classroom.

COPYRIGHT BY
Alexa Dewyer Edwards

2007

DEDICATION

To the loving memory of my late grandfather Johnny Dawkins whose everlasting
wisdom and integrity guided me through every phase of this scholarly journey.

To my parents Cynthia and David for being the most supportive
foundation I’ve ever known.

To my grandmother Barbara, who has always been a profound example
of hard work and determination.

To my baby brother David “Roc” who inspires me daily to be the
best and greatest at everything I do.

To my priest, protector, and provider, Eric whose unconditional love and prayer keeps
me spiritually grounded and emotionally balanced.

To my extended family who have shown me the truest deﬁnition
of love and encouragement.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A special thanks and sincere gratitude to Jack Smith, Chair of my doctoral committee. I
am eternally grateful for his guidance and unyielding support throughout my entire
doctoral career. I am especially grateful for his consistent encouragement and guidance
toward helping me to become a thoughtful and critical researcher.

I am also grateful to the remaining members of my doctoral committee Dr. Jean Baker,
Dr. John Schweitzer, and Dr. Harriet McAdoo, for their support and feedback.

A very special thanks to Michigan State University Black Graduate Student Association
for providing me with a professional network, social support system, and consistent
words of encouragement. In addition, I am sincerely thankful for them providing me with
a venue that nurtured me as an African American scholar dedicated to issues that impact
my community.

A special thanks to Dr. Sonya Gunnings for her mentoring, invaluable advice, advocacy,
and support.

My gratitude is extended to the department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and
Special Education support staff for their assistance in helping me to manage mounds of
departmental paperwork and request.

A sincere and special thanks to Dr. Yevonne Smith for her mentorship and to the
Graduate School for awarding me the Competitive Doctoral Enrichment Fellowship.

A special thanks to Dr. Bellamy (Dr.B) and the Truth Tubman Douglass program staff
who welcomed me and my research agenda with open arms and allowed me to become a
part of “THE FAMILY”.

A special thanks to Dr. Tambra 0. Jackson for being my big sister, friend, prayer partner,
and conﬁdant throughout this entire process.

A special thanks is in order to my MSU Sista Circle, Marini, Audrey, Rashida, N ia,
Raven, and Tray who always reminded me to stay spiritually, emotionally, and physically
balanced.

A special thanks to Khalel, David, Joe, and Aroutis for their brotherly support.

Thanks to every individual both near and afar who sent up prayers of completion
throughout this process.

Lastly, I am grateful and forever indebted to the participants of this study and their
families for giving me access to their homes, lives, and experiences. This dissertation
would not have been possible without their openness and willingness to share and support
this endeavor.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................. v
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................. 1
Evolution of Dissertation ...................................................................... 1
Problem Statement .......... ' .................................................................... 4
Study Purpose and Research Questions ...................................................... 9
Theoretical Position ........................................................................... 13
Summary of Chapters ......................................................................... 14
CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW.............. ..................................................... 16
Academic Outreach Program ................................................................ 16
Explanation of Theoretical Frame ........................................................... 26
General Issues in Adolescent Development ................................................ 27
Student Voice .................................................................................. 38
Summary ....................................................................................... 42
CHAPTER III. METHODS ...................................................................... 44
Purpose .......................................................................................... 44
Research Questions ........................................................................... 44
Defmition of Terms ........................................................................... 45
Rationale for Qualitative Methods ........................................................... 47
Site Selection ................................................................................... 48
The Rising Stars Component ................................................................. 49
Participants ..................................................................................... 50
Researcher Role ................................................................................ 55
Data Collection Procedures .................................................................. 57
Data Analysis ................................................................................... 67
CHAPTER IV. THE TRUTH TUBMAN DOUGLAS PROGRAM ........................ 76
’I‘TD as Written .................................................................................. 76
'ITD as Articulated .............................................................................. 80
Description of Staff Roles ..................................................................... 81
Discussion of Goals ............................................................................. 84
Program Weaknesses ........................................................................... 90
Program Observed .............................................................................. 92
Saturday Workshops ............................................................................ 93
Staff Roles Enacted .............................................................................. 96
Goals Enacted .................................................................................... 99
Summary ........................................................................................ 106
CHAPTER V. THEIR VOICES ................................................................. 109
Introduction .................................................................................... 109
Academic and Social Development ......................................................... 112
Family Connection: We Are Family ........................................................ 113

vii

Acquisition of Academic Skills ............................................................. 117

Cultural Identity Development .............................................................. 121
Responses to Staff High Expectations ...................................................... 134
Future Planning ................................................................................ 139
Summary ....................................................................................... 143
CHAPTER VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ....................................... 146
Study Purpose Revisited ..................................................................... 146
Summary of Findings ........................................................................ 147
Truth Tubman Douglas Program ............................................................ 148
Student Perspectives .......................................................................... 152
Connection to Relevant Literature .......................................................... 162
Limitations ..................................................................................... 165
Implications .................................................................................... 167
Future Directions/Research Agenda ........................................................ 170
APPENDICES ..................................................................................... 172
REFERENCES .................................................................................... 1 82

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Summary of Observations .......................................................... 65
Table 2. Data Collection Summary .......................................................... 66
Table 3. Themes and Guiding Assertions .................................................. 111

ix

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

“1 have been criticized throughout the course of my career for placing too much faith in
children ’s narratives; but I have almost always found that children are a great deal more

reliable in telling us what actually goes on. .Jhey are in this respect, pure witnesses... ”

~ Jonathon Kozol, Introduction, The Shame of the Nation, pg. 12
The Evolution of This Dissertation
My interests in the contextual factors that inﬂuence the achievement of African

American students developed primarily as an undergraduate at Howard University. I
worked as a research assistant at the Center for Research on the Education of Students
Placed at Risk (CRESPAR), a center that studied and advocated for family involvement
and programs to support the achievement of low-income students of color. After my work
at CRESPAR, I spent a year at a charter school, teaching third grade. In that short time, I
was exposed to many of the difﬁculties and challenges in educating and supporting
African American students. I Ieamed from my experience as both an researcher and
educator that many students of color lack the contextual support needed to be successful
in school. Some lack parental and family support, while others lack resources in their
communities and neighborhoods outside of school. These experiences created questions
about and an interest in how to be responsive to their needs. For example, would students
thrive and perform better academically if they were positively being inﬂuenced by
supports and elements in their environment away from school. I carried this interest into

my graduate studies and planned to research the positive influence of peers, families, and

communities on their academic outcomes.

From these questions, I developed an interest in academic support programs and
conducted a small case study examining participant perspectives in a state-funded
program housed in a large African American Baptist church. It was an educated hunch
that led me to speculate that program participants would have something signiﬁcant to
say about their experiences in the program. The results and ﬁndings spoke to the ways
that the program helped to develop African American students’ dispositions toward
future planning, leadership, and decision making. The research questions for this study
were; what are the goals and objectives of this program, what are the youth participant’s
general perceptions of the program, and what are the participant assessments of the
impacts of the program on their attitudes and beliefs? Students’ responses pointed to the
ways the program had helped them to develop leadership skills, formulate future goals,
and, and make appropriate decisions about their behavior in school and at home.

Given these ﬁndings, I still had questions about the nature of student experiences
within these types of academic/social settings. I wanted to ﬁnd out more about students’
general perspectives as well as how they felt these programs aided in their academic and
social development. I sought out a larger program with a more developed infrastructure to
examine some of these ideas further. The Truth Tubman Douglas Rising Stars Program
(hereafter, the TTD program), located on the campus of a large land grant university
emerged as a promising program for study. TTD’s main objective was to provide
resources for underrepresented minorities (African Americans, Latino (a) s, and Native
Americans) to become college bound students.

This program served approximately 200-300 youth between the ages of 12-18

annually from around a large Midwestern state. Over eighty percent of the student

participants were African American while the remaining student population were
Mexican and Native American students. It was funded by a higher education state
initiative geared toward increasing the enrollment and success of students in the state’s
university system. The program was designed to increase the number of underrepresented
minorities (African Americans, Latino (a), and Native Americans) in post-secondary
education. This goal was pursued through a combination of program elements that inform
and prepare students to deal with the challenges of pursuing higher education. TTD
Rising Stars was staffed by four individuals who served in the capacity of Project
Director, Assistant Director, two Program Coordinators, respectively, and ten college-
aged students (four male, six female), served as youth mentors in the program.

Despite extensive letter writing campaigns, lobbying, and advocacy, TTD lost its
state funding in the Fall of 2006, after my data collection and analysis was complete.
Although they acquired federal funding to replace the funding they lost, they were not
allowed to function under the same name and in the same capacity as they had
previously. This speaks to a common challenge that many academic outreach programs
contend with in maintaining the ﬁnancial support to function long term, despite their
fruitful efforts to help those students most at risk. Over its thirteen year history, TTD
managed to serve thousands of students of color and provided support for them to
succeed academically and for many to go on to become college graduates. When I began
this work, I interviewed a graduate of the program to gain some background information
on what the program was and how it operated. Stacie, a Mexican American college
student summed up her experience in the program by saying,

“These people, they were putting a lot of time and investing a lot of time
into you and it’s like well if they believe I can go to college they believe I

can do something with myself, then I believe it, and they encouraged us to

come back and help out with the program so it’s like once a member

you’re kind of always a member type of thing...”

In the year that I spent as an adopted member of the TTD family, my sentiments
were similar to Stacie’s. As an African American woman and scholar, I felt permanently
connected to the staff, students, and families, and shared a vested interest in their success.
I realized that I too shared their vision of promoting collective achievement and
developing students’ resilience to overcome economic and social obstacles. At the
opening ceremony for the summer residency program, Dr. S. the program director,
approached me and said, “I’m so glad you’re on board, we need the work that you will
doing, so that people can know what we’re about.” I considered this to be an honor as
well as a challenge. This dissertation has been inspired not only by my interest in
examining student voice, but also by my commitment to Dr. S and the TTD family to tell
their rich and fruitful stories. It was my intent to fulﬁll this commitment while also
staying true to my scholarly obligation to produce an empirical study that contributes to
the ﬁeld of educational research.

Problem Statement

The need to address societal problems faced by our country’s children and youth
should mobilized developmental researchers to provide ecologically sensitive and valid
approaches to understanding the diverse characteristics of different cultural groups
(Stanton-Salazar & Dombush, 1995). Given the demographic trends in the United States,
as well as the increased interest in research that involves ethnic minorities, it would seem

logical that development scientist would be at the forefront of examining how structural

changes in education and society inﬂuence these groups. However the majority of

 

development research in general is not focused on these issues. In fact most of the
research has ignored child and adolescent development within non-European, non-
middle class perspectives. Current research continues to point to the need to include the
voices of African American students in educational research and practices (Firm, 1991;
Corbett and Wilson, 1995; Cook and Saither, 2002; Wilson, 2003).

Far too often, students of color are deﬁned by terms associated with criminality
and juvenile delinquency, thereby frequently establishing barriers to receiving
appropriate supports (Pittman, 2000). Kincheloe, who authored 19 Urban Questions, has
encouraged abandonment of “one size ﬁts all” standardized curricula and advocates
taking “into account the unique situations and needs of particular students” (p. 20). This
is not because they have a completely different set of needs than most adolescents, but
that they may need resources that are more extensive and include longer terms of support
with a wider range of services (James and Jurich 1999). To be urban and black has all
too often become a signiﬁer for poor, non-achieving, often violent, and living in bad
neighborhoods with crumbling buildings and weak family values (Jun and Tierney,
1999). Reliable and valid research should work to challenge pessimistic conceptions of
these students and seek to celebrate successful approaches and practices in schools and
other academic contexts (Raywind, 2001). While it is important and appropriate to
recognize the desperate social and economic conditions that affect all young people, it is
also critical to study and understand how diverse groups of students speak to their issues
and commit to achieving their learning goals. There should be examinations of the

successes of these students, as opposed to their failures. The ﬁeld of educational research

can gain an equal amount of insight by taking a more positivistic approach to these
issues.

Adolescence is a very signiﬁcant time in the social, emotional, physical, and
academic lives of young people, particularly for students of color and those placed at risk
for failure. This period has been characterized as a time of stress and storm or a period of
heightened opportunity for growth and development for later adulthood (Lerner and
Dowling, 2003), when people are most productive. Roth (2003) contends that “young
people should be seen through a conceptual lens that regards them as resources to be
developed, not problems to be managed” (pg.20). Academic outreach programs have
been one of the primary catalysts for creating spaces that develop the assets of
adolescents while providing them with necessary resources and support (Conchas and
Clark, 2002).

These programs are especially signiﬁcant for urban youth and/or youth that have
been classiﬁed as at risk. Programs like TTD are attempting to provide services to
minority youth that address their particular academic and social needs. It is signiﬁcant to
begin to explore the experiences of these youth as participants in these programs in order
to broaden our knowledge on not only the programmatic impacts on their lives but also
how we can best create and sustain these supports. This study will answer this call by
exploring the experiences of students within one academic outreach program and attempt
to shed light on how they see the program as contributing to their academic and social
lives.

Larson (2000) has suggested that teens in youth activities and programs learn

about how to make plans, overcome obstacles, and achieve desired ends. Heath (1999)

discovered through observations that youth participating in extra-curricular activities had
acquired a language of agency that included increased use of what-if questions,
conditional sentences, and other linguistic tools for identifying problems, solving them,
and achieving goals. Outreach programs have provided youth with opportunities to
develop social skills, including learning to work with others, developing leadership skills
and other social competencies (Dubas and Snider, 1993). These programs help young
people navigate the many obstacles of adolescence by offering continuous support from
the adults around them, creating a sense of the opportunities before them, and providing a
chance to develop the skills that will help them make the most of both current and future
opportunities (Pittman, 2002).

Outreach programs are often cited as being most critical for students who lack
support from their families and communities, however, they are also signiﬁcant for
students of color in general. African American students in particular, regardless of their
class or risk status tend to share the same academic and social difﬁculties and thus could
all beneﬁt from the range of support. The premise underlying these programs is that
young people have basic needs — for example, personal safety, a sense of belonging and
contribution to the world around them, self-worth based on achievement, responsibility,
and structure. In order for young people to mature into healthy adults, these needs must
be met (Scales, Gillham, Reivich, Shatte, 2002).

Given what we know about the impact of academic outreach programs on the
lives of students, research that examines the lived experiences and perspectives of these
youth within these contexts is needed. There should be a sense of urgency in the

examination of people in context. These experiences and perspectives should be studied

because it provides opportunities to explore their lives as they make meaning of social
activity (Scribner and Cole, 1981). As indicated by Tierney (2002), “by contextualizing
the student’s experiences, it provides insight into the emotions, needs and educational
challenges faced by student’s participation in academic outreach programs” (pg.592). So
much of the literature on youth programs is void of youth voices, as if programs are
functioning with “faceless entities”. Within the ﬁeld of academic support programs, an
almost exclusive reliance on outcomes has often time forced the student’s emotional and
social processes to the periphery. Much of the dialogue about educational contexts has
become rigid and managerial thereby making the student voices and ideas remote (Firm,
1991). Corbett and Wilson (1995) suggest that the,
“under-representation of student’s voices in research and reform is less
substantive and more practical and has to do with a mostly unexamined,
generalized ascription of subordinate status to the student’s role. pg. 84”
However, the importance of youth’s interpretations of enrichment programs is
now becoming increasingly critical to program stakeholders (Cook-Saither, 2002; Heath,
1993). In Savage Inequalities (1991), Jonathan Kozol observed, “We have not been
listening much to children in these recent years of ‘summit conferences’ on education, of
severe reports, and ominous prescriptions. The voices of children, frankly, have been
missing from the whole discussion” (p5). He has argued that the ﬁeld of educational
policy and research can gain enormous insight by focusing those who actually live the
academic and schooling experience. Students are making meaning of and responding to
their participation, in various academic contexts and if we are to acquire a holistic view
of the students we serve, we should engage in thoughtful, comprehensive inquiries that

include their perspectives. The current study will attempt to bring the perspectives and

insights of four male students to the forefront by highlighting their experiences with and
response to this academic context.

This study also seeks to be respond to the prevailing achievement gap that exist
between African Americans and other groups of students. The “achievement gap” is a
matter of race and class. Across the US, a gap in academic achievement persists
between minority and economically disadvantaged students and their white counterparts.
This is one of the most pressing educational policy challenges that the nation faces.
According to Cocoron and Adams (1997) the inﬂuence of the achievement gap has
proven to have an even greater impact on African Americans. Their overrepresentation
in special education, social conduct, and academic outcomes are among the lowest across
all of students in schools. The No Child Left Behind policy continues to make demands
on schools, families, and students, to perform to standards, while neglecting to recognize
the unique ethnic, economic, and social situations of many students. Although many of
the contemporary reform efforts have attempted to close the achievement gap, progress is
still needed, particularly among students of color (Ferguson, 2000). One method that has
been utilized by researchers to address this gap is an examination of the intersection of
schooling experiences of African Americans and their achievement patterns (Connell,
1995). Although this study is not situated within the traditional school classroom, it does
offer through a case study snapshot, the articulated experiences of four African American
students within an educational setting.

Purpose of Study and Guiding Research Questions
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how four adolescent males

viewed their academic and social worlds in relation to their participation in TTD. Student

perspectives may offer additional insight beyond staff members or other adults about the
nature of the program and its inﬂuence. Although prior research that utilized surveys and
questionnaires have been helpful in expanding our knowledge of college expectancy, and
low-income minority youth, minor attention has been given to understanding more
speciﬁcally how they are negotiating, interpreting, and making sense of their
participation. It is expected that this study will inform both program facilitators on how to
implement programs that directly address the articulated needs of those they serve and
educators seeking to understand the educational experiences of youth beyond the
classroom.

The study is a response to prevailing historic patterns of the continued
underachievement, low expectations, and sometimes biased depictions of the experiences
of students of color, particularly African American students. It will highlight one instance
of positive learning and development of African American adolescents. Ladson-Billings
(2000) noted that “references to the educational needs of African American students are
folded into a discourse of deprivation” (p. 206). Furthermore, “the educational research
literature, when it considers African American learners at all, has constructed all African
American children, regardless of economic or social circumstance, within the deﬁcit
paradigm” (p. 206). The current study utilized a more transforrnative approach in that it
sought humanizing empirical research through student voice and highlighting the
resiliency and positive perspectives of this group of students.

The study was guided by six primary research questions.

1. What is the structure and function of this program? (i.e. curriculum and staff
roles, etc.)

2. What are the program’s goals and objectives?

10

3. How do they provide resources and support to the target population?
4. What are the participants’ general perspectives of the program? What do they
like and dislike?
a. How do they describe the elements of the program?
b. How do they make sense of supports or resources that have been most
important?
5. How do the participants see the program contributing to their academic and
social development?
a. How do they see the program developing their post-secondary education
plans, if at all?
b. How do they see the program developing positive ideologies and skills, if at
all?

6. What sorts of differences or similarities exists between what is learned in the
program and the home environment?

For purposes of this study, the terms “structure” and “ftmction” will refer to how
the TTD program was organized and how activities were carried out. Supports and
resources is operationally deﬁned as the components of the TTD program such as, but not
limited to study skills, networking, staff-student relationships, ﬁnancial aid information,
and encouragement toward high academic achievement. Academic and social
development are deﬁned as the characteristics, dispositions, attitudes, and beliefs
acquired by an adolescent that supports his/her growth toward healthy intellectual
(academic development) and social functioning (social development). Following
Roesser, Eccles, and Sameroffs’ (2000), I assume the position that development is
associated with and inﬂuenced by particular instructional, interpersonal, and
organizational elements of educational settings. My forthcoming discussion on the
analysis of student perspectives as it relates to learning and development will align with
this view. It will highlight the ways that the focal students through their interaction with

staff and practices within this program are being developed and supported.

11

The ﬁrst three questions focused on the character of the program. They offered
the opportunity to explore the program’s goals and objectives in relation to how the
curriculum was enacted as well as general roles of the staff members. In addition, this set
of questions examined how the program provided services to the students. Question four
examined the four focal participant’s general perspectives of the program and to examine
hOw they discussed the various aspects of the program. The ﬁfth question extended on
the third question by seeking to understand how the students felt the program had
inﬂuenced their academic and social development. The ﬁnal question focused on whether
(or not) and in what capacity the program aligned with the goals of the students’ home
environments. All six questions guided the design and implementation of this study;
however the third and fourth questions, dealing with student’s ideas and views were more
centrally related to my intent to capture the voices of students and gain insight into their
personal perspectives and experiences.

In order to answer these questions a qualitative case study was carried out using
interviews and ﬁeld notes from observed program activities as the primary data sources.
This design was consistent with the theoretical assumptions mentioned above and for
contributing the body of knowledge related to African American student achievement and
adolescent development. As stipulated by Eccles, et.al. adolescent development results
from the nature of practice and elements within educational settings. This study was
designed to explore interrelationships of those elements and their inﬂuence on the
development of African American students. A case study design affords the opportunity
to examine how a particular phenomenon, in the case of this inquiry, participants’

perceptions and experiences, is a salient piece of the context. In interpretive research, the

12

focus is on the social construction of reality as individuals interact in social settings
(Geertz, 1973; Mehan, 1982; Merriam, 1998). Qualitative methodology assumes that
meaning is context speciﬁc and that deﬁnitions and frames are built over time through
cultural practices (Bogden and Biklen, 2003). The validity, meaningfulness, and insights
generated from this research were related to the richness of the case and the ability to
obtain analytical validity.
Theoretical Position

This study takes a socio-cultural and ecological position on child and adolescent
development. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory identiﬁes ﬁve major levels of
organization: the individual, microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and
chronosystem (Bronfenbrener & Morris, 1998). Bronfenbrenners’ framework for
analyzing the developmental process of adolescence suggests that growth is inﬂuenced
by multiple systems operating in adolescents’ lives. In essence the interaction between
the various systems of school, community, and home provide locations for adolescents to
acquire skills that help them to achieve academically. Ultimately, these overlapping
systems shape the realities of individuals. In connecting this theory to the work in this
study, youth’s participation in a program can involve a process by which the setting, in
this case a college outreach program, can impact an individual. Using this theory as a
lens, youth are able to grow, socialize, develop, and learn when provided with the proper
stimulus from their environment. They are not only given the opportunity to be
inﬂuenced by their surroundings but also have a substantial impact on their surroundings
as well. This is of central importance in attempting to examine the perspectives of youth

participants.

13

In addition to an ecological approach, this study also seeks to utilize as a lens the
socio-cultural theory of education and learning as a lens for understanding how
adolescents may be inﬂuenced by participation in academic programs. This theory has
been utilized to explain phenomena in teaching, schooling, and education. A key feature
of this view of human development is that higher order functions develop out of social
interaction (Scribner and Cole, 1981). Vygotsky (1978) argues that a child's development
cannot be understood by a study of the individual. We must also examine the external
social world in which that individual life is developing. Through participation in program
activities the students acquired and utilized and cognitive functions, which may be
leading to the construction of meaning around college attainment. These young people
are embedded within social events as they are interacting with the people, objects, and
events within TTD. The are interacting and participating in the social events and
activities and are therefore a central and intrical part of the
Summary and Description of Chapters

Providing supports and resources to African American adolescents requires
understanding the complexity of the social context of which they interact. Their
participation in multiple worlds can equip them with the necessary skills that inﬂuence
their academic achievement. The research presented in this dissertation intends to ﬁll in
the gaps of knowledge within the ﬁeld of education concerning how some African
American students may be experiencing their time within academic setting beyond the
traditional school building. Additionally, it anticipates bringing to the forefront ideas and

perspectives of four male participants in the TTD program. I hope this research will

14

contribute to the body of literature related to how adolescents utilize their experiences in
academic settings to create meaning and produce knowledge.

This dissertation is comprised of six chapters designed to describe the context,
establish an educational and theoretical frame for exploring this topic, and most
importantly to highlight the voices of four African American youth in relation to what
they developed and learned within TTD. This introductory chapter of the text presents my
evolution toward this research, a statement of the problem, the purpose of the study,
guiding research questions, overview of study’s design, and a summary of proceeding
chapters. Chapter two explores four related bodies of research literature: 1.) The world of
academic outreach programs, 2.) issues in adolescent development, and 3.) the status of
African American student learning and development, and 4.) the role of student voice in
educational research. In chapter three, I detail the methods employed to answer the
study’s research questions including the researcher’s role, data collection, and data
analysis. Chapter four describes the structure and function of the TTD program via
written in artifacts, interviews with program staff, and observations of program activity.
Additionally, chapter ﬁve introduces the four focal participants through their voices and
presents results through the discussion and analysis of data. Finally, chapter six concludes
the dissertation with an interpretation of ﬁndings and a discussion of the implication of

this work for current and future research.

15

CHAPTER TWO
RELEVANT LITERATURE
“The challenge of constructing research paradigms responsive to ethnic minorities and
their communities and of identifying supportive interventions that can beneﬁt diverse
individuals is becoming a central focus for many social scientists. ”
Handbook of Child Psychology, 5th Edition, pg. 1150
The previous chapter explained how my evolved interest toward this dissertation
study, the problem it attempted to address, the study’s purpose, guiding research
questions, and the theoretical framework that grounds this piece of research. The current
chapter will present a historical and descriptive overview of academic outreach programs.
Additionally, it will discuss in further detail the theoretical frame on which this study is
based in relation to adolescent development. General perspectives in the ﬁeld of
adolescent development will be discussed. Also, the literature that has examined the
adolescent development of African American students will be described. Lastly, the
paradigm and theory concerning student voice in educational research will be
highlighted.
Academic Outreach Programs
With the enactment of the Federal Higher Education Act of 1965, increasing the
participation of low-income and minority students in higher education has become an
important national policy goal. In an effort to dismantle the systematic
institutionalization of inequity at the level of college attainment, the federal government
established the creation of pre-college youth programs such as Upward Bound and Talent
Search, helping more than one million socio-economically disadvantaged students

complete high school and enroll in college (Meyers and Allen, 2000). Since the federal

drive to increase the enrollment rates of low-income students into post-secondary

16

institutions of higher learning, participation rates in post-secondary education has grown
from nearly ﬁfty percent three years ago to nearly 66 percent at the close of the twentieth
century (NCES, 2000a). Academic Outreach programs have become the primary vehicle
to increase the participation of low-income students of color in post-secondary education.
Programs like Upward Bound and Talent Search have paved the way for state, local, and
privately funded institutions of higher education to develop their own college preparation
programs (http://www.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/index.html). Many of them put most
of their effort toward increasing the educational opportunities of traditionally
marginalized students (Owens, 2005).

Central to the philosophies of pre-collegiate outreach programs is the need to take
a holistic approach in preparing minority adolescents for college success by providing
them with curricula centered not only on academic support and performance
enhancement, but on cultural enrichment, personal development and career explorations
as well (Cahalan and Curtin, 2004). Owens (2005) contends that these programs embody
“third space” communities for young people to express themselves in an afﬁrming,
positive, and empowering environments that necessitate and encourage academic
achievement. More speciﬁcally outreach programs are the spaces that exist between the
home and school lives of students. The spaces are constructed through adult and peer
support networks, acceptance of students regardless of their race, ethnicity, social class,
or gender, invoking a sense of belonging, being valued and feeling connected. In these
spaces, students are able to develop strategies to cope with the outside pressures from

school and home/community by developing positive socio-cultural identities rooted in

17

academic success (Committee on Community Level Programs for Youth Executive
Summary-CCLPY, 2002).

On the basis of her qualitative case study of eight students participating in Project
Hope, Owens (2005) has argued, “It is my belief that much of the success of urban pre-
collegiate youth programs can be attributed to their ability to create a sense of kinship or
community among adolescents sharing similar economic situations.” (p. 18)

Though more students are currently attending post-secondary institutions than,
according to the 2000 Educational Commission of the States (www.ecs.org/ccp), low
income, minority students are still struggling to gain access, and remain to be an
underrepresented group in post-secondary institutions around the nation. Therefore
programs that prepare these youth to pursue higher education are still needed. Early
intervention programs provide a signiﬁcant opportunity for “high risk” students to secure
the available resources, funding, educational background, and guidance to enter
postsecondary education (Fenske, Geranios, Keller, & Moore (1997). Beginning as early
as kindergarten and throughout high school, encouraging students to enter college and
receive a baccalaureate degree gives high risk students the much needed support and
extra attention they need. Early intervention strategies can sometimes eliminate the
boundaries between schools and colleges, discourage student dropout, and give students
hope to pursue entrance into college and achieve their academic goals. (Brewer, 1990).

Many efforts across the country at both the state and local level have addressed
the issue of post-secondary attainment--access to, enrollment in, and graduation from
college, for urban and minority youth. However, little research has been compiled to

determine participant responses to particular program components and structure (Tierney

18

& Jun, 2000). Thus, the solution to helping these students through the academic pipeline
to post-secondary success is often limited to creation of a program with a set of speciﬁc
components, such as college preparation courses, test preparation workshops, and help
with ﬁlling out ﬁnancial aid application forms (Bartolome, 1994). These resources alone
can be valuable, but this type of regime often fails to take a holistic approach that
incorporates the context that impacts the college attainment of these youth (Stanton-
Salazar, 1997).

Among urban minority students factors such as poverty, moving during grade
school, disciplinary problems and minority status all detract from academic achievement
(McLaughlin and Tierney, 1993). Moreover, students who are disadvantaged in other
respects often suffer from attendance at inferior schools and may receive less
encouragement from parents and close friends to do well in school and move up the
educational ranks. Policy efforts to boost educational attainment in rural and urban areas
alike could be most fruitful if (educational stakeholders focused on ways to improve the
educational climate and support of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
McLaughlin and Tiemey’s study suggests that such strategies should begin well before
high school since most students have deﬁned educational goals, high or low, by the time
they reach the ninth grade. Extracurricular activities and special programs that involve
students' parents, or others from the community may be useful in increasing these
students' interest and success in school and college attendance (Pittman, 2000).

Given the characteristics and needs of urban minority youth particularly in
relation to college aspirations, a host of outreach programs are working to provide the

necessary resources to guide this group toward higher education. These college

19

preparation programs are attempting to bridge the racial and economic gaps in the college
admittance, attendance, and graduation rates. College preparation is “more than a series
of well-orchestrated mechanical and sequential services; it is an inherently complex and
value-laden process” (Jun and Tierney, 1999). More attention may be warranted in order
to understand the interaction between the academic, cultural, and political components of
these programs. In turn, this could result in the creation of well-intentioned, well-planned,
and well-implemented programs which have the potential to impact the post-secondary
attainment and academic achievement of minority youth from low-income urban areas.
This is not to suggest that some programs are not successful in planning and
implementation. However, on a large scale there is always room for improvement within
theses spaces (McLaughlin, 2000)

For purposes of this study, I will deﬁne academic outreach programs as
enrichment programs aimed at increasing access to college with the potential of
completion of a degree, for low-income youths who attend public schools. The term
enrichment is signiﬁcant because it speaks to the role of these programs creating more
academic and social opportunities for students as while making their lives more
meaningful in the process. These programs are also often referred to as “pre-college
outreach programs” in the literature. Tierney offers the following deﬁnition of university
outreach programs.

“The programs take place during an individual's middle school and/or

high-school years and are classes or activities that occur in addition to the

regular school day. Frequently, the programs involve relationships
between schools and postsecondary institutions. The backgrounds of most
students who participate in such programs are frequently youth whose
parents have not attended a postsecondary institution and who are

frequently in schools that have a relatively low college attendance rate.”
(Tierney, 2001 pg.1).

20

Academic outreach programs for minority youth living in low- income
neighborhoods help them develop the skills, knowledge, conﬁdence, and aspirations they
need to enroll in higher education. A variety of empirical studies have been conducted to
assess the impact of college prep programs on the lives of adolescents. For example, the
Talent Search College Prep Program is a national program funded through the US.
Department of Education’s TRIO initiative that provides services to low-income students
with the potential to be ﬁrst-generation college graduates. A national longitudinal Chi-
square analysis revealed that Talent Search participants were signiﬁcantly more likely to
enroll in postsecondary education than were members of the control group (p < .001)
(Brewers, and Landers, 2005). A study conducted on Upward Bound, one of the most
nationally known college outreach programs found that students were four times as likely
to graduate from college as their peers who did not attend this program. In addition,
students who participated in the program expected to complete more schooling than
similar students who do not. Second, the program had a positive impact on the number of
academic courses participants took during high school (Myers, 1999). Over time, the
strategies for expanding the college access, attendance, and graduation rates of these
youth have grown in complexity, as have the funding sources, which now include the
Federal and state governments, organizations, and colleges and universities (Newman,
Smith, and Murphy, 1999).

Outreach programs that offer a variety of approaches (such as tutoring, critical
thinking courses, ﬁnancial assistance, peer networking) and combine a variety of services
have the largest impact on college access for minority youth in low-income

neighborhoods (Filosof, Helena, Jones, 1998). Traditionally, however, programs have

21

tended to focus on one speciﬁc type of service because of time, expertise, and funding
constraints. Some programs, for example, specialize in test preparation, counseling and
academics, enrichment in a specialized subject, or learning based on cultural integrity.
Others concentrate on providing a better education in general through systemic school
change while others function only as supplemental school resource centers
(www.collegeoutreach.com).

A primary component of the literature on academic outreach programs address
elements of an “effective” program, and offers suggestions for how programs can
improve. In their narrative overview of college outreach programs, Fenske, Geranios,
Keller, & Moore (1997), argued that some of the most effective college preparation
programs seem to be of substantial duration and focus on "readiness" rather than "re-
mediation.” To be sure, they begin offering students services and information about
college and ﬁnancial aid as early as possible, in order to inﬂuence long-term educational
outcomes for the students. Although challenges associated with inequitable academic
preparation exist as early as the fourth grade, most federal and state programs require
services to begin no later than the seventh grade and to continue through the twelfth
grade (Nettles & Pema, 1997).

Fashola and Slavin (1997) contend that “effective programs provide students with
rich academic content as well as other supports to promote their intellectual
development.” Among these academic supports are pipeline courses that include algebra,
geometry, calculus, biology, chemistry, and physics so that students gain the knowledge
necessary for standardized testing; a transcript for a well-rounded, competitive college

application; and the skills to succeed in college courses. Workshops and courses teach

22

how to take notes, how to study, and how to complete homework assignments (Fogel,
2004). Supportive networks, such as peer study groups and one-on-one tutoring, provide
additional learning opportunities.

Programs such as I Have A Dream (IHAD) in San Francisco start as early as the
third grade by increasing and supporting "Dreamers" success in school, enhancing the
Dreamer’s self esteem and view of the future, increasing parental support for and
involvement in their children's education and helping the "Dreamers" reach their personal
goals (www.ihad-sf.org/program.html). Outreach programs have utilized many different
educational strategies. One of the key elements of college preparation and academic
outreach programs are their ability to provide students with the information and .
experiences necessary for post-secondary success such as study skills, ﬁnancial support,
and standardized test preparation.

Programs that focus on academic support typically use a wide variety of teaching
strategies to offer students different types of relevant experience, including: direct
teaching in a variety of content areas, summer enrichment programs, individual and
group. counseling, tutoring, college visits and courses, peer and adult mentoring, and
motivational speakers (Heyward, Brandes, and Masseo, 1997).

Many students are now required to negotiate high school, college, state, and
nationally-developed high stakes tests to ensure admittance to higher education. Thus, the
most useful college preparation programs offer courses or workshops that focus
exclusively on students' preparation for each required exam. Thus, programs for them

should be geared toward learning and achieving, and provide students with

23

encouragement, underStanding, and structural support for the logistical world of
preparing for college, e. g.., test taking, courses (Horn and Chen, 1998).

It has long been assumed that parent involvement is critical to program success
and student achievement (Jun & Tierney, 1999). Current work of outreach program
researchers provides additional empirical support for this assumption. Horn and Chen
(1998), for example, found that students whose parents discussed education goals with
them went farther in post-secondary institutions than those who did not. Some programs,
therefore, require parents to sign contracts agreeing to support their children's attendance,
assist with homework, and follow through on necessary paperwork for college admission
and ﬁnancial aid. Programs may also invite parents to nonacademic performances or ask
for assistance in raising funds or providing supplies. In addition to parental support, peer
support is also utilized by some college prep programs. They may achieve this support by
fostering student communities through opportunities for interaction in academic and
nonacademic activities.

Study groups also provide a space for peer tutoring as well as encouragement in
academic aspirations (Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 1999). This networking creates a long
term support for students who have graduated from the program and may be enrolled in
four-year institutions with fellow program participants. In addition to parents and peers,
communities also play an intrical role in the structure of college prep programs. Mentors,
role models, community leaders, and speakers motivate students and raise their self-
esteem, expectations, and sense of accountability (Fogel, 2004). They help students

realize that their college attendance is part of a community pattern, preceded by earlier

24

college graduates and to be followed by others heeding their example (Barnett, Gustin,
and DuSel, 1996).

For minority students from low-income neighborhoods, success in school and
college aspirations can sometimes be equated with a rejection of their identity and
background (Deyhle, 1995). Fordham and Ogbu (1978; 1990) have theorized that Black

9”

students, particularly adolescents, face the "burden of 'acting White if they are
academically successful, thereby leading to the apparent abandonment or particular
negotiations of their identities. In order to deal with potential identity issues, some
programs use students' cultures and backgrounds--race, class, and gender--in a positive
manner in their curricula, teaching methods, and learning activities (Jun & Tierney,
1999). This in turn creates a vehicle by which students can feel positive about who they
are culturally and still value high academic achievement (Carter, 2005). Having a positive
sense of self and knowing the value of high achievement helps to create social capital for
students preparing for college.

According to Gandara (2001) effective pre-college programs also create this
capital by teaching social critical skills. In a society where inequities in college access
still reﬂect racism, classism, and sexism, it has been proven useful to assist students in
understanding the realities of the social and economic stratiﬁcation that impacts on
college admittance (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Students can be given opportunities not only
to critique social structures, but also to be active agents in the ﬁght against inequities.

Of the many supports offered to urban and minority youth, financial support is

among the most signiﬁcant. Because socioeconomic status is the greatest determinant of

enrollment and persistence in college for all students, ﬁnancial resources can not only

25

affect a student's decision to attend college but also help to develop a solid ﬁnancial plan '
to remain in college after enrollment (Gandara & Maxwell-Jolly, 1999). Therefore most
programs include direct ﬁnancial aid such as full or partial scholarships, stipends for
attendance, or book grants (Heyward, Brandes, Kirst, and Mazzeo, 1997). Additionally
providing assistance with ﬁlling out ﬁnancial aid packets and meeting deadlines for
scholarships, loans, and grants are crucial for securing necessary funding for college.
Some programs work to help families negotiate the mass of paperwork, including
reproducing tax forms and preparing applications.
Explanation of Theoretical Framework

In an attempt to understand the educational experiences of students, various
analytical frameworks have been used, including the socio-cultural ecological
perspective. Expanding on the ecological explanations of adolescent development,
Epstein (1995) acknowledged the inﬂuential roles of community support, school, and
family on the academic development of students. She pointed to the various ways that as
students are inﬂuenced by factors in their contextual environment. Bronfenbrenner’s
(1994) theoretical framework for analyzing human development, introduced in Chapter 1,
frames adolescent development in terms of by multiple systems operating in adolescent’s
lives consisting of the different settings or microsystems of an adolescents daily life and
the network of relationships that compose the adolescents community, culture, and
society. The interaction between the various systems of school, community, and home
provide the locations for adolescents to acquire the social capital needed to negotiate their
worlds and achieve academically. Having social capital is not to be confused with

positive youth development, but having social capital increases the chances of students

26

having positive developmental trajectories. According to the CCLPY (Committee on
Community Level Programs for Youth Executive Summary, 2002), youth programs can
become spaces that cultivate the positive socio-cultural, emotional, and academic
development of adolescents. These programs serve as the milieu for establishing the
connections between the traditional institutions of school, home and community for the
adolescent to engage in these various developmental processes.

In an effort to provide further contextual understanding of adolescents and their
developmental processes, the next sections of this chapter examine general issues related
to their academic and social development in addition to describing these issues as they
relate speciﬁcally to African American adolescents.

General Issues in Adolescent Development

Children must pass through several stages, or take speciﬁc steps, on their road to
becoming adults. For most people, there are four or ﬁve such stages of growth where they
develop speciﬁc capacities: infancy (birth to age two), early childhood (ages 3 to 8
years), later childhood (ages 9 to 12) and adolescence (ages 13 to 18), and early
adulthood (19-25) (Roth and Gunn, 2000). You can begin to understand the adolescent
group from its place on the grth sequence. This is a time for young people to decide
about their future line of work and think about starting their own families in a few years.
One of thing they must learn is to start making their own decisions. For example,
adolescents can begin to decide what to buy with their own money or who will be their
friends. Adolescents also need to be around other adults, both male and female, (families,

teachers, peers) who can help facilitate healthy growth (DeAnda, 1995).

27

While adolescent development does not occur on a perfect continuum, it is
convenient to talk about adolescent development in stages. Adolescents face the major
task of creating stable identities and becoming complete and productive adults (Perkin,
2001). They take on this task in small steps along the way as they adapt to the changes
they experience. The growth of one's intellect from concrete to abstract thinking makes
adolescence an intense time of self—discovery. In their quest to deﬁne themselves and
their relationship to the world, adolescents begin to ask themselves deﬁning and
explorative questions such as: Who am I, where do I ﬁt, and how do I build relationships?
Theorists and researchers agree that signiﬁcant development occurs during adolescence
in a number of areas such as identity, goal orientation, and achievement motivation.
However, there are differing viewpoints about some aspects of adolescence (De Anda,
1995), including: (1) whether development is continuous or discontinuous with the
preceding and following stages in the life cycle, (2) whether the period of adolescence is
one of turmoil and stress for all or is relatively uneventful, at least for some, (3) whether
it is critical for adolescents to accomplish speciﬁc developmental tasks during this time
and, (4) whether internal or environmental factors have a more signiﬁcant inﬂuence on
the experiences and outcomes of adolescent development.

Three major theorists, Erikson, Freud, and Piaget, have had the most inﬂuence in
how the ﬁeld of education has generally viewed adolescent development. Freud
developed a general theory of psychological development from infancy to adulthood
(Freud, 1957). He believed that the mind of an infant consists only of primitive drives
and instincts, such as the need for food and physical comfort, which he called the id.

Freud believed that a single motive governs human behavior and the desire to satisfy

28

biological needs and thereby discharge tension (Freud, 1957). He deﬁned stages of
development in terms of the organs he thought were used to discharge tension at that age.
From birth to adulthood, a child develops through these stages in sequence: oral, anal,
phallic, latency and genital. Failure to experience gratiﬁcation for basic drives during a
given stage could cause an individual to become "ﬁxated" in that stage, stuck forever in
that particular psychological mode (Jenkins, 1994). Freud believed that adolescence is
fraught with internal struggle. He viewed the pre-adolescent "latency" period as a time
when the child develops a balance between the ego and id. Upon entering the " genital"
phase of adolescence, the child is bombarded with instinctual impulses that disrupt this
balance (Mahl, 1969). The ego is torn between the strong impulses of the id and the
restrictions of the superego. This conﬂict from his view makes adolescence a time of
tremendous stress and turmoil.

While based on Freud's psychosexual concept of development, Erik Erikson's
psychosocial theory took a broader view of the factors that impact human development.
He places importance on the social and cultural components of an individual's
developmental experiences. Erikson (1968) proposes a series of developmental
challenges (“crises” in his terms) that all people face and generally resolve in some way.
Previous developmental outcomes set the stage for upcoming issues, but an individual
does not become "stuck" in a phase, as Freud believed. Instead, the old issue is reworked
in the context of current tasks. Like Freud, Erikson viewed adolescence as a time of
turmoil and stress. He thought that the turmoil resulted from an identity crisis rather than
a struggle between the id and ego. He saw adolescence as a necessary and productive

period; as a time of life when one works to form one's own identity (Turiel, 1983).

29

Piaget described development in terms of sequential changes in how children
think. He proposed that children grow through three periods of development, each
distinguished by a different way of thinking (Stroufe & Cooper 1988). Piaget's views are
often compared with those of Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), who looked more to social
interaction as the primary source of cognition and behavior. This is somewhat similar to
the distinctions made between Freud and Erikson in terms of the development of
personality (Piaget, 1990). The transition from concrete to completed formal operational
thinking occurs in stages between the ages of 11-14. According to Piaget and other
cognitive theorists, the predominance of egocentric thought during this period leads to
some particular views and behaviors, including: self-consciousness, the imaginary
audience: feeling as though one's actions and appearance is being constantly scrutinized
or the personal fable: viewing one's thoughts and feelings as unique experiences, and
feelings of invulnerability, leading to risk-taking behavior (Smetana, 1996).

Social Development

Many perspectives and theories have described the social development of children
and adolescents. The social development of adolescents takes place in the context of all
their relationships, particularly with their peers, family members, and other adults.
Different theorists have come to different conclusions concerning how exactly children
develop across the various developmental contexts. Some theorists believe that children
develop smoothly and continuously, but other theorists believe that children develop
more discretely in a series of stages, each of which is fairly stable.

Erikson (1968) focused on how adolescents’ sense of identity develops; how they

develop or fail to develop abilities and beliefs about themselves which allow them to

30

become productive, satisﬁed members of society. Because Erikson‘s theory combines
how people develop beliefs psychologically and mentally with how they learn to exist
within a larger community of people, it’s called a 'psychosocial' theory. Erikson’s (1968)
stages are, in chronological order in which they unfold: trust versus mistrust; autonomy
versus shame and doubt; initiative versus guilt; industry versus inferiority; identity versus
identity confusion; intimacy versus isolation; generativity versus stagnation; and integrity
versus despair. For each stage, this theory explains what types of challenge children need
to master that stage and become productive and well-adjusted members of society and the
types of problems and developmental delays that can result when this stimulation does
not occur. In the case of this study one particular stimulus of interest are the practices and
network of the TTD program.

Erikson proposed that during the years of adolescence, individuals are typically at
the ﬁfth stage, identity vs. identity confusion. Identity development is a major
developmental process that takes place during these years. During this time adolescents
strive to discover who they are as a person. They attempt to understand themselves by
exploring their true personal characteristics (i.e., outgoing, shy), their extracurricular
interests (sports, literature, music), their relationships (family, romantic, and peer), and
their vocational interests (i.e., computers, medicine) (Santrock, 1997).

Recent discussions of adolescent development have focused on issues of cultural
and ethnic identity. Studies of identity as a construct have considered both individual and
environmental inﬂuences on adolescent cultural identity development (Waller, 2001).
Kanlou (2004) in his study utilized both individual and environmental factors to examine

factors that contribute to the cultural identity development of urban students. He found

31

that the emergence of themes related to culture point toward an overt awareness of these
types of elements particularly in adolescent participants. Another recent study of ethnic
and cultural identity found that adolescents with positive feelings toward their ethnic
group say they are happier on a daily basis than those who have a more negative attitude
about their ethnic identity (Kiang, 2006). The study, involving 415 ninth-graders from
Chinese and Mexican backgrounds, showed the protective effects of ethnic identity on
daily psychological well-being. Beekhoven (2004), in her study of ethnic identity in
freshmen college students found that due to different perceptions held by ethnic
minorities about social acceptability, they are less likely to engage in diverse study
groups. Thereby, putting themselves at risk for academic difﬁculties. As depicted above,
the scope of research on cultural and ethnic identity development are in and of
themselves very diverse.

Although, this study will refer to this process as cultural identity development, the
literature also refers to this construct as ethnic identity. Deﬁnitions of ethnic identity vary
according to the underlying theory embraced by researchers and scholars. The fact that
there is no widely agreed upon deﬁnition of ethnic identity is indicative of the confusion
surrounding the topic. Typically, ethnic identity is a construct where an individual is
viewed by him/herself and by others as belonging to a particular ethnic or cultural group
(Constantine, Alleyne, Wallace, and Franklin-Jackson, 2006). One may argue that White
adolescents also explore and develop a cultural identity. However, the racism,
discrimination, and oppression that most members of ethnic minorities encounter, as a
result of living in a society dominated by the standards and norms of the White society,

has an impact on the identity development of minority adolescents (Cross, 1994). Ethnic

32

minorities not only explore their cultural identity, but also explore their identity as a
person from a culture who's "way of being" (i.e., physical appearance, style of dress,
manner of speech, etc.) are different from that which society has proposed to be the
superior or best "way of being".

Qualitative approaches to understanding identity development enable us to think
of identity as an evolving story, with settings, scenes, characters, and themes, all woven
together to form plots and narrative frames (Bennett, 2006). These narratives enable
researchers to establish and redeﬁne goals, and give us direction and telos. Their purpose
is to give meaning. Narrative frames are used to tell stories from each culture. The culture
in which a person is embedded inﬂuences the construction of their own personal stories).
Personal plots are adapted from the repertoire of stories available in one's culture
(French, Seidman, Allen, and Aber, 2006. Identity reﬂects the kinds of stories in the
narrator's culture, and individual stories are embedded in the larger culture. One case
study conducted by Owens (2005) of eight students participating in an urban Upward
Bound program, was able to highlight through students narratives their ideas about their
own cultural identity. In addition students shared how they perceived their identity
interacted with their achievement as students.

Adolescents are ready and open to develop identity and other characteristics
during speciﬁc stages; however, it doesn't happen without the inﬂuence of appropriate
stimuli or contextual factors. Despite the stages, adolescent development is inﬂuenced by
the social context of which they are involved. Similar to Erikson, it is my position that
adolescents participating in academic programs develop skills and construct their

identities in relation to elements of those academic practices. But they need proper

33

environmental stimuli to develop these abilities. For example, babies have the ability to
grow in length and weight in amazing amounts during the ﬁrst year, but if they're not fed
and nurtured enough during that time, they will not have the tools and building blocks to
grow and may not thrive. Similar to adolescents, if they are not given the proper support
and resources within different contexts of their lives, they may develop the dispositions,
characteristics, and competencies to become healthy adults. This is why it's so important
for educators and researchers to understand how adolescents are growing and further
what supports they need to develop properly.
Academic Development

During the early adolescent period, adolescents experience deep cognitive,
biological, and socio—emotional changes. How well adolescents organize their developing
capacities in relation to the social, cultural, and historical contexts of their lives is
essential to determining whether not they do well and are in engaged in school (Eccles,
Roesser, & Sameroff, 2000). The quality of opportunities that are afforded to them in
their families, schools, and communities is also signiﬁcant to promoting their
developmental success (Erikson, 1968). The transition to middle school from elementary
school creates a time for most adolescents to expand their intellectual abilities. Some
experts estimated between 25% to 50 % of youth between the ages of 10-17 are at risk for
negative academic outcomes due to high-risk behaviors (Carnegie Council, 1989; 1995).
Due to changes in popular culture, more adolescents are becoming involved in risky
sexual behavior, drug use, and violence. This has placed millions of students in jeopardy

for low academic performance (McLaughlin & Irby, 1994).

34

According to Masten and Coatworth (1998), one of the primary indicators of
healthy development is academic achievement. Schools and other academic settings
provide supports to address these needs during adolescence. The theoretical frameworks
of Erikson and Bronfenbrenner help to understand the needs of adolescents as it relates to
their organization, interpersonal, and instructional experiences. They further help to
understand why some students remain on track academically and some do not. Such
analyses yields information on which educational practices, from the adolescent’s point
of view, inﬂuences academic adjustments and academic outcomes, thus making these
practices the focus of school reform efforts. Though this study takes place within the
context of an academic outreach program, it still highlights practices that can be
implemented, particularly with African-American students to inﬂuence their academic
outcomes. Similar to Magnusson and Bergmann (1998), this study seeks to utilize
developmental perspectives on adolescence to understand what elements of the TTD
program have been most signiﬁcant to them and how they speciﬁcally see those elements
as contributing to their acquisition of positive skills and ideologies.

Adolescent Development for African American Students

Over the past decade, various researchers (Busch-Rossnagel, Vargas, Knauf, &
Planos, 1993; Graham, 1992; Harrison, Seraﬁca, & McAdoo, 1984; McKinney, Abrams,
Terry, & Lerner, 1994) have argued that the methods for studying ethnic minority youth
and families have not captured the speciﬁc contextual and interpersonal dimensions that
contribute to and are part of their development. For example, Padilla (1995) argued that
certain cultural biases within current theoretical and methodological paradigms have led

some to misinterpret development patterns that are normative among ethnic minorities.

35

Historically, studies of African American and Latino American children and youth have
utilized comparative approaches in which their developmental patterns were compared to
European Americans (Adler, 1982; Azibo 1988; Padilla, 1995). Oftentimes, these
inquiries indicate lower or deﬁcit developmental outcomes for ethnic minorities (Banks,
1993; Graham, 1992). According to Takanishi (1994), the use of comparative and deﬁcit
oriented methodologies have resulted in a very “monolithic” view of ethnic minority
development and a general failure to explore differences within groups.

In response to these deﬁcit models, contemporary research has moved toward a
new paradigm in thinking about how ethnic minorities, particularly African-Americans
leam, grow, and develop (Anyon, 1997). This research focuses on both positive and
cross-cultural ecological models attempting to not only discover within group differences
but also to shed light on the ways that African American children and adolescents are in
fact achieving healthy developmental outcomes. In response to a shift away from
comparative studies, many researchers have situated their work in qualitative
methodologies that utilize conceptual categories from the cultural traditions of those
involved, such as Lawrence-Lightfoot (2002) and Delpit (1995). Rogler (1989) has
suggested that culturally-sensitive research needs to include an open-ended series of
“substantive and methodological insertions designed to mesh the process of scientiﬁc
inquiry with the cultural characteristics of the group being studied.”(pg. 15).

These studies generally shift their lens to document the assets, strengths, and
resiliencies that exist not only in students, but also in the environments in which they
interact. Ladson-Billings and Tate (2006) have argued that education scholars can and

must undertake work that speaks to the pressing public issues related to education.

36

Further they suggest that research should be transformative in that it serves to enhance
social justice and democracy, while also advancing the ﬁeld of educational research. This
paradigm is especially signiﬁcant for inquiries involving students of color as they have
been historically marginalized the most.

This study ﬁts within the aforementioned paradigm in attempting to characterize
the perspectives of four African-American adolescents and the development of positive
ideologies about their learning and educational experiences within one college outreach
program. This inquiry showcases an endeavor that is providing a different yet parallel
experience with traditional school for African American adolescents; subsequently,
providing portrayals and descriptions of their learning and experiences in afﬁrmative
ways. The term “afﬁrmative” simply refers to practices that provide positive
acknowledgement and reinforcement.

Since the participants in this study are four African American males, I engage in a
brief discussion about the educational status and experience of this group via
contemporary literature. One factor that has been consistently associated with the
achievement gap has been the disengagement of black males (Carter, 2003). Due to the
lack of intellectual, cultural, and economic resources, they are often times prevented from
developing the capacity to become productive and contributing members of their
communities (Ferguson, 2000). Little evidence is available that provides an explanation
for the causes of this underachievement and this is partially due to the lack of data on
their educational experiences, particularly in the early grades prior to high school (Polite

& Davis, 1999).

37

According to Heath and McKinnon (1988), lower levels of achievement appear to
have the most negative inﬂuence on their social identity, cognitive ability, emotional
capacity and social competence. Many researchers (Anderson, 2000; J incks & Phillips,
1998; Noquera, 1996; O’Conner, 1999) point to disengagement early in their academic
careers as a primary cause of these negative outcomes. Davis (2003) contends that black
boys should be nurtured and cared for in a responsive environment and that a critical
component to providing support is increasing schools’ ability to contribute to their
academic, social, and cognitive development. School experiences and learning
opportunities are inﬂuenced by race and ethnicity. Yet the intersection between race and
gender is often overlooked in educational research (Ferguson, 2000). Whether related to
family background or lack of opportunities to develop, black males are disadvantaged by
the misunderstood intersection between race and gender.

Recent discussion of the academic status of black males have, particularly related
to the achievement gap, has captured the interest of many (Noquera, 2000; Kunjufu,
2005; Smith, 2004). They are infused with descriptors such as “left behind,” “epidemic of
failure,” and “worlds apart” which has led to a sense of urgency to address their
problems. However, little attention has been given to their educational experiences and
perspectives (Boykin & Bailey, 2000). The current study contributes to this disparity by
illuminating the perspectives of four African-American males and their experiences in an
educational outreach program.

Literature on Student Voices
Within the literature on student voice (Beaudoin 2005; Olsen 2004; Dorman &

Adams 2004; Cook-Sather 2003; House 2000; Kordalewski 1999; Newmann 1994;

38

Wehmeyer & Sands 1998; Holdsworth 1996; Kohn 1993; Johnson 1991) many views of
the concept of student voice have been proposed. The two major perspectives are related
to (1) a focus on student voice as a way to engage students in the schooling process and
(2) focusing on student voice to help inform educational research and practice. These
perspectives will be described below.

Those who subscribe to the ﬁrst view of student voice see it as more than simply
listening to students. According to Johnston and Nichols (1995), student voice is the
individual and collective perspective and actions of young people within the context of
learning and education. This deﬁnition helps to understand the power of students today.
Engaging student voice may be the most powerful lever available to improve student
learning in schools (Batty, Rudduck, & Wilson, 2000). This is due to their unique
position in the practice of schooling and their ability to speak to what they are directly
experiencing. Student involvement throughout the teaching process, from planning to
evaluating teachers, can increase teacher and student efﬁcacy, self-conﬁdence, and
retention (Dorman & Adams 2004 ). Despite the fact that people under 18 make up 26%
of the US. population, they are routinely denied opportunities to participate and be heard
(Lesko 1997). Giroux & Searls-Giroux (2003) contend that educators and educational
researchers have an ethical responsibility to engage student voice because the democratic
society of which we live demands it. It is their position that student voice should be as
central to the practice of schooling and education as the voices of parents, teachers,
policy makers, and researchers.

In one compilation of youth involvement case studies, several programs cited

similar reasons for deepening youth involvement and voice in their programs (Golombek,

39

2002). Reasons included youth developing leadership skills, adults earning young
peoples’ trust, and increased engagement of young peoples’ capacity to make a difference
in their communities (Golombek, 2002). Another study found that through meaningful
involvement young people experienced relevancy of learning, empowered voice,
meaningful skill-building, and afﬁrmation from adults and their peers (Zeldin & Price,
1995). Through the inclusion of their voices, engaged students make a psychological
investment in learning. They try hard to learn and support what being offered by the
school. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success grades, but
in understanding the material and incorporating it in their lives (Newman, 1992).
Empowered student voice in educational reform is increasingly identiﬁed as critical to the
successful implementation of speciﬁc academic programs and projects (Erikson & Ellett,
2002; Wilson & Corbett, 2001; Cook-Sather, 2002; Beresford, 2000). In response to
these urgent calls for meaningful student involvement, some educators and community
workers are infusing student voice into educational planning, research, instruction, and
evaluation.

In addition to highlighting student voice for the purposes of engaging them in the
educational processes of schools, student voice has also been discussed in relation to
valuing and utilizing their perspectives to inform how we understand and reform schools.
This study aligns with this perspective. By listening to the voices of four male
adolescents attending an academic outreach program, I expected signiﬁcant insights
about the nature of the programs educational practices and the adolescents’ response to
and experience with these practices. Cook-Sather (2002), a leading researcher at the

forefront of the discussion on student voice made this statement,

40

"Since the advent of fomial education in the United States, both the

educational system and that system’s every reform have been premised on

adults’ notions of how education should be conceptualized and practiced.

There is something fundamentally amiss about building and rebuilding an

entire system without consulting at any point those it is ostensibly

designcdto serve. The inefficacy of this approach becomes increasingly

apparent as we move into the 21st century. As the pace of life accelerates.

the population becomes increasingly diverse, and the media through which

we teach. learn. and work become more complex, more than ever before,

we educators and educational researchers must seriously question the

assumption that we know more than the young people of today about how

they learn or what they need to learn in preparation for the decades ahead.

It is time that we count students among those with the authority to

participate both in the critique and in the reform of education.” p. 3

Cottle (1973) suggested that the observation of schools and educational practice
rests on the words and deeds of people involved with school. In his view, “It is the sound
of voices a set of experiences and personal histories that tell ﬁnally what education is all
about” (p. 604). Although the nature of schooling is constructed by structure and
systematic patterns, its truest nature is found in those that speak about from their own
circumstances, knowledge, and experiences. To be sure, notions about schooling cannot
be perpetuated and built without the incorporation of the voices that constitute it. Cottle
went on to suggest that whatever the particular movement in education may be, the
development of personality, social relationships, and student perspectives should occupy
a central position. This speaks speciﬁcally to this study’s effort to understand how
students articulate for themselves how their interactions help them to learn and develop.

Educational research is in many ways undergoing an educational shift where
qualitative research and methodologies are more valued than it had it been ﬁfteen years
ago. These types of inquiries are non-interventionist, ﬁeld-focused, and interpretive in

and use voice to craft narratives and to convey meaning (Eisner, 1993). This movement

began to take shape and was exempliﬁed by Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities

41

(1991), Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot’s The Good High School, Alan Peshkin’s The Color of
Strangers, The Color of Friends (1991), and Harry Wolcott’s The Man in the Principal’s
Ofﬁce (1984). These books were all interpretive case studies in which the research
brought to bear the voices of the actors. These research methods acknowledge the value
of student voice and the contribution it makes to the epistemology of educational
practice. This paradigm of educational research challenges pre-existing notions that
described voice in educational research as a sign of extreme subjectivity. To be sure, this
paradigm should not be promoted to replace, supersede, or substitute quantitative
inquiries but rather to be an extension of and addition to.

Summary

This chapter has established an understanding of the historical and descriptive
nature of academic outreach programs and how they support urban and minority students.
Examination of the various theoretical trends in adolescent development has illustrated
the notion of development in relation to the context of which a person is active. In
addition to these major areas, an overview concerning the ways that the growth and
development of ethnic minorities and African Americans has been conceptualized was
presented. Lastly, the two major views, related to examining and understanding student
voice were illustrated.

There is a need to conduct studies that bring to forefront the voices of adolescents
as they relate to their learning and development. More speciﬁcally, research that
illuminates the analyses of development for African-American students in a positive light
is scant. The current study is one step to ﬁll this gap. Similar to Owens (2005), this case

study will bring to the forefront the views of adolescents who have spent time within an

42

educational program beyond the traditional school setting, and the ways they perceive the
program to be inﬂuential to their academic and social lives. While her six focal students
were male and female, this study presents an all male sample and seeks to make more
speciﬁc connections between student views and traditional developmental theories.
Educational research approaches that analyze and interpret the experiences of African-
American adolescents contribute to the general body of educational research by adding to
its cultural knowledge base. The ideas, themes, and theoretical trends discussed in this
chapter demonstrate the possibilities for understanding the dynamic, multi-dimensional,
and ever changing nature of adolescent development and experiences.

The next chapter will present the methodological design of this study, and provide
a more detailed discussion of the research questions, procedural steps, the TTD Rising

Stars Program, and the four focal participants.

43

CHAPTER THREE
METHODS

“It is the messy complexity of human experience that leads researchers to case studies in
the qualitative or interpretive tradition (Erickson, 1986). ”

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of 4 African American
males, participating in one college-prep outreach program for underrepresented youth.
The intent was to capture their stories and experiences within the context of this program
that aimed to serve their academic and social needs. In conducting focused informal
interviews, the complexity of their perspectives as well as the programs’ inﬂuence on
their lives was highlighted. This inquiry was guided by ﬁve focal research questions, the
ﬁrst two of which were preliminary in nature and served to provide a basis for answering
the remaining questions. These ﬁrst two questions allowed for the systematic exploration
of the program and its function. They provided background information on the context of
the program by framing the ﬁeld of study. Bogdan and Biklen (2003) refer to this process
as “casing the joint.” The remaining three questions serve as the basis for grounding this
inquiry. As with most qualitative inquiries, all of these research questions served as a
grounding to start the conversations with participants about their perspectives of and
experience with the program.
Research Questions

In order to ascertain students’ general perspectives of the program, what elements

of the program were most signiﬁcant for them, and how they made sense of the
program’s contribution to them academically and socially, I designed methods to

speciﬁcally answer the following research questions:

1. What is the structure and function of this program, e.g., curriculum and staff roles?
2. What are the goals and objectives?
3. How do they provide resources and support to the target population?
4. What are the participant’s general perspectives of the program? What do they like and
dislike?

a. How do they describe these elements of the program?

b. How do they make sense of supports or resources have been most important?
5. How do the participants see the program contributing to their academic and social
development?

a. How do they see the program developing their post-secondary education plans,

if at all?
b. How do they see the program developing positive ideologies and skills, if at
all?

6. What sorts of differences or similarities exist between what is learned in the program
and the home environment?

Deﬁnition of Terms

Goals and Objectives The term goal is typically deﬁned across various bodies of
literature as a broad statement of what is to be achieved or accomplished. Additionally,
objectives normally refer to a speciﬁc outcome or timetable of completion of a certain
goal. For purposes of this study both these terms goal and objective will refer to the
central aims of the TTD program. Throughout this narrative, they will be used
interchangeably, as opposed to separately. For example, one of the primary aims of the

program as displayed in the program brochure it to expose students to information on the

45

admission requirements and ﬁnancial aid options of two and four year institutions. This
concept can easily be defined as both a goal and objective if viewed as 1) a ﬁnal outcome
or 2) an ongoing process of disseminating information via the program curriculum.

Structure and Function The terms structure and function refer to how the TTD
program is organized and how activities are carried out. It was expected that these terms
would provide a lens for understanding the general nature of the program via roles played
by staff, the curriculum, and procedural. steps.

Supports and Resources The purpose of the T'TD program was to provide students
with tools and information to support their academic and achievement and preparation for
college. Supports and resources will be used to refer to components of the TTD program
such as, but not limited to study skills, networking, staff-student relationships, ﬁnancial
aid information, and encouragement toward high academic achievement.

Academic and Social Development For purposes of this study academic and social
development were deﬁned as characteristics, dispositions, attitudes, and beliefs acquired
by an adolescent that supports his/her growth toward healthy intellectual and social
functioning. Similar to Roesser, Eccles, and Sameroffs’(2000), I used as a premise the
conceptualization of adolescent development being associated with and inﬂuenced by
particular instructional, interpersonal, and organizational elements of educational
settings.

The ﬁrst three questions were exploratory. They allowed for systematic
examination of the program’s goals and objectives in relation to how the curriculum was
enacted and general roles of the staff members. In addition, this set of questions aided me

in acquiring an understanding of how the program carried out its services to its students.

46

Question four sought to gain knowledge about participant’s general perspectives of the
program and particularly to examine how they described elements of the program most
signiﬁcant for them. The ﬁfth question built on the third question by attempting to
understand how the students felt the program had inﬂuenced their academic and social
development. The last question focused on whether or not and in what capacity the nature
of the program compared or contrasted with the home environments of the students. It is
important to note that while the methodology of this study was designed to answer all
ﬁve research questions, the third and fourth questions will be more central as they are
focused more on student perspectives.

This chapter will describe the layout and methodological approach to my study. It
will begin with a rationale for utilizing qualitative methods. Next, a description of the
setting/site will be rendered as well as a description of participants and the participant
selection process. Then, I will discuss data collection methods and analysis as related to
each of the ﬁve central research questions.

Rationale for Qualitative Methods

This study was qualitative in nature. This type of design is appropriate in
providing support for particular theoretical assumptions and contributing to a particular
body of knowledge (Yin, 1989). Given the nature of research questions and the small
sample of students, a quantitative design would not have been possible. This small
sample of students allowed for building a more ethnographic case and acquiring a more
in depth understanding of students’ experiences and perceptions, which goes a step

beyond categorical, numerical, survey responses. To be sure, the validity,

47

meaningfulness, and insights that were expected to be generated from this inquiry were
related to the richness of the case and the ability to obtain analytical validity.

The results from this inquiry were expected to be informative about the
experiences of students and the function of a university based college prep program. A
case study design afforded the opportunity to examine how a particular phenomenon, in

the case of this inquiry, perceptions and experiences, were a salient piece of the context.
In interpretive research, the interest is in social construction of reality as individuals
interact in social scenes (Geertz, 1973; Mehan, 1982; Merriam, 1998).

Qualitative methodology assumes that meaning is context speciﬁc and that
deﬁnitions and frames are built over time through cultural practices (Bogden and Biklen,
2003). The primary goal of this study was to understand how participants made sense of
their participation in the selected program. Although, portraiture was not used as a
primary methodology, many of the same inductive strategies were utilized.

According to Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (2002), “portraiture is a method of
qualitative research that blurs the boundaries of aesthetics of human experience and
organizational life. Portraitists seek to record and interpret the perspectives and
experience of people they are studying, documenting their voices and their visions...”
(pg. xv).

Site Selection

The Truth Tubman Douglass program was selected as the program site. Located
on the campus of a major Research I university, it is funded by a state higher education
initiative. It serves approximately 300-400 youth between the ages of 12-18 annually

from around the state. This program was designed to increase the number of

48

underrepresented minorities in post-secondary education. This goal is pursued through a
combination of program elements that inform and prepare students to deal with the
challenges of pursuing higher education. In an effort to reach these goals the program
has contact with participants at various points throughout their middle and high school
careers. The program is divided into four major components; Outreach, Visitation, Rising
Stars, and Summer Residency. The Outreach component consists of student teams going
out into the middle school informing youth about college and motivating them to attend.
The Visitation component involves a one-day trip to a college campus where youth are
exposed to the college life, the admissions process, and currently enrolled college
students. Rising Stars is the ongoing continuous component that takes place from August
through April and involves a series of workshops and seminars that range from Social
Activism to Time management. The last component, summer residency, is a four-day
live—in experience where youth go to a college campus and gain hands on exposure to
college type courses and residence life.
The Rising Stars Component

This study focused on the Rising Stars component because of the nature of its
curriculum, practices, and duration. It is important to note that TTD was largely modeled
after typical college prep programs with a heavy emphasis on preparing young people for
post-secondary education. This site was selected for three primary reasons, 1.) the close
proximity and connection to the university, 2.) the characteristics (i.e. ethnicity, gender,
income status, etc.) of the population of participants it served and 3.) the college prep
curriculum that grounded the services and resources offered. Based on prior work,

interests in and exposure to contexts that provide alternative academic services to

49

minority youth this site and setting were appropriate for examining all the
aforementioned research questions. The Outreach component, Visitation component, and
Summer Residency component were parts of the program implemented once over the
course of a year in the program. None of these components lasted in duration longer than
one week. The Rising Stars component was ongoing and continuous over a seventh
month period, and provided an opportunity to get a somewhat longitudinal perspective of
program practice.

Rising Stars was implemented via monthly Saturday workshops and included
topics such as cultural day, career development, and study skills. Students were required
to attend at least six workshops over the course of a school year to be considered a Rising
Stars participant. More detailed information about the nature of Rising Stars will be
discussed in the next chapter.

Participants

Participant Selection

A verbal request for participants along with a brief description of the study was
made twice, once during the ﬁrst week of the Summer Residency program orientation,
and again during the kick-off workshop of the Rising Stars component. The program
director offered extra program credit for their participation. After the ﬁrst request
seventeen families of sixth and seventh grade students signed up to participate. The
second request yielded six families of eighth and ninth grade male students. Due to the
need to focus on older adolescents, the second group of participants was contacted
directly to conﬁrm their participation. Four families followed up from the second contact

and agreed to participate through verbal and written assent/consent forms.

50

The primary participants in this study were four African American boys between
the ages of 13-15. Two were in eighth grade and two were in ninth grade at the time of
this study. These adolescents were residents of urban and suburban areas across a large
Midwestern state. All students in the sample had participated in at least one full year of
the program prior to the study. In addition, they had attended the college visit
component, at least three Saturday workshops offered throughout the school year, and the
one week summer residency program. Based on my judgment and experience in
evaluating the quality of the data that would be collected against the ways that data
would be utilized, the homogeneity in the ethnicity of the sample, and the particular
research questions, I was satisﬁed that four participants would be sufﬁcient enough to
support both emergent claims of and claims related to preexisting theory. In addition, I
was conﬁdent that this sample size would lend itself reasonably to implementing a deep,
case-oriented analysis, which grounds most qualitative inquiries. To be clear, this sample
does fail to be representative of and homogenous with the entire TTD student population
in that it is not inclusive of females. It is then reasonable that ﬁndings and assertions
yielded from this study can be used to frame experiences of male participants.

While the focus of this study was on the four youth participants and their
perspectives, graduates of the KCP program as well as program staff served as key
informants to 1.) triangulate responses from youth participants and 2.) to add additional
insight on the structure and function of the program. As a result of preliminary ﬁeldwork
and easing the space of the program, it became evident that there were past participants of
the TTD program, either enrolled at the university or who continued to work for and/or

advocate for the program. It was reasonable and appropriate that these key informants,

51

although their perspectives were former, had a considerable amount to contribute both at
the level of understanding the program and also at the level of understanding youth
experiences within this site.

Participant Description
(All names are pseudonyms and will be used throughout.)

Charles was a thirteen year old eighth grader at the time of this study. He attended
a middle school in a large suburban area of a major Midwestern city. As I articulated by
him, he made “fairly good grades” consisting of A’s and B’s and a few C’s. His favorite
subject in school was social studies and he liked reading and learning about history. He
“really liked R&B” and his favorite artists were Luther Vandross and Stevie Wonder. He
loved football and when observed in his peer group, seemed somewhat shy and reserved.
Charles has aspirations of being a writer, entrepreneur, or architect and he points to
having friends as being an important part of his life. Based on informal conversations
with him and his parents, he could be disorganized at times and had trouble turning in
assignments and staying focused. Although, he had a quiet disposition he was outgoing
and receptive to meeting and talking with people. He considered himself a visual and
physical learner that Ieamed best when he could “make his own formula for it”, or in
other words do it his way. He was the second oldest of four children, and had a very keen
sense of humor. In addition to participating in KCP he also attended a social studies camp

during the summers.

Jamal was a ﬁfteen year old ninth grader at a suburban high school. He is

Charles’s older brother, and the oldest of four children. He played football at school and

52

also liked basketball, although by his account he was “not very good at it”. Unlike his

brother he preferred rap over R&B, and his favorite artists was Kanye West.

He made A’s and B’s in school but felt that if he put his mind to it he could do a lot
better. Jamal and his brother had been TTD participants for two years prior to the start of
the study. Jamal liked to think of new ways to do things and he also liked to use his hands
to build and create things. Jamal, unlike his younger brother was not shy, but not
necessarily outgoing either. It takes him a while to warm up to people he is unfamiliar
with. In talking about his school experiences, he expressed concern about being at his
new high school and talked in depth about his preference to be back at his previous high
school with his old friends. By his own admission and via informal conversations with
his parents, Jamal was having difﬁculty adjusting to his new suburban school and new
peers. He was very articulate in discussing the difference in these two academic settings

that were vastly different.

Eric was a thirteen year old eighth grader at the time of this study. He attended a
large urban middle school. He was the youngest of three children in his family and also
the only male. He talked about his interest in football and basketball, but said that he
more often than not “stays inside and play video games.” His favorite type of music was
Rap and he also listened to Jazz. His favorite rapper was Ludacris and his favorite subject
in school was science. Eric’s ﬁrst name was Lawrence, but he preferred to be called Eric
because “that is what his friends and family call him”. His family had participated in
T'TD for six years prior to the study and both of his sisters were alumni of the program.
Eric liked meeting new people and pointed to this as one of the main reasons he liked

coming to TTD. He was very close with his family and was treated as the baby of the

53

family, by both his older sisters and his parents, especially his mother. He considered
himself to be a “pretty good” student and he made A’s and B’s. Similar to Charles and
JAMAL, he liked different ways of learning and preferred to look at things from a
“different perspective.” His goals for his immediate future were to make better grades so
that he can get into one of the more prestigious high schools in his city. Eric was very
articulate about social issues that impacted African American men and African
Americans in general. In addition, He was very savvy about media and other political

issues like the war in Iraq.

Keith was a fourteen year old ninth grader at a predominately black high school in
a different urban area than Eric. He was the third oldest of six children (three boys and
three girls.) Unlike the other boys, Keith was not from a middle class background, and
lived in an inner city area. He played the Bass drum in his school’s concert band. His
favorite type of music was gospel, and at the time of the study he was very active in a
Christian study group at school. His family participated in TTD for three years prior to
the study and his dad was a very vocal parent participant both within the program and in
their local community. Keith was fairly shy and seemed to only open up around family
(as observed during home interview). He considered himself to be an average student
that made “0k grades”. Keith was very articulate about the conditions at his school and
his experiences with other African American peers. He wanted to eventually attend the
university where TTD was held and get a Bachelors and eventually a master’s degree in
business or English. Keith has a very inquisitive nature and more than the other three
students, saw me as a mentor and reached out to me beyond our time spent during the

study.

54

Researcher’s Role

My application of conﬁdentiality, objectivity, and genuine appreciation for
diverse socio-cultural values and experiences enabled me to establish relationships built
on trust among students and their families, as well as program staff. It is my belief that
these relationships strengthen my voice as researcher within the literature on academic
Outreach programs and their impact on the academic, social, and emotional development
of adolescents. There were three different ways in which my role as the researcher had to
be negotiated throughout the duration of this study. The ﬁrst dealt with establishing a
balance between the participant and observer roles. One of the biggest challenges in
doing this type of work is establishing and identifying my role as researcher. From initial
contact with program staff and participants, I decided to take on more of a participant-
observer role in the program. This was primarily due to the need for me to establish
myself as someone genuinely concerned about the sustenance of the program and the
youth that it served. I placed myself largely (with the exception of observing Saturday
workshops) on the medium of the participant-researcher continuum. It was less beneﬁcial
to become a full participant 1.) because of my own demanding schedule as a full-time
graduate students and 2.) because of my need to develop a zone of ﬂexibility to be able to

step back and objectively collect an analyze data.

A second way the role of researcher was negotiated was through researcher vs.
“our doctoral student”. Throughout my time in ﬁeld the program staff referred to me as
“our doctoral student.” The term “our” within this context alluded to within group
membership in this context. Due to the communal nature of this space, membership was

equated with taking some type of active role in the program. While this title and position

55

was beneficial for getting acclimated and developing relationships in the program, a
critical task was not allowing the role as within group member to overshadow my role as
researcher. This included but was not limited to physical location (i.e. sitting away from
activities as they were occurring) and selective assistance, choosing only task that
required minimal participation (i.e. passing out pamphlets, directing students and parents
to designated areas). A ﬁnal way this role was negotiated was through mentor vs.
researcher. Primarily due to how I was initially introduced as being a part of the program,
all of the participants viewed me as a mentor doing work for the program. I attempted to
control for misunderstandings by continually explaining my educational background and
the purpose of the study. By the end of the study all of the boys were aware and

knowledgeable of my role as researcher and the purpose of our time together.

In addition to negotiating my role as researcher, it is important to note that being
African American provided me with access and may have inﬂuenced the ways in which

the staff, students, and parents interacted and engaged with me within this space.

As discussed by Bogdan and Biklen (1998), personal reﬂexivity’ involves reﬂecting upon
the ways in which our own values, experiences, interests, beliefs, political commitments,
wider aims in life, and social identities shaped the research. It also involves thinking
about how the research may have affected and possibly changed us, as people and as
researchers. It is important to note that my scholarship as an African American woman,
my ethnic identity, and commitment to efforts that support students of color all
inﬂuenced how I engaged with participants and interpreted the collected data. This
reﬂexive process allowed me to not only learn about my own epistemological beliefs, but

to also to critically examine collected data at various points throughout the analysis.

56

Data Collection Procedures

The data for this study was collected over an 8 month period (October 2005
through May 2006). Decisions about data collected were based on the relevance to inform
the research questions. Data collected included ﬁeld notes from observations of the
monthly Saturday workshops, relevant program artifacts (workshop agendas and
materials, brochures, schedules, newsletters, etc.), and audio taped interviews of student
participants and program staff.

Data Collection: Interviews

For qualitative researchers, the unstructured, open-ended interview “offers the
opportunity for an authentic gaze into the soul of another” (Sliverrnan, 2000, pp. 822-23).
Although participants were asked a series of pre-deterrnined questions, the interviews in
this research study were semi-structured because participants were free to digress and
discuss issues beyond the selected questions at any time. In addition, I asked other
questions that were not included in the original list in order to pursue emergent points of
interest and that allowed the exchanges to evolve in a conversational manner. In my
position as an insider-outsider researcher, comfortable relationships with the research
participants were critical to my establishment of rapport. I made a conscious effort to
follow the protocol recommended by Loﬂand (1971) suggesting that as ﬁeld workers,
qualitative researchers must remember to take notes regularly and promptly; write
everything down, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time; try to be
inconspicuous as possible in note taking; and frequently analyze ﬁeld notes.

Three one hour interviews with each of the four participants were conducted

across the seven month data collection period. The primary goal of this study was to

57

explore whether or not and in what ways the program had inﬂuenced student’s academic
and social development. Therefore, questions were asked related to whether the program
had contributed to the acquisition of skills that would lead toward characteristics such as
but not limited to high self-esteem, cultural afﬁrmation, and college attainment. These
interviews attempted to assess each participant’s general perspectives on the program as
well as their personal experience throughout their participation. (See Appendix A-C for
complete protocols.) Prior to the beginning each interview I reviewed what I would be
asking and my commitment to ensuring conﬁdentiality. I would reiterate that their voice
was their voice and that there were no right or wrong answers, simply honest responses.
The approach helped to relax the participants and reduce nervousness. For African
Americans it is a common cultural understanding not to share personal “business” with
others, let alone have it tape-recorded. Thus my own cultural connections and
relationship to the TTD program facilitated the easing of feelings of discomfort
associated with providing their views and perspectives.

The ﬁrst interview (see Appendix A) asked general questions related to their past
experience with the program as well as their overall perceptions. The nature of these
questions were introductory in nature, and were asked to primarily get the boys’ ﬁrst
initial responses to how they thought about the program and parts of the program that
were most signiﬁcant for them. These responses were pursued in more detail and clariﬁed
in the second and third interviews. Questions posed in the ﬁrst interview included, but
were not limited to the following.

- How long have you participated in the KCP Rising Stars Program?

I Have you participated in this program?

58

I Do you have friends or family members that participate?

I What have you liked or enjoyed most about KCP Rising Star?

I Were there things that you maybe didn’t like so much about the program? If so
what were they, and why?

I What has been your favorite activity in the program?

I What do you think the purpose of KCP is?

The second interview (see Appendix B) attempted to ascertain their current thoughts
about topics associated with the Saturday workshops and their lives beyond the program.
These topics were activism and advocacy, cultural identity, learning styles, family
connectedness within the program, deﬁnitions of success, social awareness, and
expectations held by staff. In addition, this interview revisited topics that surfaced during
the ﬁrst interview, specific to each participant. Keith was asked about his views of how
KCP talked about the importance of college, the signiﬁcance of African American
student achievement, how TTD helped him to think about his purpose, and the
importance of being open. Charles was asked about his comments related to TTD helping
him to make better grades, the meaning of TTD “helping you to ﬁght back”, some
students “being smart but not having opportunities,” and the comparison of resources in
his past and current school. Jamal was asked to follow-up on statements made about his
potential to do good work and ways that he could improve, importance of “making
friends” in the program, his social view of black males, i.e., “we know what we’re worth
but we’re not viewed like that,” and his deﬁnition of success. In his second interview Eric
was asked to expand on his responses about black males being in prison, the importance

of “getting to know people in the program”, his future goals, the signiﬁcance of having

59

African American leaders that can “lead us into a new future”, and his comments related
to TTD helping him to learning “academic stuff”. General questions included the
following.

I What is this notion of “We are family” that is present in KCP, what are your
views on that? Do you feel connected to KCP and if so how is this helpful for you?
Have you developed friendships and relationships within KCP?

I KCP talks a lot about knowing what type of student you are and how you learn

best. Describe who you are as a student. What do you think about your own academic

ability?
I How often do you use these learning style skills that are taught by the program?
I What do you all think the signiﬁcance of African American student achievement

is, or is it important?

I What have been some of the things that KCP has taught you about academic
achievement and how does that ﬁt or not ﬁt with what your parents tell you about
achievement?

I What do you think the social and academic needs are of young people around
your age are?

I Describe your idea of success? What does it mean to be successful?

The ﬁnal round of interviews (See Appendix C for protocol) served to corroborate
and compare thematic patterns that emerged from the first and second interview. The
primary purpose of the third interview was to get ﬁnal responses from students, revisit
initial statements about the program, and to ask questions related to the set of themes that

arose from the previous two rounds of interviews. Questions dealt speciﬁcally with

60

concepts such as identity development, future planning, leadership, the needs of

adolescents, perception of black males, relationship with TTD as family, and high

expectations of staff. These concepts will be deﬁned below in the Analysis of Student

Interviews section. Questions from the third round of interviews included, but were not

limited to the following.

What is a rising star? What do you think it means to be a part of TTD and what
makes you different from young people who are not apart of the program?

Talk more in general about how this program is helping (inﬂuencing) you? Are
there any drawbacks? Are there ways that the program may not be so helpful?
We’ve talked about utilizing skills from KCP in the classroom but are there other
things that happen in the program that inﬂuence you in school?

How important are the relationships you build here in KCP?

What do you think is important for or needed for young people like yourself to be
successful?

Ultimately do you drink KCP has or will help you accomplish your goals? Why
and in what way?

How has KCP helped you make plans for you future and do you think this is
important? Why or Why not?

The program director, assistant program director, and program coordinator were

interviewed once about the structure and function of the program and their views on how

the program worked to inﬂuence its participants. (See Appendix D for the complete

protocol.) Each interview lasted at least an hour. Two were conducted at the program

ofﬁce and one was conducted immediately following a Saturday workshop. In these

61

interviews, I was interested in ﬁnding out from the staff what their views of the program

were, what the goals and objectives of TTD were, and how they attempted both

collectively and individually to transfer those goals. Given the collegial relationship I had

built with the staff, and their perception of me as someone with a genuine concern and

commitment to the program, these interviews were informal. Thus, staff felt comfortable

in revealing their thoughts, ideas, and personal perspectives on the program. Questions

included but were not limited to these.

How did you come to be involved with KCP? How long have you been involved
and in what capacity?

How long has this program been here at Michigan State?

What do you perceive as the major goals and objectives of the program?

How do you think those goals are carried out in program activities?

In what ways have you personally tried to transfer these goals and objectives to
the youth participants?

How do you attempt to align program activities and program curriculum with the
goals and objectives?

Are there components of the program that you feel are particularly signiﬁcant for
the youth? If so, what are they?

In what ways does KCP attempt to address the academic and developmental needs
of the participants? What do you perceive these needs to be?

One former female student, who had graduated from the program and was

currently enrolled in the university hosting this program, was interviewed as a key

informant prior to interviewing youth participants. (See Appendix E for the complete

62

protocol.) By this informant providing background information and insight into her
experiences and thoughts on the program, it helped to inform relevant topics and issues to
utilize in the interviews with the four focal students. Additionally her responses aided in
constructing a comprehensive view of the program. She was asked the following
questions.
I How long did you participate in the KCP Rising Stars Program?
I Did you have friends or family members that participated or are currently participating?
I What did you like or enjoy most about KCP Rising Stars?
I What did it mean to be a KCP participant?
I What types of ideas and values aligned with being KCP?
I In your view, what did KCP teach you if anything about going to college and planning
for college?
I What did they teach you about culture and identity (speciﬁcally about your own culture
or about other cultures)? Have these things helped you to think about how you identify or
view yourself as a person or student?
I What resources and support (i.e. summer workshops, speakers) helped you the most, if
at all?
Data Collection: Observation Field Notes

Monthly Saturday workshops were monthly workshops geared toward topics in
three major categories; academic, self-developmental, and cultural. They covered areas
like test-taking strategies, study skills, peer pressure, and socio-critical skills. Workshops

typically lasted four hours and were designed for the beneﬁt of students and parents.

63

In attempting to answer the question regarding how the program provides resources and
supports to participants, it seemed logical to position myself within this particular
practice to collect substantive data on how activities were being carried out. Additionally,
ﬁeld notes of major program activities provided yet another layer of data to support and
triangulate youth responses. According to Dyson and Genishi (2005) ﬁeld notes help to
give the audience a “verbal depiction of the site-an ethnographic sense of being in the
world we call our case”. The speciﬁc case in this study was participant perspectives and
experiences.

These programs were observed and ﬁeld notes were taken of the content and
activity that took place. I attended eight Saturday workshops and spent a total of thirty-
one hours in the ﬁeld. Field notes included both descriptive and reﬂective statements on
the structure and function of this programmatic activity. I was particularly observant of
staff student interactions, curriculum topics, implicit and explicit exchange of values, and
student attitudes and behaviors. I paid particularly attention to ways that staff spoke to
goals and objectives of TTD. The following table (Table 1) is a record of each workshop

along with its title, description, date, and duration of observation.

64

Table 1:

Summary of Observations: Rising Stars Component

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Workshop Title Date Observation Time
“Celebrating Our Victory” 10-08-05 5 hrs.
“A Tribute to Rosa Parks: Becoming an Activist” 11-12-05 4 hrs
“Study Skills: Three Stages of Learning” 12-10-05 4.5 hrs
“Technology Day” 01-20-06 3.5 hrs
“Cultural Day” 02-04-06 5 hrs
“Science Day” 02-25-06 4 hrs
“Career Day” 03-25-06 3 hrs
“Vet-A-Visit & Preparing for Summer” 04-15-06 4.5 hrs

 

 

 

 

Data Collection: Artifacts

Most of the program artifacts were collected during initial entry into the ﬁeld.
These documents consisted of the program brochure, monthly newsletter (The Rising
Star) and the introductory packet mailed to new students which included an application,
description of the program, and welcome letter. The program website was utilized as a
data source particularly for gaining information on the structure and function of the
program. In addition to these artifacts, the monthly newsletter and the college prep
materials (distributed at the Saturday workshops) were collected.

Table 2. below is divided in to three main columns that lays out each research
question, the data sources that were used to answer those questions, and third the method

of data collection.

65

Table 2:

Data Collection Summary

 

Research Question

Data Source

Data Collection Method

 

What is the structure and
function of this program? (i.e.
curriculum and staff roles. etc.)

Field Notes

Staff Interviews

Program Artifacts: brochure.
newsletter, workshop agenda
and meeting materials

Observations of Saturday
Workshops,

Individual interviews,

Content analysis of program
documents from workshops and

 

the program ofﬁce
What are the goals and Field Notes Saturday Workshops,
Objectives ? Staff Interviews In-person audio taped
Program Artifacts: brochure, interviews,
How do they provide resources newsletter, workshop agenda Collected program documents
and support to the target and meeting materials during workshops and from the

population?

main ofﬁce of program

 

What are the participant’s
general perspectives of the
program? What do they like and
dislike?

How do they describe these
elements of the program?

What supports or resources
have been most important?

Student Interviews

All interviews (w/e l) were
conducted in-person in the
homes of participants. Each
interview was audio-taped.

 

What are their perceptions on
the extent to which this
program contributes to their
academic and social
development?

How has the program aided in
developing post-secondary
education plans, if at all?

How has the program aided in
developing pro-social
ideologies and skills, if at all?
How

Student Interviews

All interviews (w/e 1) were
conducted in-person in the
homes of participants. Each
interview was audio-taped.

 

 

What sorts of differences or
similarities exists between what
is learned in the program and
the home environment?

 

Student Interviews

 

All interviews (w/e l) were
conducted in-person in the
homes of participants. Each
interview was audio-taped

 

66

 

Data Analysis

All data was labeled and organized by date and by activity type. A content
analysis was conducted on program artifacts in order to understand the structure and
function of the program as indicated in questions above. The analysis of this data was
inductive in nature and grounded in particular pieces of data that were sorted and
organized to understand the dynamics and dimensions of participant perspectives. In
making decisions about analyzing data, the constant comparative method seemed most
appropriate for this type of qualitative inquiry. According to Goetz and LeCompte
(1981), this method "combines inductive category coding with a simultaneous
comparison of all social incidents observed” (p. 58). As social phenomena are recorded
and classiﬁed, they are also compared across categories. This allows the researcher over
time to discover relationships in pieces of data. This process undergoes continuous
reﬁnement throughout the data collection and analysis process, continuously feeding
back into the process of category coding. "As events are constantly compared with
previous events, new topological dimensions, as well as new relationships, may be
discovered" (Goetz & LeCompte, p. 58).

Qualitative analysis “transforms data into ﬁndings” (Patton, 2002, p. 432). Data
analysis requires that the researcher capture the complexity of reality and make
convincing sense of it (Strauss, 1989). It is therefore signiﬁcant that the researcher be
guided by participants’ interpretations, the researcher’s interpretation of the participant
responses, and the data analysis of the study.

Four different data analysis charts were created for program artifacts, field notes

from Saturday workshops, student interviews, and staff interviews. These charts included

67

all data points grouped by category. Groups and clusters of data became the basis for this
organization and conceptualization. This process was inductive and categories emerged
out of the data rather than being imposed on them prior to data collection.

Analysis of Artifacts

A content analysis was conducted on program artifacts to understand the goals
and structure of the TTD program. In order to answer the questions related to the goals as
well as the structure and function of the program, read through the program brochure,
participant application packet, program website, and 5 monthly newsletters. I speciﬁcally
looked for content that described both the nature of the program as well as how the
program functioned in relation to activities, schedules, and roles played by staff and
students. I looked for and examined patterns and trends across documents and created a
list of all descriptive statements about the program’s goals and structure. The most
frequently cited words and phrases across documents were; enrollment in two and four
year institutions, post-secondary education, increase opportunity, increase enrollment of
underrepresented minorities, and is designed to.

Analysis of Field notes

Field notes of program activity also served to answer research questions one and
two regarding the goals and objectives and structure and function of the program. The
ﬁrst two workshops (“Celebrating our Victory” and “Tribute to Rosa Parks”) involved
exploratory observations. To be sure, there were no pre established patterns, ideas,
interactions that I looked for. I was careful in letting the ﬁrst two workshops serve as a
grounding for the rest of the observations. After the second workshop a list of categories

emerged that included advocacy and activism, social preparation, high expectations, goal

68

setting, TTD as family, learning style, and cultural pride. These categories were then used
to identify other interactions, attitudes, and behaviors during the remaining ﬁve
workshops. Ideas and statements that arose were put into one of the aforementioned
categories.

In addition to the attitudes, statements, and views discussed during Saturday
workshops, action taken by staff to implement program were also coded. This was due to
the acknowledgement of the roles of the faculty being central in understanding how
Saturday workshops function. To be sure, this social context was signiﬁcantly more
dynamic than the roles of the staff, but this examination draw me closer to understanding
the implementation. This coding scheme was broken into three different categories;
speaking, interacting, and managing. Speaking involved any incident where staff
addressed the large group in the auditorium. Interacting involved incidents were
members of the staff were observed interacting with students and parents. For example,
Samantha, the program coordinator, would sit at a table during sign in at every workshop
and greet the students and their parents, asking them about school and other programs
they were involved in. A third category that illuminated program function was managing.
This involved occurrences when staff members were involved in some type of guidance
activity related to the logistical maintenance of the workshops. For instance, Kurt was
often seen talking to staff of the facility where workshops were held for issues such as
unlocking small break out rooms, getting lunch vouchers for participants, or assisting

student mentors with management of their break out sessions.

69

Analysis of Staff Interviews

Staff interviews were not conducted over multiple time frames, therefore they
were coded once for themes that emerged across all three interviews. Staff interviews
were analyzed to assess ideas and perceptions on the goals and objectives of the program
as well as the nature of how the TTD program functioned. These themes included, staff
function; the ways that staff saw their role in the program, student descriptions;
comments on the needs of students served by the program, family connectedness;
responses about staff members work to create a family oriented space, high expectations;
statements on working to instill conﬁdence in students by having high expectations for
their success, and cultural identity; responses on helping students to think positively
about their cultural identity. All of these themes were utilized in making an analysis of
the TTD program from the view of staff. Assertions and more detailed interpretations are
forthcoming in the next chapter.

Analysis of Student Interviews

As the interviews were the primary source of data, particularly for students, the
analysis of this verbal data was more extensive than the staff interviews, content analysis
of artifacts and the examination of ﬁeld notes. Three rounds of interviews with the
students served to answer the remaining three focal research questions: (1) What were the
participant’s general perspectives of the program, how did they describe these elements,
and how do they make sense of the supports and resources that have been most important
for them?; What sorts of differences and similarities exist between program and home?
Interview responses were also analyzed to answer how the participants saw the program

contributing to their academic and social development and their post-secondary education

70

plans, if at all. The data from student interviews were coded to ascertain preliminary
themes.

A primary component of data analysis for student interviews involved deﬁning
categories. According to Dey (1993), categorizing is a crucial element in the process of
any qualitative analysis, and thus a natural creation of categories occurs with the process
of ﬁnding a focus for the analysis, and reading and annotating the data. Having three
rounds of interviews allowed for the systematic examination of perspectives over the
course of the study. In addition, they helped me to develop a relationship with each
participant that would make him feel more comfortable enough to share their views about
themselves and the program in some detail.

As mentioned above the ﬁrst interview was exploratory and helped to create the
ﬁrst set of categorical themes. This interview phase yielded six themes; advocacy and
activism, cultural identity, the development of academic skills, society’s perception of
black males, and the importance of African American student achievement. Student
responses related to activism involved all statements and comments about deﬁnitions of
“speaking out” and “ﬁghting against” situations that were “unfair.” Comments provided
by participants on cultural identity involved their statements about whether or not TTD
addressed culture and identity, and if so what aspects stood out for them. Society’s
perception of black males emerged out of the conversation on culture and how society
viewed certain groups of people. One participant in particular talked about these issues
and his comments were then analyzed to create a separate category for this theme. All
four boys when asked about what they had learned from TTD, commented on the extent

to which they had Ieamed certain skills such as test taking and study skills. These

71

comments became the basis for the acquisition of academic skills theme. Lastly during
the ﬁrst round of interviews participants talked about the ways the program had helped
them to think about their achievement in relation to the accomplishments of the larger
black community. These comments laid the groundwork for establishing the theme of
African-American achievement.

A second round of interviews was conducted to clarify participants' comments
that were not completely clear in the ﬁrst interview and to corroborate and support pre-
existing themes that had emerged in that interview. Follow-up questions were asked to
gain a deeper understanding of comments connected to themes from the ﬁrst round.
Students were also asked speciﬁcally about their relationship with staff, how they thought
about what it meant to be successful, and their plans for the future. Based on the
responses of participants in the ﬁrst interview, questions were posed to explore the boys’
reactions to staff high expectations and the program’s support for their academic and
social needs. By comparison with ﬁrst-round ﬁndings, this round of interviews also
helped to discern emergent themes beyond those already classiﬁed. The second round of
interviews added six additional themes; program staff’s high expectations, connectedness
to staff as family, leadership, articulation of adolescents needs, deﬁnitions of success, and
future planning.

The third round of interviews served to follow-up on and reﬁne categories that
emerged in the ﬁrst and second interviews. For instance, when Jamal stated, “success is
getting into a good college, graduating, and being the best that you can be and doing
something to show what you’re worth”, in the second interview, it was clear that he was

deﬁning for himself what it meant to be successful. Eric also stated that success for him

72

was “getting a good education”. Therefore, in the third interview all comments or
responses related to what it meant to be successful were placed into the category of
Deﬁnitions of Success. This was the case for all of the aforementioned themes.

The essential task of categorizing was to bring together data bits that were
apparently related to the same content. It was then important to establish rules that
described category properties and that could, ultimately, be used to justify the inclusion
of each data bit assigned to a category as well as to provide a basis for later tests of
replicability and validity. For example in the ﬁrst round of interviews the theme of
academic skills and learning styles emerged. In the second and third round of interviews
all statements and responses related to the types of skills students Ieamed as a result of
participating in Saturday workshops, were included in this category. To be sure, a
representative unit of data from Keith for this category went as follows, “Like a test. We
have those tests and they told us like to go through the whole thing and read all the
questions and I do that, and it helps, its’ better.”

Comparisons were then made within categories, looking for similarities or
differences within the data. The process of constant comparison stimulated ideas that lead
to both descriptive and explanatory categories that answered research questions related to
1.) the structure and function of the TTD program (staff interviews) and 2.) perspectives
of students (student interviews) on their participation in the program.

Of the twelve themes, six surfaced from the data to be the most substantiated and
corroborated. These six categories were the most salient and served more appropriately
to answer the questions related to their experiences in the program. To be sure, the

voices of students were more deeply expressed through the constructs of family

73

connection, academic skills, future planning, cultural identity, signiﬁcance of African
American student achievement, and staff responses to high expectations. Family
connection stemmed from comments made by students relating to ﬁctive kinships that
existed between themselves and other TTD students and staff. Further, academic skills
were responses related to different educational strategies students had Ieamed such as
test-taking and study skills. Future planning involved all of those statements expressed by
students that involved their plans for their immediate and long term future. Cultural
identity was grounded in views of that exhibited a sense of self as well as the connection
between identity and goal orientation. Units of data for the signiﬁcance of African
American student achievement were related to explanations for why high academic
performance was important for their community. Lastly, all comments related to how
students were responding to staff members expectations for them to excel academically
were put into the responses to staff high expectations. As a ﬁnal step, data from the
categorization chart were transformed into examples and illustrations that lead to several
guiding assertions. These assertions and themes will be discussed in greater detail in the
following chapters.

This chapter presented the methodology and rationale for the study’s design. It
described the selection process and provided demographic narratives of the participants.
A description of the data collection techniques and data analysis procedures was also
provided. Finally this chapter sought to highlight and deﬁne emergent themes from the
data. These themes formed the basis for the findings of this research investigation. The

next two chapters present a comprehensive description of the research setting (TTD

74

program) and the perspectives of the four focal participants relative to their participation

within this context.

75

CHAPTER FOUR

SITUATING THE VOICES: THE TRUTH TUBMAN DOUGLASS PROGRAM
“You value yourself you value your intellect and that is something that I want our young
people to understand because there is a lot of peer pressure at home and out there to
dumb yourself down, but you value what you can give, that you too have a right as an
individual to have access to quality education and whatever resources that are out there
that are going to help you to be successful. ”~ Dr. S, Program Director

The Truth Tubman Douglas Rising Stars program was a university outreach

program designed to increase the numbers of underrepresented minorities in post-
secondary institutions around the state of Michigan. This dissertation examines the
perspectives of four students who had participated in this program to understand how
they were making sense of the extent to which this program was inﬂuencing them both
socially and academically. This chapter will provide an introduction to the program and
help to situate the student voices highlighted in the next chapter. Utilizing three streams
of data; program artifacts, staff interviews, and ﬁeld notes from program activities, the
goals, objectives, and program practices will be discussed. A description of the TTD
program will begin with an account of the program as written in program artifacts. Next,
this description will be expounded on through the voices of the staff as they discuss their
perspectives of the nature of the programs goals and activities. 1This chapter will
conclude with an interpretive account of the program functions via observations of a
speciﬁc program activity, Rising Stars (Saturday Workshops).
TTD AS WRITTEN

The results of a content analysis on the program brochure, four monthly

newsletters, student application, and the program website, yielded basic information

 

' The Truth Tubman Douglas program will be referred to throughout in past tense because at the time this
study was being written and recorded the program had lost funding and was no longer in operation.

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about the primary goals of the program and major program components. As consistent
across all artifacts, the goal of the King, Chavez, Parks (TTD) program, named for the
late civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, J r., Cesar Chavez, and Rosa Parks, was
to increase the enrollment of students who are underrepresented in higher education.
These groups included but were not limited to; Mexican American, African American,
and Native American. The program served approximately 200-300 youth between the
ages of 12-18 annually from around a large mid-westem state. Over eighty percent of the
student and parent participants were African American while the remaining student
population consisted of Mexican and Native American students. The staff consisted of
ﬁve primary positions: Director, Assistant Director, two Coordinators, and a Secretary.
At the time of this study TTD was funded by a higher education state initiative and was
housed on the campus of a large Research I university.

The program brochure described program goals as having two primary
components. These two elements are to (a) provide information on and (b) check student
comprehension of ﬁve core indicators: (1) the state’s 2 and 4 year education systems, (2)
opportunities afforded by a college education, (3) availability of ﬁnancial aid, (4)
requirements for college admission, and (5) requirements to prepare for college. Other
program documentation stipulated that the goals of the TTD program are pursued through
a combination of program elements that inform and prepare students to deal with the
challenges of pursuing higher education. In addition, dividing the program into
components allowed the program to maintain a system that enabled new students to
participate and eventually become integrated into a long term support network with

returning students. The program is divided into four major components; Outreach,

77

Visitation, Rising Stars, and Summer Residency. The Outreach component consists of
student teams going out into local middle schools informing youth about college and
recruiting program participants. This activity was completed in two-hour blocks and
provides students with information about TTD, college prep courses, goal setting, and
career exploration. The ultimate goal of this component is to lay the foundation for the
remaining parts of the program. Once students have been exposed to the Outreach, the
next step involves arranging a visitation to the university. The Visitation component
involves a one-day trip to a college campus where youth are exposed to college life, the
admissions process, and currently enrolled college students. Students are given the
opportunity to visit departments on campus and gain more information on various ﬁelds
of study and possible career paths. This component of the program is limited to fifty per
visitation group.

Upon completion of the visit, students are given the opportunity to become a TT D
Rising Star via an application process. Rising Stars was the ongoing continuous
component that took place from August through April and involved monthly Saturday
workshops and seminars. Workshop topics were divided into three categories: academic,
self-developmental, and cultural. Academic topics included test-taking strategies, study
skills, and time management, while developmental topics included, self-esteem building,
managing peer pressure, and teen violence. The cultural element provided students with
various information in order to help them develop an appreciation of different cultures
and traditions. For example they would get local activist groups such as the NAACP to
come and speak to students about their work. The goal of the Rising Stars component was

to help students develop and ﬁne tune skills that will be essential to their educational

78

success. This particular program component was the focus of this study because it offered
the opportunity to observe program activity overtime. The nature of Rising Stars
Workshops will be discussed in more later in this chapter. The last component, summer
residency, was a four-day live-in experience where youth spent time on the campus and
gained hands on exposure to college type courses and residence life. During this time
students are required to take classes and workshops and are provide opportunities to
network with peers. The primary objective of this component is to tie in many of the
academic and social concepts discussed throughout the year. Students are provided
opportunities to practice skills such as time management (i.e. getting to class on time) and
peer mediation (i.e. interacting with peers in group activities) during their stay on campus
In addition to programmatic artifacts speciﬁc to this TTD site, the state provides
general information about statewide TTD programs to citizens with a descriptive
summary of the program, its’ mission, and it’s function. As listed on the state government

website the information is as follows:

The TTD (Psuedonym) Program was created by the Michigan State
Legislature in 1986 as part of the larger Truth I Tubman I Douglas
Initiative. The legislative intent is to stem the downward spiral of college
graduation rates for students underrepresented in postsecondary education.
Michigan’s Truth I Tubman I Douglas College Day Programs introduce
schoolchildren underrepresented in postsecondary education to the
potential of a college education. Although there have been improvements
in the access, retention and graduation rates of these students, they have
not achieved parity in graduation rates compared to their share of the
state’s population.

The TTD Program mission is to provide an opportunity for these students
to discover ﬁrst hand the potential of a college education and to expose
students to the information, knowledge and skills they need to prepare
themselves for college entry and success. University-based College Day
programs focus on serving all students in the 30 public school districts,

79

public school academies and charter schools with the highest percentage
of target students as reported by the Michigan Department of Education.

The Truth I Tubman I Douglass Initiative provides oversight and technical
assistance to the College Day programs. Twice per year, the Truth I
Tubman I Douglas Initiative hosts statewide meetings of College Day
Coordinators to provide opportunities for programs to share successful
efforts, keep abreast of educational reform and to provide useful
suggestions for program improvement. TTD Program coordinators and
their colleagues at the university also are invited and encouraged to attend
other Truth I Tubman I Douglas Initiative -sponsored activities, such as
the “Equity in the Classroom” conference held annually.
TTD: AS ARTICULATED
Academic programs on paper are not always the programs that exist and function.
As getting the reader one step closer to a description of the authentic program and its
function, I present data gathered from staff interviews. Staff offered additional insight
about the goals, objectives, and nature of TTD program practice. Three of the four staff
members were interviewed; the Project Director, Assistant Project Director, and one of
the two Program Coordinators. An in depth coding scheme yielded two major ways staff
discussed the program. F irst, they described the program from a descriptive and
functional viewpoint, giving an account of the role they played and the academic and
social needs of the students they served. Second, staff members discussed what they
perceived to be the major goals of the program. These goals included; to provide
networking opportunities for students and parents, to create a family oriented
environment, to provide exposure to college and university life, to instill a sense
conﬁdence in students, and to promote self-awareness and acceptance through the

celebration and acknowledgement of student’s culture. This section will highlight all of

these themes by illuminating units of data that align with each.

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Description of Staff Roles and Students

Program staff described what their roles were in relation to the function of the
program as well as how they tried to personally transfer the goals and objectives. All
three staff interviewed agreed that due to small staff numbers and the nature of the work
they do, the program was a collaborative effort. They all work together to make sure that
activities, workshops, and programs are carried through successfully. When asked about
the organization and function of the staff, Dr.S, the program director said,

“We all like have a different emphasis area here based on the notion that

we have a very small staff, and so small staffs mean that we have to come

together, the one thing that I looked for in staff members when I hired

them were people who one, thought outside the box, who were creative,

who were highly motivated , and who were able to think on their feet and

on their own.”

This suggests that program staff saw themselves as part of a team that came
together to collectively implement the program and accomplish task as they emerged. In
addition to working collaboratively, staff members reported also being designated certain
components to work on individually. Martin, the assistant program director, responded,
“We have probably in the last eight years broken the program down in components and
so everybody is in charge of a component...” He goes on to say,

“Well everybody has a different aspect. Joanne is the idealist, she has

many great ideas, delusions of grandeur in some places, um Dr.S is the

person that looks at some of the studies and some of the current trends, me

I’m the devil’s advocate, Sam tends to be pretty creative and we all sit

down and try to hash things out.”

Staff members were asked directly about how, given their role in the program

they personally worked to transfer goals and objectives to students. The responses

included sharing personal stories with students in an effort to establish a trust and

81

connections, and memorizing student names so that they felt cared for and understood.
Sonia said,

“I wasn’t ashamed, I wasn’t afraid to say you know my mom was on

welfare, my mom was on food stamps, at the time as a kid I was

embarrassed by it you know that as a kid you know what I mean you don’t
understand that until you are a lot older. And so I found it very easy for

me to talk about it. You know my father left, so you know I felt that it was

very easy for me to tell my story, and I felt like when I told my story, that

made the kids comfortable enough to say well this is what I’ve been

through as opposed to not talking to anybody or feeling like they couldn’t

speak to anybody and that’s what I did.”

Sonia’s use of sharing her life experiences is similar to what Gill(2000) calls life
histories. According to the literature on educating and teaching students of color, this
would be considered a culturally responsive practice. Anderson (1988), discussed the use
of shared narratives in facilitating achievement for African American students in the
segregated south. Life histories, whether spoken or written, are helpful because they
contain not only reﬂections on educational experiences, but also indications of the
cultural context in which learning and teaching take place (Leavitt, 1994). Although,
TTD is not a traditional school setting or classroom, it seems that this type of shared story
telling is consistent with Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory of learning in that we
are able to see through Sonia’s use of shared stories, a way in which meaning is
constructed around building trust and communal relationships. Further, in regards to how
he personally tried to accomplish the goal of building relationships with the students,
Martin said,

“I memorize all the kids name, know something personal about them, ﬁnd

out things that they’re interested in and try to link them up with other
people who have similar interests. I just want them to know that nobody

82

makes it alone. Everybody needs some help, everybody needs some
support.”

His notion of connecting students to a support network speaks to the extent to
which TTD in practice was more of a communal setting. This concept will be discussed
later in relation to the goal of creating a family based setting. It is important to note, that
in addition to seeing this as a major goal and objective in and of itself, family
connectedness was a vehicle and framework through which staff members worked to
carry out other programmatic goals and objectives. The creation of a family based setting
was only introduced in interviews and conversations with staff and although central, was
not indicated in written materials and program artifacts.

In addition to discussing their roles in enacting goals and objectives, staff
members also described the population of students they served in relation to what they
felt their primary needs were. These needs were exposure to campus life, more attention,
developing communication and public speaking skills, as well as writing skills. Staff
reported that they had observed many of the students entering into the program not being
academically prepared to make plans to attend college and be successful academically.
Speciﬁcally, Dr.S said, “The issue was we were seeing students coming in who were not
academically prepared. Staff recognizing and acknowledging the needs of students and
seeing as a primary goal to expose to them to college life intersected with the program
documents and artifacts. The written material put forth the exposure to college as one of
the primary goals.

One of the things is I recognized was that they were coming in with very little
skill and exposure to college.” Sonia further states, “Academics, well I think a lot of

times these students need tutoring they need the extra time, they need the extra attention.”

83

While the needs of students are discussed in relationship to the areas where they are
lacking, Martin, contends that the reason the TT D program is so important is that it
targets youth who are “middle of the road”, students who are not on the furthest end of
the spectrum, but not completely where they should be. She felt that TTD helped to
provide services to students who were not high performers, but those who would be
considered average. This is consistent with not only the demographic description of
students attending academic outreach programs as discussed by Tierney (2004), but also
what their primary needs are. According to Tiemey’s theory, these programs work as
academic triages, primarily tending to the needs of African American and Latino students
who despite their average abilities, still lack necessary skills, attention, and resources to
be successful.
Discussion of Goals

The ﬁrst goal of TTD discussed by staff is to expose students to aspects of college
life and provide them with opportunities to explore what is possible through a college
education. In many ways they felt this was the most signiﬁcant goal of the program.
When asked speciﬁcally what he considered to be the most important goal of TTD,
Martin responded by saying, “In my view the biggest goal that we accomplish is we
expose kids to post secondary education. I mean that’s the biggest thing.” Given that
many of the students served do not have family members or parents who have attended
college, staff saw as a primary goal for the program to stand in the gap and provide
experiences that mirror what it would be like to be a college student. Dr.S said,

“What we’re designed to do is to assist students to look at the

opportunities that are available through a college education. And so our
primary role is to provide students the opportunities to see role models,

84

visit campus, through talking, through motivational exercises, helps
students to realize what is out there and what is available.”

Not only was this goal consistent with the program artifacts, but staff members
seemed to see this as a central and guiding focus of the work they engage in with the
program. Staff members saw this as a mechanism by which students who wouldn’t
normally have a chance to experience college ﬁrst hand, could have a simulated college
experience.

Another primary goal of TTD as articulated by the staff was working to instill
conﬁdence in students by having high expectations for their success. Members of the
staff felt that it was a necessary and critical element of their work was to make sure that
students in the program understood that they were capable of not only academic
achievement, but also of obtaining a post-secondary education. In order to help students
to understand this, they themselves had high expectations of the students and made that
known whenever possible. They especially wanted students to understand that they as
individuals had something to contribute to both their communities and to the larger
society. They held high expectations for students’ success. While high expectations for
success were not a formal piece of the program curriculum, it was implemented explicitly
through program staff’ 3 speeches, activities, and interactions with the students.
Ultimately, high expectations of students were inherently a part of the program’s culture.
Sonia said,

“...whether it’s rising stars, whether it’s visitation, or outreach, whatever

it is, we push so hard that idea that yes you can go to college and we don’t

just say it we do it, like you know all of our focuses for Saturday

programs, whether it’s academics, time management, learning skills, we’re
showing you how to do it.”

85

These types of expectations are similar to the culturally responsive pedagogy as
discussed by (Irvine and Annento, 2001; Gay, 2000; Heath, 1983;Ladson-Billings, 1994;
Rist, 1971; Villegas and Lucas, 2002). Effective and consistent communication of high
expectation helps students develop a healthy self-concept (Rist, 1970). It also provides
the structure for intrinsic motivation and fosters an environment in which the student can
be successful. Ladson-Billings (1994) asserts that this type of culturally responsive
practice is especially signiﬁcant for African American students. She states, “When
students are treated as competent, they are likely to demonstrate competence. Culturally
responsive teaching methods do not suggest to students that they are incapable of
learning. (p. 123)” This type of philosophy concerning the ways in which we educate and
interact with youth is central to the practice of afﬁrming and validating who they are.
This point is further explicated in the following response from Martin,

“I believe that everybody has gifts and I think a lot of people don’t focus

on that. They don’t give themselves credit. One of the things that we used

to say when I ﬁrst started is we take kids from where they’re at and we try

to elevate them to where we want them to be. You need somebody to help

you understand that and help you ﬁnd out what your gift and your talent

rs.

Martin is emphasizing here not only that children have talents that are beneﬁcial,
but that he sees as a task of the program staff to push students toward acknowledging
those gifts in order to help them accomplish goals.

Along with having high expectations for student’s success, program staff also saw

as a central goal of TTD to aid students in thinking about their cultural identity. The ﬁrst

perspective dealt with helping students to understand their self worth, particularly in

86

relation to the history and heritage of other African American ﬁgures. When asked how
they speciﬁcally tried to develop positive cultural identities in students, Dr.S responded,

“Cultural day always stands out for me because it gives me an opportunity to

teach children about the rich heritage that they have. Even if they’re in foster

care, there’s a lil something about them that makes them special and so we get

an opportunity to talk about that. We also get an opportunity to talk about a

sense of history, if they’re not getting it at home or wherever they might live

we’re giving them that at that point.”

Dr.S references a Saturday that is set aside during Rising Stars to focus on aspects
of culture by celebrating the accomplishments and achievements of local and national
people of color and to highlight the history of African American, Hispanic, and Native
American cultures. As highlighted previously in the program artifacts, theistaff engaged
in practices and plan activities that were aimed at enhancing the cultural knowledge and
perspective of student participants and even more so their self worth. Martin corroborates
this when he said, “We really spend a lot of time especially over the summer trying to get
them on a positive note and getting them to realize what they’re going to be up against as
they get older. So we talk about how you gotta be yourself. I try to get kids to understand
their worth.”

Taking this notion a step further, Dr. S, speaks of staff’s need to prepare students to
be the next generation of leaders for the black community. Although the program
provided services to Mexican and Native American, Dr. S was African American and
often spoke from that cultural perspective. This does not however narrow the focus of
TTD to an African American focus. She said, “it’s about my belief in these students to

know that yes however we cook the cookie, you are the next generation and I’m not

going to be here forever...”

87

A fourth goal of TTD as expressed by program staff was to create a family oriented
space within the program and among participants. They report doing this by creating a
sense of inclusion, social responsibility, networking, and shared experiences among all
participating members. Staff members were asked about their general feelings about the
notion of the TTD family and their responses revealed not only how they conceptualized
this element, but also how they attempted to build and maintain this as a central function
of the program. Martin revealed that he originally initiated this concept of family based
on his own personal experiences and felt that it would be a signiﬁcant concept in order to
build relationships and set the tone among staff and participants.

“Yeah. I made it that way. I’m the one who came up with that idea. The
reason why is kind of like my own personal thing. I was raised by my
mom and I have a sister and she taught us that you know you meet a lot of
people in your travels but you only have one family and family is not
necessarily blood relatives, I mean that is your family but not necessarily,
so family more or less comes down to who you choose and who has your
back and with our staff I always tried to push that in terms of staff
training, get people together and it would improve the way that they dealt
with the kids and so after that we just kind of pushed it on down to the
kids and it has caught on.”

Martin’s concept of family resonates with deﬁnitions and ideas of “ﬁctive kinship”
discussed by researchers across multiple disciplines. Ebaugh and Currey (2000) deﬁne
ﬁctive kinship as relationships that are based not on blood ties, but rather religious ritual
or close friendships. Fordham and Ogbu (1986), discussed this concept in relation to
African American students deciding not to engage academically in an attempt to maintain
ties to a ﬁctive kinship with other African American peers, and also to avoid acting

white. Unlike Ogbu and Fordham who suggest that ﬁctive kinship leads to a collective

identity that can negatively impact schooling outcomes of children of color, the responses

88

of staff members suggest that they are facilitating these connections as a social network
to support and encourage academic achievement. In discussing how the notion of family
is signiﬁcant, Martin goes on to say,

“I think ﬁrst and foremost, the biggest thing that they need is to know that

somebody cares, and that’s where I think our success lies. You know I

think we need to ﬁnd a way to bottle that because I think that’ 5 why most

of these people come, they feel included and like we care. It’s almost like

a group mentality like oh I’m apart of this. We give these kids a

membership card which has absolutely no value and they carry these cards

with them every where they go.” '

This response speaks to not only how and why a sense of family within this context is
signiﬁcant but how the program is utilizing membership cards as a way to transfer
connectedness to the participants. Sonia also gives an example of how the staff work to
build this type of community when she states, “I think here with TTD this is what we do,
you know our job is to bond and connect with these kids even if it has to be on an
individual basis, you know we will make the time, this is what we do.” This evidence
shows that within TTD, staff are working to develop social connections with students by
making efforts to engage with them on a more personal and individual level and see this
as an essential component of the work they do within the program. Dr.S. when describing
her take on what family meant for TTD, supported this view and pointed to how students
and participants respond to this element. She commented,

“The camaraderie that we have not just among the staff but among the
participants and the staff’s enthusiasm as they give back to these students,
and I think students feel like the staff really cares about them and they see
them as individuals not just a group of students, but they see them as

individuals, and I think students get that and I think that’s what keeps
them coming back.”

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In connecting the concept of family and it’s significance to the historical
experiences of African Americans, Dr.S also explains through a very poignant example
of how creating the sense of kinship and extended family ties has been prevalent and
signiﬁcant for African Americans, due to the need to survive socially. She said,

“You know a long time ago we weren’t even allowed to read, there’s a

wonderful Disney picture called Night John, it was about a slave that was

brought to the plantation and it really showed how a little slave girl

Ieamed how to read. Do you know when they found out she Ieamed how

to read they sent her to another plantation? But Night John had taught her

how to do it and he lost his ﬁngers. You could get hung or get your ﬁngers

chopped off , or be sent away, and that’s why we have that long tradition

of calling each other auntie, cousin, we never knew who they were, but

you developed a family type structure in that cabin.”

Although this comment emerged from a discussion. on the concept of family in TTD,
it can also serve as evidence of the previously articulated goal of helping students to think
about their cultural identity, by acknowledging the history and experiences of people of
color. From this comment we are able to see what frames of reference this staff member
may be using to one, make sense of program goals, and two to create relevant activities.

Overall, staff discussed four goals that they saw to be primary as well as ways that
they personally tried to carry out these goals. These processes included exposing youth to
the college experience, instilling conﬁdence in students via high expectations for success,
assisting students with developing positive cultural identities, and creating a family
oriented environment and building a network among program participants.

Program Weaknesses
In addition to staff discussing their roles, the needs of the student participants and

program goals, they also highlighted areas where they considered the program to be weak

and needed improvement. Two areas were reported by staff members as places were TTD

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could improve; attitudes of staff and activity topics. In terms of attitudes of the staff, both
Martin and Sonia indicated that there could be some improvements in the ways that staff
members, particularly student staff members carried out their tasks. Sonia stated,

“Well I know that one thing is for sure as far as stafﬁng with TTD, we

tend to get very comfortable, and there have been people who have

worked for us as far as student staff that are very comfortable with the job

because yes they’re working with kids and yes all they have to do is
interact with them but then they kind of just sit around.”

Martin responded similarly when he said, “In terms of staff , yeah we could
improve on our staff. We’ve got an excellent group of people, I call it my biggest
dysfunctional family. But, I think sometimes people forget why we’re here.” He too was
refening to student staff members whose primary purpose in the program was to interact
with participants and facilitate breakout session during Saturday workshops. Their role as
observed will be discussed in further detail in the next section. We also see in Martin’s
comment that, even when discussing improvements of the program, staff make reference
to the family oriented space of which he sees all of them as member. In relation to topic
subject and content, staff members reported that they felt some of the topics used were
either outdated or not appropriate for the population of students they served. Sonia
commented,

“Yeah you know a lot of the topics that we do are kind of old, or they’re

outdated and they need to be updated, and we talk about that a lot, but we

never do it. The kids I know get bored 3 lot of the times when they’re like
didn’t we do this last year, didn’t we do that? So you know again in order

to maintain that quality as a program I think we need to update a lot of our

topics.”

The analysis of this comment revealed that this particular staff member, whose

role is to coordinate program activity, not only points to limitations in the topics chosen

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but also recognizes this as being a measure of quality in program functioning. Martin also
discusses weaknesses in the topics and content. However, he addressed the
appropriateness of topics for the population of students who attend the program. He
contended that program topics are not substantive enough and that the ability of students
to interpret certain types of information has been underestimated by the staff. To be sure,
he stated,

“I would change a lot of the programs that we do for Rising Stars because

sometimes we give them a little more ﬂuff and I tell them all the time do

not underestimate these kids. I think we even underestimate our kids

sometimes so we give them this remedial stuff when we could be taking

them to a whole other level.”

It is also important to note that while not mentioned by the other two staff
members, one staff member also pointed to a desire to increase the frequency of Saturday
workshops during the month as a way to reinforce ideas that are transferred to the
students. She indicated that given more funding, she would deﬁnitely increase the
monthly workshops and have two per month as opposed to one.

PROGRAM AS OBSERVED

The previous section discussed ﬁndings about the nature of program functioning
and goals and objectives as articulated by staff members. This section will examine and
highlight ﬁndings along this same continuum utilizing ﬁeld notes of program activity that
depict the program from an outsiders (me the researcher) view. Observing seven months
of TTD’s Rising Stars component (7 Saturday Workshops), provided an opportunity to
examine in more detail the roles played by staff members and general function of this

part of the program. This section will begin with a description of typical Saturday

Workshop activities. Next, the roles of program staff during this activity will be

92

illuminated. Lastly, there will be a discussion on the major goals that were enacted. There
were four different elements regarding program goals and function that were observed.
These elements included, staff members focus on encouraging students to be community
advocates and getting them to understand the nature of activism; helping students to
understand who they were culturally, conveying to students their high expectations for
their success, and reinforcing the use of family as a method for creating connectedness
among participants. An emergent element only observed during Saturday workshops was
the promotion of activism and advocacy as it relates to ﬁghting injustice.
Saturday Workshops: An Overview

Each Saturday began at approximately 8:30 am. students and parents ﬁled into to
the lobby where they signed in, providing the program with attendance documentation to
keep on ﬁle. Sonia and student mentors worked at the sign-in desk. The area around the
sign-in desk often was the area where students would talk and congregate with friends
and peers that they may have not seen since the last workshop, and parents also gathered
in this area to network and talk with other parents. Here is often where parents learned
about other programs for their children or about various events and supports in the
community. This informal networking was a staple of every Saturday workshop and all of
the parents seemed to enjoy this social interaction. Some parents dropped their students
off while most remained for the entire workshop. It is important to note that not all
students were escorted to the program by parents, some were brought by teachers and
foster parents or on buses by other members of the community or program staff from

organizations such as 4H and the Boys and Girls Club.

93

After signing in participants were then directed to the continental breakfast table
and from there into the auditorium for the large group session. The large group session
usually began somewhere between 9:00 and 9: 15 am. Six of the seven large group
sessions were facilitated by Dr. S. She would give the opening remarks and try to get the
students and parents interested and involved with lively and interactive conversation. She
would also say in a very loud voice, “wake it up”. DJ, one of the focal students described
this as her “being passionate”. Dr. S took care of what she called “housekeeping” and
this typically included reminding students and parents of new resources (scholarships,
other university programs, organizations) that had been made available, announcing
accomplishments and achievements of students, making sure everyone had signed in, and
introducing the topic and any guest speakers for the day.

At ﬁve out of seven workshops observed, guest speakers were brought in to
address the topic of the day. These speakers were community activists, (from the
Mexican, Native and African American communities), a government ofﬁcial, and
university administrators. The government ofﬁcial spoke about issues related to
scholarships and state’s effort to make sure that universities and colleges around the state
were representative of all populations and how they were committed to providing as
much support as possible. University administrators spoke about the efforts happening at
the university where the program was hosted and gave students and parents tips on the
admissions process and programs that they could get involved in around campus. Student
activist groups such as the NAACP youth division and university’s Latino student
organization came during the Tribute to Rosa Parks Workshop and Cultural Day

Workshop and spoke about issues of preserving heritage and becoming active in the ﬁght

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for justice. One guest speaker from the state police also came and spoke to the group
about intemet crimes. He advised both students and parents about the dangers of not
being cautious on the intemet and offered resources for them to utilize in putting
safeguards in place. After “housekeeping” tasks had been completed and guest speakers
spoke, JoMack, one of the program coordinators, would give a 15-20 rrrinute overview of
what participants would be focusing on in breakout sessions. Student mentors were called
to the front of the auditorium and students would be informed of who to line up with
based on their grade. The ﬁrst workshop was broken into ﬁve sessions; 6th and 7th
graders, 8th and 9Lb graders, 10th and 11th graders, 11th and 12th graders, and parents. The
remaining six workshOps combined the high school grades into one session which
resulted in a total of four sessions. On average there were approximately 50 to 60
students and 25-30 parents in each breakout session. There were always two student
mentors assigned to each session.

Each group would go to their respective rooms and student facilitators would
implement the planned activity with their respective groups. An example of one activity
was the creation of Coat of Arms where students had to create their own individual coat
of arms that represented who they were. Student mentors then gave students the
opportunity to present them to the group. Another breakout activity involved students
ﬁlling out a learning style questionnaire to determine what type of learner they were and
how to formulate study habits based on that information. During the Career Day
workshop students were given thirty minutes in the computer lab to search for careers
they were interested in and then student mentors facilitated conversation around careers

they found on the intemet and what plans they would have to make in choosing those

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particular career paths. During breakout sessions, most students were often disengaged
and student mentors spent most of this time attempting to manage behavior. I mentioned
this unit of observation in order to provide a comprehensive and authentic view of the
social context that made of the Saturday workshops. Parents used time in their sessions to
network and talk with each other about resources and new information they had gathered
relating to scholarships and college. This session was always facilitated by Dr. S and Dr.
Taylor (a university faculty member who worked closely with the program). Saturday
workshops concluded as each session was released in intervals for lunch. Program staff,
students, parents, community members, and guest speakers also used lunch time as an
opportunity to network.
Staff Roles Enacted

Field notes of program activity indicated the active role of staff members. Staff
members’ activity was coded and revealed four major categories of engagement. The ﬁrst
category was speaking and included instances were staff members served as speakers to
the large group (students, parents, student mentors, guests) in the auditorium where
participants convened. The second category was interacting and involved all instances
were staff members were observed having conversations or brief exchanges with students
and parents beyond the large group, either on an individual level or small group (2 or 3).
A third category was managing and referred to all occurrences where staff members were
engaged in actions that involved the identiﬁcation of issues and problems and ﬁnding
solutions. This consisted of reprimanding students, getting students and parents signed in,
handling emergent issues with facility staff (meal tickets, unlocking breakout session

rooms, directing student mentors, making copies of program materials, etc.). The fourth

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category, supporting was mainly limited to student mentors and involved all interactions
that occurred during break-out sessions. This included asking questions, providing one on
one help with projects and assignments, and answering student questions.

In regards to the roles that staff members played in the implementation of
Saturday Workshops, Dr. S primarily served in the speaker capacity and worked mostly
with the parents. She also had many informal interactions with students during sign-in
time and lunch. Sonia organized the sign-in materials and managed student mentors.
Most of their questions and concerns were addressed to her. Martin was involved in all
aspects of the implementation. He spent a majority of his time on Saturdays interacting
with the students and parents. As he articulated himself, he wanted to get to know all of
the participants on an individual level and make them feel like a valuable part of the
program and to let them know that they cared. Martin was observed on several different
occasions doing this. On one particular occasion Martin came into the 6'h and 7th grade
breakout session and set at the table with a group of boys and spent about twenty minutes
asking them about what they wanted to be when they grew up, where they went to school,
their brothers and sisters, what sports they like, among other things.

Student mentors also played a major role in the implementation of the workshops.
They were all undergraduate students attending the university where the program was
hosted. There were a total of nine mentors, four males and ﬁve females. Seven were
African American, one was White, and one was Native American. They were responsible
for facilitating break out sessions and establishing relationships with and being role

models to the students. They helped with various other tasks during the workshops and a

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couple of them did power point presentations in the large group session on the legacy of
Native Americans and being conﬁdent about who you are.
Goals Enacted

In addition to general implementation components of the Saturday workshops,
four main goals were observed being enacted. Three goals were articulated by staff:
creating family connectedness, promoting high expectations for success, and developing
positive cultural identity. The fourth goal, activism and advocacy was apparent only in
the implementation and practice of the workshops.
Family Connectedness

Across program activities and interactions with students, there was a salient theme
of “We are family.” In addition to it being a staple slogan of the annual t-shirt design,
“(Continuing the Family Legacy)” and program artifacts, it was also enacted within the
context of the Saturday Workshops. This enactment was not part of speciﬁc activities, but
did emerge within staff statements to students. During the kick-off workshop of the year
the project director said, “TTD is you and without you there is no TTD” There was
something very tangible and beneﬁcial in the creation of “we” versus me in creating
connectedness among this group. The staff understood that many of the students served
by this program came from backgrounds where positive support may have been minimal,
and therefore they worked toward creating an environment that promoted unity and
togetherness. One program staff member said, “Who’s going to show you love? I will.”
This type of language alluded to a sense of trust and reassurance that all participants
(staff, students, and parents) would look out for the best interest of the group.

Additionally, it promoted a context of connectedness and shared ideology concerning the

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goals and objectives. All members of the “family” understood the goals TTD was
attempting to accomplish and shared their commitment to achieving the desired end.
During a presentation about academic achievement, a female youth mentor of the
program stated, “Take responsibility and know that there are always people looking up to
you.” This notion of social responsibility builds a foundation for participants feeling a
part of an effort beyond themselves. This type of accountability has the potential to make
students more aware and conscious of the decisions that they make, both academically
and socially. When asked informally during a workshop about what it meant to a be a

TTD participant, the program coordinator responded,

“I look at these kids and I think to myself , I wish I had been TTD, I wish I

could go back and say I’m T’TD alumni and I’m working for the program

now you know but a lot...I think it’s a lot of responsibility, because as a

TTD participant I don’t think they want to let TTD down.”

From this statement, we not only see that there may be a shared sense of
responsibility and accountability, there is also evidence of a certain connection around
what it means to be a member of T'TD. Therefore, membership serves as source of
bonding and unity among the students.

A key indicator of the creation of connectedness within this program is the use of
“we”. Program staff consistently used the term “we” in their language when they
addressed parents and students. During a Saturday workshop, titled, ‘Celebrating our
Victory’ [a celebration for receiving more operational funding for the year], one of the
program advisors shouted, “Are we going to make it? Yes we are!”. Written on the
auditorium white board were huge letters that read “We are TTD”. Within this context

the word ‘we’ takes on a more substantive and active form and serves as a source of

group connectedness. There was a sense of collective struggle, collective achievement,

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and collective concern. If one student in the program received a scholarship, Dr. S. would
announce to the group as “we have another scholarship folks” and then proceed to say the
name of the student who received it. A sense of “we” held more credence in this
environment that “me” or “”1.

Positive Cultural Identity

While the notion of family connectedness was a hallmark of TTD, one of the most
prominent elements of program practice was the cultivation of a positive sense of self as
African Americans, and students of color. Not only was this weaved throughout the
various elements of practice such as the recognition of accomplishments, or bringing in
prominent African American speakers from the local community , but an entire Saturday
workshop, titled “Cultural Day”, was used to facilitate understanding around issues of
culture and identity. It is important to note that this workshop took place immediately
following the deaths of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, so there were many
references made to “knowing who you are” in relation to the accomplishments of these
notable African American ﬁgures. The primary activities were directed toward helping
students acquire a positive cultural self concept.

One activity involved the creation of the Coat of Arms. During a breakout
session, students were asked to create a coat of arms as a symbol to serve as a
representation of who they were. Drawn on the white board was a shield divided into six
sections and each section had a label, Favorite Game or Sport, Dream Job, Three Wishes,
Favorite Food, Ethnicity, Favorite School Subject. Each student in the session was given
a blank sheet of 11x14 paper, pencils, and markers and told to create their own personal

coat of arms. One of the female program mentors explained the activity to the group and

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said that a long time ago when families and cities went to war with one another they
would use the coat of arms to let their opponents know who they were ﬁghting. “This
[coat of ] arms should represent who you are so that without you saying anything people
know immediately who you are.” She went on to say it should also be something that you
“wear with great pride.” The purpose of this activity was to get students thinking not
only about who they were in terms of interests and likes, but to also be proud of the
characteristics that made them unique including their ethnicity.

The second activity was a tribute to Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. The
keynote speaker (university administrator), during this workshop continually pointed to
the need for students to identify with great leaders of their community and to know that
they too could impact their community. He said,

“With the passing of these great women, the chapter of the civil rights era

is coming to a close, but it ain’t over, cause I know you all have the same

ability that they had. . .so stand up and get going.”

The project director reinforces this point when she says, “You are next after
Martin Luther King, Caesar Chavez, and others. We need you future leaders today.” So
through these statements staff members attempted to go beyond providing positive
cultural models of success and invoke a sense of pride that the students too possess the
same positive qualities that should be acknowledged and valued. One male student
mentor told his ninth grade breakout session, “Value yourselves and what you do.”
Another female student mentor in her breakout session gave her eighth graders the three
A’s; Assure: Be Conﬁdent in Yourself and what you have to offer, Alert: Don’t be afraid
to Let Others know about it, Activate: Voice yourself through speeches, boycotts, and

letters. According to Youniss (2002), identity is a social and collective process, which

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brings order to an individual's life and enables them to experience themselves as a part of
something bigger. Identity allows different levels of transcendence and an experience of
connectedness to local groups, life style patterns, movements, religions, and countries
(Youniss, 2002). Many of the TTD’s program ideas and activities were consistent with
this conceptualization for thinking about developing positive sense identity, particularly
around cultural elements. As shown, the elements of these two activities point to the
program’s effort to incorporate into their curriculum a mechanism that develops positive
cultural identity among the students.
High Expectations of Success

Just as students were developing positive cultural identities through learning
about the successes of other African American models, the program also relayed through
their practices high expectations of success. While high expectations for success were not
a formal piece of the program curriculum, it was rather implemented explicitly through
program staff’s speeches, activities, and interactions with the students. In an interview
the program director said,

“If I represent maybe a structure that they may not have at home that is

wonderful but the thing that I always try and tell students, I try not to get

down too hard on them but sometimes you just have to be really blunt with

students like this is my house and there are rules and expectations in my

house.”

Here, the project director is voiced how she attempted to run the program and
further how she gets students to understand that in TTD, there will be certain
expectations. She opened one of the Saturday workshops by asking the group “What are

we about”? A young boy (who looked to be a 5th or 6th grader) stood up and said “We

are about learning and going to college.” This notion of knowing “what we are about” is

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connected not only to students striving toward success but also staff attempting to
cultivate a sense of identity around college attainment and learning. A female guest
speaker (state ofﬁcial) who works closely with the program, during the large group
session of the same workshop said to the group,

“You are here because you are our future and we are here because we

want you to be ready” She looks out at the group and she says, “There is

greatness in this room, If you know where it is, stand”.

During this exchange boys and girls began to stand all over the auditorium, when
she asked again, “Where is it?” All of students shouted, “In us!” This type of dialogue
and interaction was a staple of all seven workshops. While the students were standing she
went on to have them repeat, “If I believe, I can achieve!” Staff tried to reiterate to the
students and the parents that they were already equipped with the necessary qualities to
be great and do great things. It is important to note that within this context the term
“great” can be equated to college attainment as the primary goal of this program is to get
students on track for post secondary education. The idea that greatness was something
that the students inherently have, transfers the staff” s expectations of what they can do
and may be helping the students feel conﬁdent about what they are capable of. Martin,
the assistant program director, in his talk with students about their abilities during the
Technology workshop said, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you won’t succeed, there will
be challenges, but we all have it in us to overcome them and continue on our path.”

As noted previously, this concept of high expectations is similar to what Hilliard ( 2003),
Delpit (1995), and Ladson Billings 1994) all highlight as culturally responsive pedagogy.

To be sure, this type of practice can be beneﬁcial for all students, but it speciﬁcally helps

to dismantle the idea that some students because of their race, class, or cultural

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background are destined to fail. African American students may be particularly aided by
having a counter narrative that supports their success as opposed to highlighting their

failures.

Because of high expectations of greatness and success there is a collective goal
among members of TTD to strive toward fulﬁlling their potential. Evidence of this
construct can also be seen in one of the staff member's announcement of the program’s
book reading competition. She says, “There will be a prize for all of you who can read
ten books by May. Think you can do that? I know you can”. Again, this is an example of
the staff’s belief in what the students can do.

High expectations were also seen through the programmatic practice of
recognizing accomplishments. This was a consistent agenda item at every Saturday
Workshop. During one session, the project director reminded the students to bring in all
of their awards so that they could be recognized. She told them that nothing was too
small and because they had high expectations of all their students, she would expect to
see a lot of different accomplishments. All of these practices and interactions support the
assertion that this program cultivates a culture of high expectations for its students
thereby giving afﬁrmation of who they are and what they are capable of us as students.
Activism

Practices related to promoting activism among TTD participants were observed in
at least three Saturday workshops. Program staff and guest speakers emphasized to both
students and parents the need for their involvement making changes in their communities
and the importance of them making their voices heard. During the kick-off workshop

youth members of the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

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(NAACP) came and spoke to the students. They provided a history of the organization
and encouraged both parents and students to become members. During their talk with the
group that highlighted the work of Ida B. Wells and Sojourner Truth, both activist in the
struggle for human and civil rights. One of the speakers, said to the group, “ Rosa Parks
sat down so that all of us could sit down, and that’s what activism is all about, putting in
the work so that everyone can prosper.” The TTD staff and participants applauded this
comment. Another guest speaker from the state department of Economic Labor, in her
speech to the group said, “Now that she’s [Rosa Parks] is gone, who will take up the
charge?” This was a challenge that this speaker, who had substantial contact with the
program and had spent years working with the program informally, was making to the
students. In another workshop, a Native American student mentor gave a presentation on
the history of Native Americans and their struggle for land and recognition in American
society. This was another instance of the program’s efforts to one, develop a positive
sense of cultural identity among its’ participants, and two to inspire them to be active
around issues that were relevant to them.

Three guest speakers during the tribute to Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King
addressed three different questions (also stipulated in the workshop program): (1) Can we
make a difference in the community, (2) can I stand up for what I believe, and (3) what is
a leader? Each speaker posed these questions to the large group and spoke about issues
related to the history of civil rights, the war in Iraq, and current afﬁrmative action
policies. During this same workshop, Dr.S, read aloud a famous statement by Martin

Niemoeller, titled “Thoughts to Ponder” that was also printed on the workshop agenda

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‘In Germany, the Nazis ﬁrst came for the communists, and I didn’t speak

up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I

didn’t speak up because I wasn’t Jewish. Then they came for the trade

unionist, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then

they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was

Protestant. Then they came for the homosexuals, and I didn’t speak up

because I wasn’t homosexual. Then they came for me, and by that time

there was not one left to speak for me.”

She went on to emphasize to the group the importance of them using their voices
to “not be afraid to speak out” when they witnessed something that wasn’t in the best
interests of themselves or their communities. All of the previous comments and ideas
articulated by the staff and others, was evidence of the programs’ push to get students to
think about the signiﬁcance of advocacy and activism. This is similar to Singer and
Shangoury (2005) discussion on the ways that students of diverse backgrounds are
encouraged to ask critical questions, be informed about social injustice, support one
another, and to work toward positive social change. This notion is also illuminated by
Freire (1993) and Morrell (2002) in their discussion of teaching youth to be critical
thinkers and challenge ideas and institutions that work to keep oppress some while
elevating others.

Summary

To address the research question concerning the goals and objectives of the
program as well as its’ structure and function, an analyses of program artifacts, focal
interviews with staff, and ﬁeld notes from program activity yielded data on the nature of
the program as written, as articulated, and as observed. Program artifacts revealed that the
primary goal of TTD was to prepare students for enrollment in post-secondary education

by providing them with exposure to and information on the college admissions process,

ﬁnancial aid and other pertinent resources. In alignment with the program artifacts, staff

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expressed that the goals and function of the program were centered around exposure to
the college and university system through campus visits and exposure to college life.
However, in addition to this goal, staff members emphasized three additional goals; to
promote high expectations for student success, to assist students in developing a positive
cultural identities, and to build a family oriented space. Staff members also expressed
ways that they personally tried to transfer these goals and the roles they played in the
program in general. Data collected from observing program activity revealed more
detailed information about how the nature of program activity (Saturday Workshops), the
roles played by staff and most importantly areas and topics that were most frequently
promoted. Field notes revealed that consistent with elements articulated by staff, creating
a family oriented space, promoting high expectations of students, and developing positive
cultural identity among participants were focal goals of TTD. As observed, promoting
activism and advocacy among participants was also a central theme. This theme emerged
only in the observation of program activities and was not present in the program’s written
documentation or in interviews with staff members.

The purpose of this chapter was to provide an overview of goals and objectives as
well as general descriptive information on the structure and function of T'TD, so that the
forthcoming discussion on student perspectives can be situated and put into context. The
next chapter will focus on student views of their participation in TTD and how they made
sense of the goals and objectives mentioned above as well other programmatic elements.
In this chapter we will see how the four focal students responded to goals and objectives
and various practices in the program. They will speak to the ways the program has helped

them to think about who they are culturally, the meaning of family connectedness, the

107

acquisition of academic skills, the signiﬁcance of African American achievement,

planning for the future, high expectations for their success.

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CHAPTER FIVE
THEIR VOICES

“It makes me feel good that everyone there is trying to reach their goals and reach where
they can be and reach places where they never thought they could reach before because
of where they were raised.” ~Charles, Student Interview #2, Fall 2006

In the previous chapter, the goals of the TTD program and as the nature of
program activities were discussed. Using the previous analysis as a frame, this chapter
will discuss student perspectives in relation to their experiences in and with the program.
Student perspectives about their experiences in the program were examined to shed light
on the ways the program was inﬂuences their academic and social development. It
addresses the research questions of (1) What are student’s general perspectives of the
program and (2) how do students see the program as contributing to their academic and
social development? The ﬁrst section provides a conceptual deﬁnition of academic and
social development. The remaining sections present assertions from analysis of student
perspectives. The assertions are related to the general themes of; acquisition of academic
skills, participating in a family oriented space, future academic planning, the
development of positive cultural identities, and responses to programs high expectations.
This chapter will conclude with a summary of all six assertions as expressed by student
views.

Throughout data collection and analysis, particularly during the ﬁrst and second
round of interviews, research questions were reﬁned to go beyond attempting to
understand students likes and dislikes (research question #4) but to examine how they

made sense of the resources and supports that were important to them (research questions

#5 and 6). Further, I wanted to assess how students articulated the ways that the program

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had inﬂuenced or impacted who they were as African American students. As a result, the
analysis of data from student interviews yielded eleven themes; (1) advocacy and
activism, (2) cultural identity, (3) the development of academic skills, (4) society’s
perception of black males, (5) the importance of African American student achievement,
(6) program staff’s high expectations, (7) connectedness to staff as family, (8) leadership,
(9) articulation of adolescents needs, (10) deﬁnitions of success, and (11) future planning.
All of these themes spoke to the ways in which Keith, Jamal, Charles, and Eric voiced
their perspectives on their experience in and with the TTD program. The constant
comparative method was used to analyze all three round of interviews in an effort
determine which themes were more corroborated across all four participants. As a result,
only six emerged as central constructs to understanding and illuminating their voice.
These themes were more consistent and supported by all four boys. Consistency and
salience were determined by both the number of times units of data appeared in
transcripts and the similarity in content throughout. The following table displays these

six themes and with the corresponding assertions that guide this narrative account.

110

Table 3.

Themes and Guiding Assertions

 

 

Theme Assertion
Family Connection: Students expressed a sense of belonging to a
Fictive Kinship family and viewed this as being a signiﬁcant

component of the program for them.
Acquisition of Academic Skills Students pointed to learning academic skills
in the program as being a primary way the
program contributed to their academic lives.
Cultural Identity Development Students saw the program as helping them to

' develop and construct identities related to
their culture and heritage as African
Americans
Students connected their achievement goals to
Signiﬁcance of African American the need to dispel negative stereotypes about

 

 

 

 

Achievement African American
Responses to High Expectations Students responded positively and were
for Success driven by staff high expectations for their
success

 

Future Planning/Goal Setting Students articulated that the program had
helped them to think about their futures and
start preparing for post-secondary education
and possible career paths.

 

 

 

 

The themes of family connection and the acquisition of academic skills themes
will be discussed ﬁrst as they were reported by students as being the components of TTD
that were most signiﬁcant for them. These two themes emerged as more central than the
other four themes because when boys were asked what elements of the program were
important to them, connection to family and learning academic skills were consistently
cited by all four boys. The analysis of ethnic identity development will be highlighted
next as this was one of the most salient ways students expressed who they were in
relation to the program. Signiﬁcance of African American student achievement and

responses to high expectations for success were related to how students thought about

111

their ethnic identity, so they will follow next. It is my interpretive stance that future
planning and goal setting is the culminating outcome present in student experiences in the
program, not only because this is one of the major objectives of the program, but because
this ideology has the potential to transfer longitudinally as students negotiate their
academic lives beyond the program. Therefore, it will be discussed last.
Academic and Social Development

In thinking about how these six constructs represent the academic and social
development of the students, a clear deﬁnition of how I conceptualized them as
academic, social, or both is necessary. Family connectedness in the literature is often
discussed in the ﬁeld of sociology as a social construct. In particular, it is grounded in
work by McAdoo ( 1978), Fordham (1983), and Ogbu’s (1998) research on African
American student and families. This line of research uses the term “ﬁctive kinship” to
describe communal, support networking relationships among non-related African
Americans that exist because of their shared heritage, history, and social experiences.
“Fictive kinship” refers to non blood ties voluntarily instituted by those who share similar
cultural, economic, or geographical boundaries. Despite the social nature of the family
connectedness, this study will discuss this concept as both social and academic because
of how it functions within the context of TTD, an academic enrichment program. The
acquisition of academic skills will clearly be regarded as associated with academic
development as it points to the students learning strategies to assist with accomplishing
academic tasks in school.

Like family connectedness, identity is a term whose meaning is ﬂexible given the

context and social space. However, similar to this study, the concept of ethnic identity

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has often been used in educational research to explain the academic experiences,
academic resistance, and academic incongruence of students of color (Davidson, 1996;
Phelan, Davidson and Yu, 1996; Ogbu, 1987; Fordam, 1996; Spindler and Spindler,
1993). All of the constructs in theory are academically based, while others can be
situated within a more social view. Additionally, the signiﬁcance of African American
student achievement, responses to high expectations, and future planning will all be
operationalized in the forthcoming results, as related to academic development because of
their connection to academic characteristics such as goal orientation and expectancy
effect. it
Family Connection: We are Family

Students expressed a sense of belonging to TTD as a ﬁctive family and viewed
this as being a signiﬁcant component of the program for them. Keith, Jamal, Charles, and
Eric responded to this element of connectedness in similar ways and all pointed to this as
being a primary reason they continue to be involved. When asked what he liked or
enjoyed most about FLP, Jamal pointed to his sense of belongingness and relationships
within this space. He said, “It’s a very family-based setting; they want you to feel
comfortable and they allow you to do that.” When probed further on what speciﬁc things
he was referring to, he said, “Like the speakers they have. They have good things to say
and they present themselves in a way that you think you can connect with them.”
When Charles was asked what he thought the concept of FLP as family meant, he
responded, “I think that it mean that the counselors and teachers, they do a good job of

establishing themselves to the students and helping them out so it’s like one big family,

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how they help each other out.” Charles went on to explain how and why members of FLP
were connected as a group, he said,

“I do like, like when Dr. S gets up, everybody knows her and everybody

likes her a lot and when she’s absent pretty much it’s not the same without

her so I think that we are connected.”

Even though Charles pointed to the physical absence of Dr. S, the program
director, as being an example of how he feels connected, it is important to note that this
also speaks to a sense of bonding that he shares with program staff. This can also be seen
through Keith’s statement, “The family part, it just means that we’re together united.”

He went on to say, “Yeah, it’s important because if people don’t think you’re family, you
don’t need to be there.” Here we see that in addition to Keith’s understanding what it
means to be a part of the FLP family, he also points to it as being a critical requirement
for participation. Charles also indicated in his discussion that if it wasn’t for the “family
atmosphere” it would be harder to understand the staff and it makes him want to “come
back every time.” Sirrrilar to Keith and Charles, Eric also expressed views related to
what his notion of FLP family meant. He said, “I feel good because they treat me like I’m
their own son and they don’t like push me away or like say here you need to take care of
this kid, if they have the time they do it”. When probed further and asked if he thought
this type of connection was important, he said, . .family you know, that helps me out in
school, plus that could probably help me out when I’m trying to go to college and high
school.” This is evidence that connections can be made between what happens socially in
their lives and what happens academically. Having positive social supports in place can

inﬂuence the ways that students engage with and perform in school. Eric corroborated

this point when he articulated,

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“I feel a connection because the staff is very welcoming. They’re trying to

get you to become a part of this family and just the way they have the

program set up they want you to feel a part of a group that you can come

to.”

Students expressed that they felt comfortable knowing that they had a
group of people (the program) that cared for them and would be there for them
when they needed them. It was important to them the program staff made
themselves available and made valuable connections with the students. In Eric’s
words, “They really like talk to you and when they are talking to you it feels like
they are talking to you one on one mainly to you, like it really seeps into you.”

Like Eric, Charles also felt that staff members cared enough to assist them
whenever necessary. In our last interview together he stated, “What I really like
about KCP is I think the staff is really fun and really helpful. I think that, that is
one of the major assets.”

When Charles was asked to elaborate on his feelings about his connection with
the staff he spoke about how helpful they were and attributed that to their having
knowledge about who they (students) were and the goals they were trying to accomplish.
He noted, “A lot of them are helpful and they help each other out because they know
where everybody comes from and what they’re trying to be.” Keith further explicated this
point by noting the signiﬁcance to him when he said, “It’s important because then you
have someone you can talk to that will understand you better and yeah you need to talk to
somebody cause everybody needs to talk to somebody.”

Along with seeing the staff as being concerned and willing to assist, he also

pointed to this as being a substantial component of the program. To be sure, Jamal said,

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“The staff is who basically sets those high expectations and pushes you through when
you do have hard times.” This data served as evidence that these adolescent boys see
TTD as a safe zone and place for them to feel secure and supported when they have
difﬁculties. McLaughlin (2000) contends that academic outreach programs and
community organizations often served as safe havens and places of hope particularly for
at risk students. Students in this study because of their class status and family background
would not be considered students most at risk. However, as seen from their perspectives
they still see TTD as a place of security and support. This distinction is important to
make because it presents an example of middle class African American students having
similar responses to academic programs. Keith spoke to this idea when he said, “They’re
trying to get you to be able to tell them problems, like they want to be able to help you
make it through easier.” This resonates with ﬁndings from Owen’s (2005) case study,
which found that African American adolescents attending Project Hope thought of the
program as a haven and looked to the program as an option to pursue when they found
themselves having academic and social difﬁculties.

In addition to seeing the program enacting and creating a sense of family
connectedness, it is clear that students were perceptive to this type of environment and
pointed to it as being signiﬁcant for them both currently in their immediate experiences
and in the future. Students spoke about the value of TT D being a place where they could
network, and establish ties to a group of people who would assist them and help them
later on. When asked why this was important, Charles responded, “Well because you
need someone who knows how to talk to everybody, the staff knows that and they help

you through it, they’re fun. I think that’s pretty much the groundwork that they lay in

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order to get a good program.” Here Charles particularly identiﬁed the ways that TTD
was a resource and had the capabilities to make connections for their students. He is also
referring to the staff knowledge of the importance of establishing a network upon which
their students can thrive. When Eric was asked a similar question regarding why building
relationships and networking in TTD was important he stated,

“I do think they’re important cause you never know who you’re going to

meet and since I met them now, if I run into them again later on in my life

then I can be like... well you know you might come somewhere and you

don’t know what’s going on and you’re new in the place you will have

someone to ﬁll you in so basically you have a connection.”

Students articulated not only feeling a connection to the TTD

program and thought of them as family, but they also saw this as being a relevant
and tangible beneﬁt to them. Through their voices we can see that the notion of
TTD family was not just a slogan on the back of the program T-shirts or a
message written on the white board at Saturday Workshops, it was a lived
experience. It represented for them a context that extended and broadened their
support system beyond their biological families. They saw the staff members and
other youth in the program as being an extension of their real families. Although
not related they viewed them as an extended family that would help them and be
there when needed.
Acquisition of Academic Skills: Learning to Learn

Students pointed to learning academic skills in the program as being a primary
way the program contributed to their academic lives. The analysis of the interview data

revealed that Keith, Charles, Jamal, and Eric had Ieamed academic strategies such as test-

taking skills, study skills, and behavior management skills during their participation with

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TTD. They not only Ieamed these skills, but speciﬁcally recognized this support to be
significant in helping them perform well academically and in Keith’s words to “make
better grades.” This is evidence that learning took place within this context, and that the
skills that were taught may have been transferred to the classroom. TTD’s efforts to
teach or equip students with academic skills made the notion of preparing for and
performing in school vibrant and relevant to them.

When I speciﬁcally asked Eric how he utilized skills taught in the program he
said, “Like a test. We have those tests and they told us like to go through the whole thing
and read all the questions and I do that, and it helps, it’s better”. Jamal when asked the
same question responded, “Studying, they taught me how to study, what I should be
doing in class, what’s the best thing that I should be doing.” From J amal’s perspective,
the program had taught him how to study effectively so that be retained information and
also how to manage and complete his assignments in class. Jamal and Eric expressed that
the program had helped them to be better students because they felt equipped with skills
like test taking, behavior management, and study skills. The program helped to open up
opportunities to be successful within the classroom and gave them a sense of control and
know-how in relation to completing their school work. These skills in many ways
allowed them to be more conscious, critical, and observant of their own learning styles.
More speciﬁcally, it helped them to identify their strengths and weaknesses as students.
Abdullah (2001) referred to this as students being self-directed learners who take control
of their own learning. In his view, self-directed learners are "responsible owners and
managers of their own learning process (pg. 3)." Such individuals have the skills to

access and process the information they need for a speciﬁc purpose. Self-directed

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learning integrates self-management; management of the context, including social setting,
resources, and actions with the process of self-monitoring whereby learners monitor,
evaluate, and regulate their cognitive learning strategies. In the case of these four boys,
being a self-directed learner was a trait or disposition that they were developing. The
staff at TTD worked to raise the awareness of students' role in their own learning through
the activities and curriculum of the Saturday workshops. This idea was explicated when
Charles told me about a tip that one of the student mentors gave him during one
workshop he had attended. He said she told him,

“You read and take notes you have to learn, like everybody learn in

different ways. There are visual learners, aesthetic learners, and audio

learners. For audio learners you might want to read it and then tape record
yourself and then listen to it over again so you can memorize it or visually

you can do experiments with it.”

Charles went on to give an example of how he felt that he was a visual learner and
this is what made science class easier for him than other students in his class. He thought
of this as his strength as a learner. Keith and Charles discussed how they made a
conscious effort to be active in class so that the teacher would notice they were involved.
He said, “1 think I set a high standard for myself to listen and pay attention.” Along those
same lines Charles stated, “Like I try to like do the work the best I can and try to be
active and participate in class.”

In addition to identifying their own personal learning styles, the acquisition of
learning skills seemed to serve as motivation for them to strive toward academic
achievement and to change the way they viewed learning, particularly for Jamal. When I

asked how the different skills he Ieamed at TTD inﬂuenced him, he responded, “Probably

it’s inﬂuencing me to study even more on the subject instead of just reading or going

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through something really quick just to get a grade. It made me study and learn about it
more. I take stuff more seriously.” Here he articulated the extent to which TTD had
encouraged him to go beyond learning to gain speciﬁc performance outcomes, but to
learn for the sake of learning. During one Saturday workshop, I recall hearing one student
mentor emphasize to her breakout session that knowledge was all that mattered and it was
something that despite the grades and test scores could not be taken away. It seems like
this philosophy of education and learning was and idea that resonated with Jamal. In
speaking about the influence of the TTD teaching various academic strategies, Keith also
expressed that the program motivated him and gave him a sense of awareness about
methods he could use to increase his school performance. He stated, “Yes I do think KCP
is inﬂuencing me. It motivates me more than if I was just on my own. It lets me know
that there are some things out there that I can do and should do to help me.”

These statements point to the academic development of these students via their
experiences with and in the TTD program. The development of these types of skills and
knowledge about studying, test taking, identiﬁcation one’s learning style, and just the
mere awareness of resources that are made available to become a better student, all
contribute to what Eccles (2001) refers to as the interactive developmental process of
adolescence. This theory rests on the notion that as adolescents interact in certain
academic or social spaces, they acquire certain skills that they make sense of and come to
adopt as part of who they are. Charles and Jamal demonstrated an awareness of their
responsibility in making learning meaningful and monitoring themselves to make sure
they were utilizing supports and competencies taught by the program. Similar to students

in Guthrie’s (1996) study of student’s responses to a literacy curriculum, they seemed to

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be motivated, persistent, independent, self-disciplined, self-conﬁdent and goal-oriented.
In addition, they reported employing different strategies to complete homework
assignments and to get work accomplished in class. It is important to note that these boys
may have acquired skills in other contexts such as in their schools or at home and the
extent to which they have garnered these skills may not be exclusive to their experience
in the program.

Cultural Identity Development: Knowing Who You Are

Students saw the program as helping them to develop and construct identities
related to their culture and heritage as African Americans. There were three major ways
Jamal, Eric, Charles, and Keith talked about TTD and its cultural inﬂuence. The ﬁrst way
dealt with the idea of knowing, knowing about the history and accomplishments of
African Americans. The boys made reference to TTD providing them with information
that allowed them to understand and appreciate the history of African Americans. For
them it was particularly important to know that information because as Eric put it,

“not having it [information about African American culture] means you

are lost and trying to... well 1 don’t know... cause some people just don’t

even care who they are or where black people came from and how they

got to the spot where they are and they just don’t care, but when you do

know, then you get that extra knowledge about you.”

In Eric’s view, it was important to know about the African American culture
because it was the vehicle through which you know yourself. Despite his apparent
difﬁculty in expressing this idea, it is very significant that he equated not knowing one’s
culture to the concept of being “lost.” This is evidence that he saw the acquisition of

cultural forms of information as being critical to understanding who he was as an African

American. Jamal talked about this knowledge of his culture in relation to knowing the

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“truth”. He felt it was signiﬁcant to learn an authentic version of African American
history and to be open in talking about. When I asked him what made him think that TTD
was trying to get him to think about his cultural identity he responded, “Because of the
way they talk about it all the time and they really want you to learn something. They ‘
want you to learn about the history of it, you know how did it happen, why did it happen
and the truth about it instead of hiding it?

It had been Eric’s experience that his teachers in school and the “news people”
did not always tell the truth about African American people, especially males, but that
TTD tried to give them a more honest depiction. In elaborating on this point, he said,
“Mostly they think the world, that blacks are just good at music and sports, yeah that’s
the images that they have as blacks as a success, yeah and the rest of them are just on the
streets, doing nothing.” The fact that Eric spoke of TTD giving a more comprehensive
view of who African Americans are may allude to the fact that through the program
providing culturally relevant information, they may also be providing a counter narrative
to views and images he gets from other sources. The term counter narrative was ﬁrst
introduced in the ﬁeld of African American Studies, as researchers and scholars
attempted to respond to the misrepresentation of African Americans in traditional
anthologies and texts (Anderson, 1988). However this term over the last couple decades
has made its way into the ﬁeld of education and Hilliard, Perry, and Steele (2003) suggest
that counter narratives should be used in classrooms that serve African American
students because they provide them with an enlightened view on who they are and most

important who they can be.

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In thinking about how this might be beneﬁcial to students to have counter
narratives and multiple perspectives on who they are, Charles felt that other African
Americans may be missing out on or lack the ability to understand the negativity that is
associated with being black when they are not aware of more positive perspectives. He
said, “It’s probably damaging the way that they think of black people but the black
people really probably don’t care because they don’t know.”

Charles’s statement is also indicative of a certain type of conscious raising found
in the critical race ideas in work by Friere (1998b), Carter (2005), and Morrell(2002) .
This notion involves teaching students to be aware and critical of the relationship that
exists between race, society, and its primary institutions such as the justice system and
public education. To this point, Jamal said that TTD had helped him to understand that, “
some things have gotten better and some things still need to change and I think that does
inform me a lot about the world, I think they do a good job of doing that cause some
things I didn’t know before they let me into it.” This again is reﬂective of Eric’s feeling
that TTD had brought him into a sense of knowing about the historical and current social
status of African Americans. This process that Eric was involved in to make sense of who
he is as an African American while also understanding the “world” is what Boykin
(1986) and Sellars (1998), refer to as a multidimensional identity development process
whereby minority adolescents attempt to mediate membership in their ethnic group in
addition to membership in the mainstream culture. Many students of color go through a
process in which they must negotiate their identities and connection to their ethnic group

as well as to the larger society. For example, one has to conceptualize who they are as

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both African American and American and in many ways these two identities can be
vastly different.

The program helped the boys to “know” about their cultural heritage, but they
were also constructing their cultural identities was through understanding themselves via
this knowledge. The boys were asked directly whether or not they felt the program helped
them to think about themselves and their culture in positive ways. They were also asked
whether or not this was helpful for them in thinking about and understanding who they
were as African Americans. Eric responded by saying, “I would have to say yes because
now 1 think more about where I want to go in life and college and high school and what I
want to do.” Charles says, “They do help me think about that. They let me know that I
am different and that I do need to focus more on my culture, so I can extend on the world
so I’m not just blending in.” The issue that is most prevalent in this comment, is the
focus on difference. The program helped Charles to understand that he is unique and that
by focusing on his uniqueness he will be more equipped to have an impact on society.
From this perspective his ethnicity will help him to set himself apart and in his word not
blend in with others. Here again, we see his conceptualization of a counter narrative
promoted by the program, one that focuses on the strengths and advantages of being
African American as opposed to the disadvantages. Eric talked about this element in
relation to the program helping students to “see their own selves better”. Eric and Keith
also spoke about knowing culture in order to know where you are going. Eric said very
matter factly when I asked how black history was important, “I got from it that our black
history it’s really important and like a lot of people have said that if you don’t know your

history, you don’t know your future. . .50.” Similarly Keith said, “They say that it’s good

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to remember where you came from cause if you don’t know where you been you don’t
know where you bout to be.” Both of these statements align with the ways that TTD staff
tried to teach why it is important to talk about the culture of different minority groups. It
could be that both Eric and Keith who have matriculated through the program for two
years or more are regurgitating the program language. However, it could also be that they
have internalized this way of thinking about why this element of the program is
signiﬁcant to their lives, and speciﬁcally their futures.

Jamal made this more tangible when he spoke about knowing the history of
African Americans. He said, “They keep telling us a lot about our history and about
where we came from and where we could be and how we should improve where we are
so now I think more about where I want to go in life and college and high school and
what I want to do.” Jamal was taking information and knowledge about African
Americans and starting to at least “think more about” what he wanted to do and
accomplish. He said later on in our last interview that this information helped him to see
that he shouldn’t listen to others who may talk negatively about who he is because he
knows the truth about his people. His exact words were, “you need to know that you are
just as good as everybody else and if people put you down you can’t listen to it cause you
know that it’s not true.” Here again, we see that students are used the knowledge gained
in TTD as a counter narrative to mainstream views that may perpetuate a more negative
conceptualization of blacks.

When I spoke with Charles about what it meant to have a positive cultural
identity, he responded, “Yes because if you’re like negative you’re saying what’s the

point but if you have a positive cultural identity about yourself you actually want to do

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better.” It is important to note that the term cultural identity is a term that I introduced in
my questioning and not one that he used independently. However, in my conversation
with him, I was fairly certain that he understood what it meant because at this juncture we
had talked substantially on having knowledge of one’s culture and having positive ways
of thinking about that culture. Through the previous comment, we can see that Charles
equated thinking positively about who you are culturally, would help an individual want
to do better. I did not probe this particular comment to unpack what “to do better” meant.
However, the nature of our conversation indicated that the “to do better” referred to
academic achievement.

This idea of achievement discussed by Charles, is directly connected to the third
way that students talked about TTD helping to construct cultural identities. In addition to
the beneﬁts of facilitating positive cultural identity to assist with knowing who you are,
the program practices may also have been inﬂuencing how students were making
meaning around their identities in connection with goal orientation and future planning.
When Charles was asked whether or not he agreed with this notion of being different and
learning about his culture, he responded, “I do kind of agree with it because learning
about my culture is important; it helps me learn what we have done and what we can do.”
Again there is a reference to “we.” Previously, “we” was discussed in relation to
members of the FLP family; however, students may be thinking about themselves as
connected to a larger “we,” all members of their ethnic group (i.e. African Americans).

My interpretation is that the students developed a sense of connectedness to their ethnic

group and culture in positive ways, thereby viewing themselves in relation to a group of

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positive models. When asked what things were taught about culture and identity, Keith
said,

“They taught us like the importance of how African Americans did to help

us be where we at and how we should keep going and don’t just stop there.

It makes me want to go up a step higher than they was to do a lil better,

just keep going and do the best.”

As students’ responses show, they were developing attitudes and beliefs that could
have been leading to the development of positive cultural identity which could
subsequently inﬂuence their academic and social outcomes through their own goal
orientation. Eric further explicates this point when he said,

“it will make me. . .well because you know how they had to ﬁght all hard

to have us get the good and excellent education just as the whites, and it

makes you wanna work cause you know somebody was doing this for you

so you want to work and do even better.”

Here Eric is making reference to the historical knowledge of African American
culture and how that motivates his work ethic and makes him want to do better. As
Charles did, Eric made reference to doing better, which can be linked to doing better in
school. This analysis was made particularly because he was referring to African
Americans struggle for rights to equal education. J arnal also felt that hearing about
culturally relevant ideas at T'TD helped him to now only set goals but to think about what
type of career he should choose. He commented, “yes it does increase my goals I don’t
think I would just be happy with doing something insigniﬁcant like that’s why I want to
be an entrepreneur because I want to have a company that will give a lot of jobs to
people.” During the program’s workshop on activism, Dr. S and other program

presenters, spoke about the economic hardships within many African American

communities and how this led to a host of problems for them. This may have inﬂuenced

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J arnal thinking about his career. Eric spoke very poignantly in relation to deﬁning what
having a positive cultural identity meant for him.

“I think it means you would respect your culture, instead of all those

ancestors that built it up you don’t want to tear it down because you know

if you do, you’re basically tearing yourself down and beating up yourself.

It reﬂects on them to but most of all since you’ve done it, it reﬂects on

you. You might not even think of it as a big deal but your ancestors do,

they think of it as wow we did this and they basically tore down our name.

Like since my last name is Carter, that’s just like me going out robbing

doing drugs and stuff like that people are going to be like the Carters do

that, the Carters do this when they really don’t do anything like that.”

His comment helped to substantiate how these boys have been taught to think of
themselves culturally through their participation in TTD. Eric in particular expressed not
only a historical knowledge and a social obligation to the African American community,
but also how he may have been thinking about these things in relation to understanding
who he was and the decisions he made. Through their learning about the culture of
African Americans and being exposed to more positive examples, the students in this
study seem to be developing and constructing their own cultural identities.

Signiﬁcance of African American Student Achievement: Challenging Stereotypes

In addition to reporting that the program had helped them to construct positive
cultural identities and formulate future goals, all four boys also felt that their achievement
was signiﬁcant because it would helped to dispel stereotypes and negative perceptions
that exist within society. All of the boys expressed that they attempted to “do well” and
succeed because they wanted there to be examples of success to represent the African
American community. In addition, they spoke in depth about the need to achieve in order

to show people (society) that they could overcome. The notion of achievement in

relation to the signiﬁcance to people of color was frequently mentioned in TTD and the

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staff members tried to teach this ideology to both the students and parents. To be sure, it
was a fundamental goal of TTD to get students to understand why college was important
for underrepresented minorities (African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican
Americans). In doing so, program staff stressed to the adolescents in the program how
critical their success in school was not only to themselves but also to their communities.
In this section the term “achievement” will be conceptualized as high academic
performance, or school grades. In the ﬁrst interview I speciﬁcally asked the boys whether
or not they thought about the importance of African Americans achieving and whether or
not that helped them to make decisions in school. Jamal answered, “Yeah

because. . .well. .. there’s a perception that a lot of times we won’t or just don’t care so,
it’s important for getting rid of that perception.” J amal’s younger brother, Charles, made
a similar comment in saying, “I think that’s [achievement] important to show that you
can overcome and such, I also think that it would help get more jobs and get people to
respect us more.” These statements allude to Jamal and Charles perceiving there to be
negative views held by society about African Americans, and that achieving will help to
dismantle those ideas.

Charles also said, “Because of where we came from its people that still think well
after we were, or after we got rid of segregation and things, we just went down hill from
there, but it’s important for people to know that we’re taking advantage of that.” His
reference to “where we came from” refers to the state of African Americans in the 50’s
and 60’s. Charles is speaking of the work that was done by African Americans and others
to desegregate schools and ﬁght for quality education. It was important for him that

African American students achieve because it would show “people” that they are utilizing

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the opportunities that were created through that struggle. This statement is also evidence
that Charles was conscious of the historical aspects of the African American community.
As mentioned previously this knowledge in and of itself had helped him to make certain
decisions about who he was and what he would like to accomplish. During this
conversation, Charles also said, “because sometimes people think that black students
they’re not as smart and that’s not true so it’s important to be able to show, like if you get
good grades that might show that hey we’re just as smart or maybe smarter than you are.”
Eric views his desire to make good grades as a way to show others how smart he is and
feels that this would help to dismantle misconceptions about black students not being
smart. Other aspects of his life experiences may have informed this view, but practices in
TTD encouraged students to be aware of negative views that were are held by some about
people of color, particularly African Americans. When I probed his comments and asked
him talk a little more about what he meant by being smart he commented, “Well just that
there are enough people smart enough to do it [school work], it’s just that people don’t
think they will.” Again Eric expresses his perspective on how he feels African American
students are viewed by mainstream society and how their capabilities are often minimized
or not recognized at all.

Eric’s view on achievement was similar to Charles and Jamal as he talked about
the need to prove people wrong who have judged African Americans in the past. He
contended,

“It’s [achievement] important because people judge us by how we look,

our skin complexion and if we prove them wrong maybe we could just,

maybe we could like make it up there enough so they can be like, oh this
kid is cool, he’s not ghetto, or how we used to judging blacks.”

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When Eric says “make it up there,” he was referring to academic achievement and
in particular college attainment. He too was conscious of race and the ways social
dynamics perpetuate stereotypes and assumptions about certain groups of people. He
ultimately saw achievement as a catalyst for overcoming stigmas that he feels have been
attached to himself and the African American community. Jamal expressed this point
most clearly when I asked him about stereotypes and whether he felt that people held
negative ideas about African Americans, and he responded, “Well it’s like we know what
we’re worth but we’re not viewed like that, we’re viewed as not as good or in worse
conditions.” Similar to the other boys, he feels that there is a mismatch between how
other people perceive them and what they really are. The notion of being worthy speaks
to the ways that Jamal may be thinking about his place in the world and how that place
can be shaped by views and perceptions that people have about him.

I asked Eric what made him think that people didn’t recognize the “worth” of
African American students and he said, “Just from the way a lot of people act, they act
like they don’t care but they really do a lot of times but they just act like it so.” This
comment alludes to the fact that Eric sees the ways that some African American students
behave as contributing to stereotypes, but that these stereotypes are not valid because
they are merely based on how students “act” and not who they really are. Charles
explained his interpretation of stereotypes he had witnessed in the media and T .V. said,

“They hardly show a white man getting away. It’s like they don’t want to

show those tape because I know there is a lot of other white males in the

community that do crime instead of blacks and all these shows they show

black man running away, black females jumping over fences running

away from the cops, but I know there is some tape somewhere else that a
white man is doing crime.”

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He talked in depth about how when he watched the news, he only saw African
Americans but that he knew that white people also committed crimes just as African
Americans did. But the media wanted to focus on African Americans and Mexicans to
make people think “that’s all we’re made of.” Along this same point Jamal spoke to me
about his experiences in school with certain teachers and how he had witnessed negative
views they held about African American boys. It is important to note that he felt that
these perceptions were held by both white and black teachers at his school. In his words,

“They think these boys are going to grow up and be criminals. They’re

going to be in a shop and rob somebody and I don’t think that’s true. If

you give us the chance we can really show who we are but they don’t

really give us the chance they just like judge by what other blacks do.”

Jamal just wanted teachers in his school to not use what they see other African
Americans do to make assumptions about what he would do and how he would behave.
Instead he wanted them to give him the “chance” to display who he is an individual. Eric
spoke to a different experience in his school speciﬁcally with one of his teachers around
issues of stereotypes.

“There’s this one teacher, I really like her because she’s always talking

about us as a whole black community and not us as in just you and I liked

her so much, she like really teaches me like what if you done this, think

about it before you do it, cause you always have a choice. If you take the

wrong choice it could lead up to someone saying oh black man this and

that. Like on the news when it’s a white man they say his name and age

and stuff like that and when it’s a black they just say black male. They

never say the man’s name, they treat us as a whole, so as a whole we

should achieve what our goal is to be uh, well. . .technically free...”

Here we can see that Eric saw himself as a member of the larger African

American community and therefore felt a sense of social responsibility to be conscious of

the choices he made. It is also important to note, that I understood from this statement

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that this ideology, at least for Eric, was not one that only existed for him via TTD. He
was also being exposed to this type of achievement ideology in his school. Eric says that
the goal of the African American community is to be “free”. When I asked him what he
meant by this concept of being “free”, he responded, “like we’re not even really free,
we’re chained in our minds.” This concept of psychological slavery has been most
notably discussed by Akbar (1976) in his book Chains and Images of Psychological
Slavery. Akbar says that the over 300 years experienced in slavery’s brutality and
unnaturalness constituted a severe psychological and social shock in the minds of
African-Americans. And while historians have documented the realities of slavery as
descriptions of past events, psychologists and sociologists have failed to attend to the
persistence of problems in the mental and social lives of people that have roots in slavery.

Eric’s comment also resonated with the advocacy and activism ideas that were
promoted by TTD. As a program they consistently emphasized that as people of color the
struggle continues and that this was and should be an ongoing process. Eric connected
his achievement to not only striving toward this goal of freedom, but also the importance
of it being a collective effort.

In our conversation about the signiﬁcance of achievement for African Americans,
Keith said that he knew that people would form opinions about him based on the fact that
he was black and would think in certain ways about the types of activities he was
involved in. Despite those opinions, he felt that blacks should strive toward college
attainment to prove that those views were false. To be sure, he articulated,

“Yeah I always think of how people gone always judge me just because

I’m black or they always gone think I’m from the ghetto about to rob

somebody, I’m from the ghetto so all I want to do is go out and get girls
and stuff. There are some teachers out there and some kids that think oh

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this black kid is just trouble and I don’t want him in my class or this kid is
trouble so I’m gone stop him from learning so everyone else can feel more
secure. I think that we should try to aim for college cause they say that
blacks are the ones that are going to be in prison. They’re building more
prisons for us out there. If we make it to college we can prove them
wrong.”

Keith was not only aware of negative perceptions and the views held by others but
saw this as inﬂuencing the learning of black students, particularly when teachers held
those views. As a way to counter these negative views, he felt that black students should
strive toward college to move away from images of black men only being associated with
prison or in his word ‘trouble”. Keith, Eric, Jamal, and Charles all articulated perceiving
that there were certain types of stereotypes held by others about African Americans and
particularly African American boys. Steele and Aronson (1995) deﬁne this phenomenon
as stereotype threat. This theory contends that when students of color or women are
facing stereotypes, as result of internalizing a threat of negative consequences, fear they
will verify the stereotype. This ultimately results in a type of self-fulﬁlling prophecy of
failure. The views held by the boys in this study show that stereotype threat can also have
a different effect on students in that by perceiving the stereotype, they are motivated
more toward achievement to dispel or counter the negative perception. This idea will be
discussed more in the following discussion chapter.

Responding to Staff’s High Expectation: Being the Best You Can Be

Students desire to achieve and their efforts to overcome stereotypes may have also
been inﬂuenced by high expectation of success held by staff at TTD. Recall from chapter
four, that program staff all stated that they expected the students to perform to their best

abilities. They felt that helping students to recognize their potential and consistently

reminding them that they had something valuable to contribute to their communities was

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an intrical piece of the work they did within the program. Jamal, Eric, Keith, and Charles
seemed to not only understand that the program staff had certain expectations, but also
seemed to formulate goals for themselves in relation to living up to those expectations.
The following comments from Eric, Jamal, and Charles explicated this point. I asked the
students whether or not they felt the program staff had high expectations for them
succeeding and if so, whether or not they attempted to live up to these expectations. Eric
responded by saying, “I think they do, like they think of you as their own and they want
you to be the best that you can be, make it to where you want to be in life, they want you
to be happy with yourself.” Eric was not only describing TTD and its culture of family
but emphasizing that the extent to which he felt the program staff pushed students toward
goals that they had set for themselves. Additionally, he felt that the staff were concerned
with making sure he could be proud of the decisions he made as well his
accomplishments. He went on to say,

“I do I really try to go where I want to be, make them happy, make my

parents happy, make my family happy about what I’ve done and try to

make my teachers at my school happy so that they really look at me as oh

this kid really wants to go somewhere.”

We see from these comments that not only did Eric recognize that the staff had
positive expectations for him succeeding but that he applied this value to his school
practices. This provides an explanation for why this construct may be signiﬁcant,
particularly as we think about how this type of educational practice has implications for
inﬂuencing student outcomes. After Jamal responded yes to the question about whether

or not he felt the program had certain expectations of him, I asked how he knew. His

response was,

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“Like at all the programs, and I’m not just saying this because of the way

she yells a lot but she [Dr.S] just tries to stress the same things like getting

the scholarships and doing your study skills, she stresses that and those a

lot so I think that makes you passionate.”

Jamal spoke to how he was aware of the high expectations held by Dr.S
because she was always so passionate in getting them to think about obtaining
scholarships and practicing study skills. He understood that these steps were
important to Dr. S and other members of the staff. He speciﬁcally spoke to this
point when he said,

“We need it [encouragement to succeed] and if we don’t get those we

won’t be as successful and she wants us to be successful and then too, I

think they expect that we should be able to do great things, and that’s what

they’re trying to get us to think and then do.”

It is apparent through these responses that the students made sense of the

program’s expectations and articulated one of the program’s themes of striving toward

greatness. They also explained why the practice of having high expectations of student

achievement was a necessary component in their success. Keith spoke to his awareness of

staff’s expectations when he said,

“Well it’s just the way they try to instill that into us every time, every
meeting we’ll be there and they’ll talk about getting scholarships and how
we should do it, how we can do it, how it’s easy enough to do, so just the
way they try to put that into us makes me believe that’s what they want.”

Keith knew staff had expectations because of the consistency of their message.

During, this conversation he jokingly spoke about how staff would talk “like a broken

recor ” about how they expected certain things out of TTD students and that they
believed that they all would excel. Charles talked about how staff expectations made

students feel that they could do anything and that it made him

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“feel good that everyone is trying to reach their goals and reach where they can be and
reach places where they never thought they could reach before because of where they
were raised.” He appreciated the fact that he could be in a program where students were
motivated to do well and didn’t have to worry about “what hood they were from” or
“what they parents did for a living”. In his view, it was important for young people to
think this way about their futures and to not feel limited in where they could go and what
they could achieve. Additionally, Keith felt that the staff’s high expectations created
challenges for students to live up to and created a goal for them to strive toward. He
commented, “Yeah because if they don’t have high expectations, it’s just really messed
up because then you’re just there. If it’s high then you have challenges and I think that
makes you better off.” For Charles, not only did he feel that the program’s high
expectations motivate him to strive toward his goal but he also felt these expectations
were what made the program relevant. From his perspective, if staff were not going to
have high expectations for them, it defeated the purpose of them participating.

Keith and Jamal discussed staff’s high expectations in relation to how they were
connected to the same values stressed by their own parents. Keith said,

“they’re basically like some other parents of yours. They expect you to do

everything your parents would expect you to do. They don’t put any more

force on you like if you don’t do this, they leave it up to you but they still,

if you get off track they will get you back on it because like your parents

they really do care, they don’t like pretend to want the best for you.”

Keith expressed that through staff expectations he was able to see that the
program cared about his success in the same way that his parents did and that they were

genuine in wanting to see him achieve. This was important for him because the staff just

became an extension of his parents and helped to reinforce what he was already getting

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from home. This was another expression of how students perceived culture of TTD. It
may have been easier for them to internalize staff expectations because of the similarity
to what their parents wanted for them. Jamal made similar connections to the program
staff’s values and that of his parents. He told me that the “expectations KCP set are
pretty much the same as my parents. They pretty much want me to go to college right
after high school so that’s well I’m like surrounded by that.” He like Jamal felt that KCP
reinforced the notion of success and achievement that was already present for him at
home with his own parents. He also voiced that he particularly tried to live up to this
expectation because,

“when you’re in a program like KCP and they have expectations for you

to go to college, you don’t want to just ignore those and just don’t go

because a lot of people don’t want to let some of the people in KCP down

so they will do everything to go to college if they can.”

Here we see that at least for Jamal he was conscious of the program’s
expectations for him to enroll in college and spoke to a desire for students in the program
to want to accomplish that goal in an effort to not disappoint program staff. The ways
that Jamal, Eric, Keith, and Charles responded to staff members high expectations
resonate with Rosenthal and J acobson’s (1968) concept of the Pygmalion effect.
Stemming from what has become a classic educational study on teacher expectation, this
theory contends that teacher’s expectations about a student can eventually lead that
person to behave and achieve in ways that conform to these expectations. Though, some
theorists have argued about the psychological‘validity of "expectancy effects," research
into the ways in which teachers interact with their students and the relationship between

those interactions and students' academic performance have shed considerable light on

the ﬁeld of teacher education as well as the learning and development of minority

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students. Speciﬁcally, this theory has helped to inform the nature of teacher education in
that, it has suggested that teachers be more conscious and thoughtful about the
perceptions and ideas that they consciously and unconsciously hold about their students.
This is related to the learning and development of African American students in that
research on teacher’s views on African American students, especially males, has often
been negative, resulting in these students not developing necessary skills and
competencies.

Even though, the context that students in this sample participated in was different
from the traditional classroom context, connections can be drawn particularly as we think
about the ways that certain types of educational practices inﬂuence students both in and
outside of school.

Future Flaming: A Focus on Tomorrow

Encouraging students to think beyond their immediate realities and formulate
visions of what their futures would look like was a central way TTD had inﬂuenced the
lives of these four boys. Students articulated that the program had helped them to think
about their futures and start preparing for post-secondary education and possible career
paths. They reported that the program had helped them to think about opportunities that
would be available to them in regards to selecting a job and ﬁnding a “good college.” I
speciﬁcally asked Keith, Jamal, Charles, and Eric if they thought TTD had helped them
to make plans for their future and if so, whether or not this was important to them. In
response to this question, Keith said, “They get us to think about our purpose and about
how to make good choices for the future. College can help so that you have

opportunities.”

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Keith felt that the program had helped to conceptualize and think through what
would be the best path to choose and to make “good choices” for himself. He also
pointed to the idea that college attainment would provide him with certain opportunities
that he may not otherwise have. Eric said speciﬁcally for him TTD had helped him to
think about his future by exposing him to the different types of careers that were
available to him. He commented, “I really didn’t take it serious that much before but I
see now that I really need to start thinking about careers right now instead of waiting until
I get out of high school because it’s gone be harder.” He expressed that the program had
made ﬁnding a potential career path more relevant to him since he started attending a
couple years earlier in the sixth grade.

In terms somewhat different from Keith and Eric, Charles indicated that the
program had helped him to think about his future by teaching him different academic
skills. From his perspective the program allowed him to make the connection between his
achievement in school now and the beneﬁts it would bring later. He said, “They helped
me, just like probably in the little stuff like studying and just learning how to do tests and
stuff. . .I know that’s what’s going to set me up straight when I get to high school and then
to a university.” After this comment I asked Charles why this preparation for the future
was important to him. His response was, “It’s important because well I’d rather be
somebody that has a good house and car and an excellent career instead of just poverty.”
Charles equated the importance of preparing for the future to having material possessions
and being ﬁnancially capable. In his view, these were not only the descriptors of being
successful, but what could be acquirable via a college education. In talking about his

perception of the program Jamal said that TTD helped him to formulate plans for his

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future by asking certain types of questions related to what he wants to accomplish in his
life. To be sure, he said,

“They ask us a lot like what do you want to be when you grow up, what do

you want to do in life? Do you expect to go to college? Do you want to go

to college? Do you want to go to high school? Do you want a better

education? That makes me think about like where do I actually want to go,

so right now even though I’m young I still think about that like wow, this

is coming up quick.”

Jamal said these questions were very helpful in not only getting him to think
about what he did in fact want to do but also for creating a sense of urgency around the
need for him to have a solid plan for “tomorrow”. For Jamal, planning for and enrolling
in college was approaching fast and in his words “coming up quick,” so it was an urgent
matter. Along those same lines Charles said that he felt that the program was helping him
to be more successful by giving him a real sense of what the future would and could be
like for him. “Just having me here showing me around state’s campus has helped me to
see that I can make plans to do this.” Both Charles and his parents stated it had always
been his goal to attend State University. He felt that his participation in the program made
that a goal more of an obtainable reality. In his recalling how the program had helped him
to think about his future, Keith said,

“I remember they had a few workshops where they talked about getting a

portfolio and how that’s important. I think that was something that really

helped me think about planning my future cause since then I’ve actually
started a portfolio to help me get into college. I use it a lot and my mom

even helps me organize it sometimes.”

For Keith, the portfolio contained aspects of who he was. When I asked to see it,
his mother brought out a three ring binder. In the binder there were certiﬁcates from his

school and science program he had attended, tests that had either A’s or B’s scribbled at

the top, a couple of report cards, and an essay he wrote for English class. Keith’s mother

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laughed at how proud of the portfolio he had been and even joked that she had never seen
her son who is often disorganized get so excited about organizing something. This
portfolio to Keith was a way that he could have all his work and accomplishments in one
place. He emphasized that the program had told students that having a portfolio would
make it easier for him to apply for scholarships and present himself to potential colleges
and universities. It was also important and special for him to have an item where he could
see all of his accomplishments and it gave him a boost of confidence to have it.

Often it has been assumed that during the years of adolescence there is a decline
in achievement motivation and the extent to which students are goal oriented (Bell &
Kozlowski, 2002). Some researchers contend that this decline is largely caused by
physiological and psychological changes associated with puberty and, therefore, is
somewhat inevitable. This assumption has been challenged, however, by research that
demonstrates that the nature of motivational change and goal setting during middle
school depends on characteristics of the learning environment in which students ﬁnd ’
themselves (Midgley, 1993). The extent to which adolescents began to formulate goals
and plan for the future is contingent on what educational supports and practices they are
exposed to. In thinking about goal orientation in this way, Jamal, Charles, Keith, and Eric
were being inﬂuenced by their participation in TTD which was a setting that emphasized
the importance and necessity of planning for post-secondary education. The boys
attributed their thinking about college and planning for their careers to the nature of

programmatic practices.

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Summary

The analysis of interview data yielded twelve themes related to how Jamal, Eric,
Charles, and Keith experienced their participation in the Truth Tubman Douglas program,
a college outreach program for underrepresented minorities. Six themes emerged that
were supported and substantiated by all for boys as being central to their perspectives and
views of the program. These six themes led to six guiding assertions for how these
students made sense of and perceived this particular enrichment program.

First, students expressed a sense of belonging to a ﬁctive family that was a
signiﬁcant aspect of the program. All four boys spoke about the extent to which they
were connected with members of the TTD staff and how they felt that staff even viewed
them as their own children. Three of the boys in particular, Jamal, Charles, and Eric,
expressed that they felt that the program served a space they could go to when and if they
needed help for support. In addition to the students’ sense that TTD was a safe space,
they also highlighted the signiﬁcance of having TTD as a tangible network of individuals
that would help them to accomplish their goals of doing well in school (grades), and
college attainment.

Second, students pointed to learning academic skills in the program as being a
primary way the program contributed to their academic lives. All of the boys utilized
skills such as study skills and test taking skills in their classrooms at school and felt that
along with having a family-like connection to staff, that this was a central component and
tangible of the program for them. This resource helped them to not only develop certain
learning skills but also to identify what type of learners they were. This aided them in

determining their strengths and weaknesses as students. Third, voices of the students also

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spoke to how the program had helped them to develop and construct identities related to
their culture and heritage as African Americans. It was important for them to know about
African American history and this knowledge as a counter narrative to understand who
they were in relation to that history. Additionally, similar to ideologies related to critical
race theory, Jamal, Eric, Charles and Keith created goals for themselves. Students saw
the program as helping them to develop and construct identities related to their culture
and heritage as African Americans.

Fourth, As the program helped them to construct cultural identity, students
connected their achievement goals to the need to dispel negative stereotypes about
African Americans. All four boys spoke with clarity about how they used negative
perceptions that society held about them as African Americans to motivate them to excel
academically. Unlike some minority youth who may internalize stereotypes and fail
academically as a result, they worked to disprove those ideas and present examples that
conﬂict with those ideas. Fifth, students also responded positively to and were motivated
by staff high expectations for their success. Keith and Jamal felt that staff expectations
not only mirrored the expectations held by their parents, but that they presented them
with challenges and standard upon which to strive toward. This result aligns well with
research that illustrates the positive developmental effects of being in an academic
environment that promotes high expectations (Owens, 2005). Lastly, students articulated
that the program had helped them to think about their futures and start preparing for post-
secondary education and possible career paths. The clearly voiced that that the program’s
emphasis on college attainment had aided in them thinking about “tomorrow” and

making choices now that would impact their futures.

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In the following chapter, I will discuss in more detail how these ﬁndings support
and or challenge theoretical ideas associated with ﬁctive kinship, ethnic identity,
acquiring of academic skills, stereotype threat, expectancy effect, and goal orientation.

In addition, I will address the ways that ﬁndings from this study have implications for the
ﬁeld of educational research and more specifically the learning and development of

African American adolescents.

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CHAPTER SIX
SUMNIARY AND CONCLUSIONS
In order for our inquiries to be transformative they should work to, “stimulate a needed
and important discourse about the ways that scholars conduct educational research that
enhances democracy and social justice while advancing the kinds of scientific knowledge
that will make a diﬁ‘erence in the lives of children. ”
Gloria Ladson Billings and William Tate, Educational Research
and the Public Interest, 2006, pg. xiii
Study Purpose Revisited
The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of 4 African-

American males, participating in one university outreach program for underrepresented
youth. The intent was to capture their stories and experiences in the TTD Rising Stars
program that aimed to serve their academic and social needs. It was expected that
examining participant voices would reveal signiﬁcant insights not only about the nature
of outreach programs but also how students made sense of such programs’ impact on
them academically and socially. As argued by Lincoln (1995) and others, bringing
students’ voices to the forefront of educational inquiries provides a richness and
authenticity to the social, political, and emotional ways that they perceive their
educational experiences, but also to the nature and intricacies of certain educational
practices. A qualitative case study was designed to answer research questions about the
structure and function of the Truth Tubman Douglas program as well as the goals and
objectives. It was an essential ﬁrst step to examine the curriculum, staff roles, and
enacted practices of this program in order to create a foundation upon which to explore
the perspectives of the four focal students. This study was guided by research questions

related to understanding student’s general perspectives about the program and how they

saw the program contributing to their academic and social development. As research

146

questions evolved the “what” questions about the program and student perspectives
became “how” questions to gain a richer understanding of this particular case.

In Chapter One I introduced the study, while identifying the purpose and
presenting the significance of conducting this investigation. Chapter Two reviewed
relevant literature on academic outreach programs, adolescent development, issues with
research on minority student development, and the signiﬁcance of student voice. This
chapter brought into focus the relationship between the practices of academic outreach
programs and the social and academic development and concluded with a review of
discussions of student voice as an important scholarly discourse within educational
research. In Chapter Three, 1 established and summarized the methodological principles
and procedures that guided this research. Chapter Four helped to situate the context of
this story by providing an overview of the TTD program via program artifacts, staff
interviews, and ﬁeld observations. Chapter Five, the second results chapter, discussed the
ﬁndings from the students about their experience within the program. Through the voices
of Charles, Keith, Jamal, and Eric this chapter provided a space for students’ perceptions
about their adolescent worlds as well as their feelings about academic achievement,
cultural identity, and goals for the future. This chapter will review and summarize the
major ﬁndings, address this study’s connection to the broader literature within each
theme, and discuss limitations and implications for future research.

Summary of Findings

The ﬁndings from this study contribute to our understanding of the adolescent

development of African-American students in two primary ways. First, it highlights the

nature and function of one academic outreach program that provides services and pre-

147

collegiate support to adolescents. Second, it offers an analysis of student perspectives as
they relate to ﬁctive kinship, cultural identity development, signiﬁcance of African-
American student achievement, acquisition of academic strategies, response to high
expectations, and future planning. A summary of these ﬁndings will be discussed below.
Truth Tubman Douglas Rising Stars Program

In gaining a broader view of the program, this study sought to examine the
structure and function as well as goals and objectives. Based on program artifacts, and
views of staff, and Saturday observations, the T'TD program pursued four major goals.
Staff worked to expose students to college and university life through their programs and
activities, assisted students in developing positive cultural identities, promoted high
expectations for student success, and created a family oriented space. Not only were these
goals present in program artifacts, they were also articulated by the staff. Staff members
saw them as the primary elements of the program.

The central focus of the TTD Rising Stars program was to expose students to
campus activities and other college students, but also in the words of Dr. S during her
interview, to “show them what opportunities were available via a college education.”
Researchers and practitioners for the most part agree that outreach efforts that increase
students aspirations, expose them to the world of college at an early age, and provide
interventions aimed at increasing their academic performance have been instrumental in
illuminating the barriers to equitable opportunity for higher education (Fenske, Geranios,
and Moore, 1995; Pema, 2002; Gandara, Larson, Mehan and Rumberger, 1998). The
work of the TTD program, while supplemental to curriculum and other traditional school

practices worked to inﬂuence the orientation of students to college attainment.

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A second goal was to assist students in developing positive cultural identities.
Staff members saw it as central to help students to not only be knowledgeable about who
they were as African Americans, but to have a sense of pride. Staff also worked to expose
students to the accomplishments of other African-Americans ﬁgures as well as other
minorities. They wanted to show students that they too, have those capabilities as
students of color. Additionally, to help students understand their worth they also wanted
students to see themselves as leaders of their communities. Although this goal was not
present in what was written in program artifacts about the program, it was central in the
program implementation.

This type of practice aligns with the Multiple Worlds Model as presented by
Phelan, Davidson, and Yu (1996). They contend that in adapting to different social
spaces, students encounter psychosocial, gender, linguistic, and socio-cultural elements
that inﬂuence their identity development. This model offers a helpful way to understand
adolescent cultural identity construction in relation to particular academic settings.
Recognizing identity as a response to context is useful because it implies that identity is
not acquired passively by individuals but emerges through an individual’s experience in
multiple contexts such as schools, neighborhoods, and community programs. In the case
of this study TTD Rising Stars Program existed as one context in the lives of these four
boys that was working to help them construct positive cultural ideas and identities.

A third major goal of the program involved the promotion of high expectations

for student success. Staff members relayed to students that they were conﬁdent about

what they accomplished and that they expected them to live up to their full potential,

149

which was high academic performance. During the Saturday Workshops this expectation
was expressed through speakers’ remarks, activities, and interactions with students.

This practice of creating and sustaining high expectations for student success has
been discussed in the literature as being a “culturally responsive practice” (Irvine and
Armento, 2001). Effective and consistent communication of high expectation helps
students develop a healthy self-concept (Rist, 1970). It also provides the structure for
intrinsic motivation and fosters an environment in which the student can be successful.
Similar to J ordan-Irvine and Armento’s (2001) results in a study of pedagogy for
elementary and middle schools, TTD created an environment in which there was genuine
respect for students and a belief in their capability. Teachers in this study encouraged
students to achieve academically and to see themselves as successful learners. The Center
for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) developed Five
Standards of Effective Pedagogy based on decades of research across cultural and
socioeconomic contexts, and having high expectations for students and presenting them
with challenges was the fourth standard (Doherty, Hilberg, Pinal, & Tharp, 2003).

The ﬁnal goal of the TTD program involved the creation of a family-oriented
space. As with the promotion of high expectation, creating a family-type environment
was not a written goal of the program but rather present in the practices and ideologies of
staff members. For the Assistant Director, the extent to which the program was
representative of a family signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced both the practice of the program as
well as the success of the program. For program staff, the students and parents were

viewed in the context of the group or community. As such, their practices subscribed to a

150

collective approach for mentoring young people of African descent as well as Native- and
Mexican-Americans.

This practice is similar to the notion of ﬁctive kinship as presented by McAdoo
(1978), Fordham (1998), and Ogbu’s (1983) research on African American students and
families. This network of ﬁctive kin within the context of TTD provided broader
opportunities for students to access a resource-rich community that offered a wide array
of institutional, informational, and economic assets. The approach of TTD was based on
traditional African cultural systems and ethos. According to Leary (1998), this type of
relational bond is typical among African Americans; it stems from their earlier
experiences with slavery and the necessity of constructing ﬁctive familial relationships
for mere survival. Particularly for African Americans, this approach supported an African
world view in that the collective of a group supersedes the individual. The importance of
these unique family relationships is that all members of the family, regardless of
biological relationships, share the same loyalties, responsibilities, and cooperation as
relatives (Dodson, 1997).

Given the aforementioned goals, it is important to note in summarizing the TTD
program that staff members also reported weaknesses of the program. Two areas reported
by staff members as places where TTD could improve were attitudes of staff and content
of materials (worksheets, activities, etc.). The staff, particularly the student mentors were
reported to sometimes take advantage of the relaxed nature of the program and failed to
interact with the students and take an active role in the implementation of program
activities. In addition, two of the staff members felt that the information provided by the

program was not as up to date as it could have been. The Assistant Director in particular

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felt that other staff members underestimated the nature of information that could be
mastered by students who attended the program.
Student Perspectives

Based on student’s conceptualization of TTD, my analysis has indicated that
three of the four boys found the ﬁctive kinship practices and acquisition of academic
strategies to be most signiﬁcant for their participation in the program. In addition, they
reported constructing positive ideas about their culture as African Americans and the
signiﬁcance of their academic achievement. They had positive responses to program’s
high expectations for their success and articulated how TTD had helped them to think
about their future aspirations. All of these ﬁndings are connected to adolescent
development because all four students were building upon and acquiring ways of thinking
that contributed to their mental, emotional, and intellectual capacity. The following
sections will explicate these points further.

Family Connectedness. All four boys expressed a sense of connectedness to the
program and program staff. They perceived staff to be a network and the program to be
an alternative place for them when they needed support. They responded positively to the
culture of ﬁctive kinship that had been created by the staff. Along with the acquisition of
academic skills, this was one “asset” that was reported to be the most significant. F ictive
kinship, as mentioned previously, is an anthropological concept of relating people not
bound by blood or marriage, who have some reciprocal social or economic connection,
who eventually are known as your “play cousin” or another family member (Fordham,
1991). This guiding ethos stems from the belief that there are unique conceptualizations

of social interactions for people of African heritage. Included in this worldview are the

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values of communalism, affect, spirituality and the concept of self as an individual with a
collective responsibility to the group (Kambon, 1998). The notion of the family is
thought of as extending beyond the immediate household. These ﬁctive kinship systems
exist in African-American communities today and include individuals unrelated
biologically. Essentially, a sense of collective responsibility exists within and has been a
source of survival for some (Baldwin, 1991).

Understanding the power of relationships, this program focused on expanding
the family unit and when possible to reconnect the biological one. Charles, Keith, Eric,
and Jamal not only reported feeling apart of the TTD family, but also felt that that this
was a necessary and central piece of the program. Some hold that African American
students may be able to observe and learn through contact and interaction with a
collective group that embodies varied lived experiences, interests, values, and
perspectives on race and ethnicity. According to Nobles (1991), traditional West African
belief systems survived the Middle Passage (i.e., transport of African captives to the
West) and hundreds of years of enslavement, and continue to persist among present day
African-Americans.

People of African descent in the United States have maintained cultural
traditions through institutions, such as churches, families, clubs, fraternities, and
sororities, and local community groups. Based on comments and responses from the
students in this study, it may be beneﬁcial for researchers and educators to acknowledge
and understand the nature of traditional African cultural beliefs and practices. These
types of approaches use the students’ heritage as a frame of reference and students may in

turn have positive responses to these practices and see them as useful to their academic

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and social development. It is important to note that the concept of ﬁctive kinship may not
be present in the lives of all African-American students, similar to other cultural
characteristics, variations do exist. But, given the responses of some students toward this
practice, it is still worthy of inquiry as educators and researchers seek ways to be
inclusive of all students.

Academic Skills. Along with family connectedness, the acquisition of
academic skills and strategies was also central. Jamal, Eric, Charles, and Keith all
reported that the program had helped them to identify their own learning styles and build
strategies to aid in improving their performance in the classroom. The students thought it
was particularly important that the program allowed them to identify their strengths and
weaknesses as learners. Students were developing into what Abdullah (2001) referred to
as self directed learners. They were learning to take control of their learning by managing
their skill sets, recognizing their cognitive strengths, and identifying appropriate
strategies to accomplish academic tasks. Various disciplines within education have long
promoted self-directed learning as desirable.

Research in the ﬁelds of adult education (Garrison, 1997), gifted education
(Schillereff, 2001), web-based and distance learning (Scheidet, 2003) has shown the
effectiveness of this orientation. Teachers, parents, administrators, and students must
understand the concepts of student motivation, metacognition, self-efﬁcacy, self-
regulation, locus of control, and goal orientation. These concepts provide the foundation
for a student seeking to become a self-directed learner. Although students can become
self-directed learners without explicit instruction, development of these traits is more

likely to occur when teachers and administrators understand and foster them at the

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classroom or school level (Lumsden, 1999; Renchler, 1992; Bienriller & Meichenbaum,
1992). To be sure, it is difﬁcult for students to become self-directed learners without
becoming engaged in a curriculum or academic context that facilitates it.

As mentioned previously, the TTD program was different in many ways from
the traditional classroom and the staff members were not teachers. However, staff worked
to instill certain characteristics of self-directed learning into their students. In turn, the
students in this study reported it to be not only one of the most signiﬁcant, but also the
most useful and practical. It is important to note that the program staff and students
referred to this element as learning skills and strategies and did not use the term “self-
directed.” I took an interpretive stance in my analysis to characterize this practice as self
directed. According to Lumsden (1999), fostering self-directed learners cannot take
place in one or two academic settings but must permeate the entire culture of an
educational context. Students saw their acquisition of academic skills within TTD as
being central to their experience within that context. It emerged consistently throughout
students’ narratives about what the program meant to them and what they gained via their
participation. In essence, students felt that TTD was attempting to help them facilitate,
manage, and arrange their own learning experiences.

Cultural Identity. Students saw the program as helping them to develop and
construct identities related to their culture and heritage as African-Americans. Based on
their comments and responses, the TTD program helped them to become more
knowledgeable about African-American history and encouraged them to be more
thoughtful about the relationships between race, society, and institutions such as schools

and the justice system. Via learning about their collective culture, students reported

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gaining a broader sense of self based on the accomplishments of other African-
Americans. The program helped these students to positively acknowledge who they were
in relation to a larger group of individuals. They developed a sense of connectedness to
their ethnic group and culture in positive ways. Charles and Eric reported that gaining a
broader sense of their culture motivated them to set goals for themselves and “do better.”
To be sure, construction of their cultural identities was linked to a desire to want to
achieve in order to have a positive impact on their communities. This construction of
positive cultural identity in relation to the community is connected to family
connectedness in that students see themselves as part of a collective whole.

Identity is a complex and ﬂuid term that shifts in meaning depending on the
context and social location in which individuals ﬁnd themselves. Spindler and Spindler
(1993) have studied the process of identity development with a particular emphasis on the
experiences of students of color, and the social categories of race, class and gender. Their
work aligns with the practices of TTD and the responses of the students in that the
construction of cultural identity results from adaptations in multiple worlds of interaction.
Additionally, according to Erickson (1980), identity development is one of the primary
processes during adolescence and requires perhaps this most social interaction. Further,
the concept of identity may be best described and understood in terms of the multiple
spaces in which adolescents exist. Cultural identity involves the Ieamed beliefs,
traditions, and interactions that are shared among members of any human society and is a
powerful entity in the everyday lives of individuals and groups of people (Grant &
Ladson-Billings, 1997). As an ever-evolving constellation of inﬂuences, culture shapes

the experiences, and worldviews of individuals, groups, communities, and institutions.

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TTD engaged students in ways that inﬂuenced their academic and social development, as
the program helped students to resolve the question of who they were, in terms of the
often intersecting domains of culture, values, and beliefs. As Way (1996) has argued,
students in this study were constructing a sense of their cultural identity by comparing
themselves with the standards and ideals of others in their communities as well as
situating themselves within social structures that were signiﬁcant to them. Erickson’s
(1980) analysis of identity suggests that identity involves a dual process of reﬂection and
observation based on their own beliefs of how others see and judge them. This provides
support for the social dynamics of identity construction within a social space like TTD.
Contrary to Ogbu’s (1987 ) assertion that many students of color sacriﬁce academic
success to maintain their cultural identities and remain afﬁliated with their culturally
similar peers, students in this study were attempting to maintain their identities and
develop cultural competencies needed for academic success. Given that the context of
this setting was not school, but rather an enrichment program, Ogbu’s ﬁndings are not
entirely falsiﬁed.

Significance of African-American Student Achievement. Because it was a
fundamental goal of the program to teach students about the signiﬁcance of
underrepresented minorities attending college, all of the students reported feeling a need
to achieve academically in order to have an inﬂuence on their community. Students
reported that it was important for them to achieve academically in order to work toward
removing society’s perception that African Americans do not perform well academically.
These students were conscious of the racial stereotypes and misperceptions held by those

in the larger society and felt that it was signiﬁcant for them to challenge those ideas. TTD

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encouraged students to be aware of negative views held by some in society, and this is
perhaps what inﬂuenced the boys to formulate achievement goals in response to them.
There are two major areas of educational research that students’ ideas about the
signiﬁcance of African-American achievement address.

The ﬁrst deals with Steele and Aronson’s (1995) view of stereotype threat.
Steele contends when a person’s social or cultural identity is attached to a negative
stereotype, that person will tend to under perform in a manner consistent with the
stereotype. He attributes the underperforrnance to a person’s anxiety that he or she will
conform to the negative stereotype. The anxiety manifests itself in various ways,
including distraction and increased body temperature, all of which diminish performance
level and students self efficacy. The four students in this study reported being conscious
of stereotypes but rather than reacting adversely reaction to them, chose to respond
positively by trying to provide themselves as counterexamples. The result supports
ﬁndings presented by Carter (2005) in her case study on high achieving African-
American students. She found that despite negative stereotypes and being aware of the
negative social, racial, political, climate that faces some African-Americans, many of
them managed to thrive and chose to excel in spite of.

The second area of research that this element of student responses can be
linked to is critical race theory and pedagogy. Critical race theory has its roots in the
more established ﬁelds of anthropology, sociology, history, philosophy, and politics
(Dixon and Rousseau, 2006) and deals with the social construction and reality of race and
discrimination from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Critical race

pedagogy is a similar assertion and has been present in much of the dialogue in

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contemporary educational research. It evolved from a direct response to Freire’s (1997)
call for critical and reﬂective journaling of the pedagogical process. Researchers such as
Morrell and Duncan-Andrade (2006) have addressed this call by conducting research on
the critical processes of educators (e. g. their response to race relations and political
awareness) and on how critical race theory and pedagogy can be used for practice. They
contend that it is important to be critical of circumstances that accept the existence of
schools as mechanisms of social reproduction. Teaching students of color to think, act,
and speak, like wealthy, suburban, and white students is not going to ensure success for
those students. Students should be engaged in a critical discourse that seeks to transform
their identities and empower them. Students’ in this study understood the stereotypes held
by some in society, and this knowledge inspired them to think critically about them and
work toward dispelling them.

Response to High Expectations. Students in this study responded positively to
staff high expectations for success. Program staff would talk about how they expected
high achievement out of TTD students and that they believed all of them would excel.
Students reported that staff expectations made them feel that they could do anything. It
made them feel good to know that they were apart of a community were everyone was
pushing toward trying to excel and perform well in school. Students’ responses indicated
that they were excited about the possibility and opportunities to do well despite where
they came from or what their background may have been. They felt that it was important
for young people to think about their futures this way and to not feel limited in where
they could go and what they could achieve. Additionally, students felt that staff’s high

expectations helped to present them with challenges to strive toward.

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These responses allude to a relationship between expectations and student
achievement. Although my data cannot establish this relationship as a causal linkage,
high expectations set the context for high achievement. Students in this study were
developing a sense of their own achievement based on the expectations of staff members
in the program. In time spent with these students and their families, the notion of high
expectation was held by their families and may have even been present within other
social domains of which they were apart. However, students did point speciﬁcally to their
reactions to the staff of TTD and their expectations. Students’ positive responses to staff
expectations were evidence of adults successfully communicating their optimism about
their capacity to learn. As Hilliard (2003) has argued regarding high expectations, if
students are made aware of educator’s desire for their success, they are more likely to
have positive responses and come to realize and acknowledge their own potential for
achievement. The high expectations held by members of the TTD staff align with
comprehensive views of building educational contexts and creating conditions that
promote learning for all students but speciﬁcally African-American students. It is
important to note that when students were asked whether or not they felt the staff had
high expectations for their success, their responses could have been inﬂuenced by social
acceptability. Given their experience with the program and their high regard for program
staff, it would not have been favorable for them to answer those particular questions
negatively. However, I felt that I was successful in assuring that their responses were
conﬁdential and others from the program would not have access to their responses and

this may have controlled for the inﬂation in their answers.

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Future Planning. Lastly, the four students in this study were encouraged by
the TTD program to look beyond their present realities and formulate goals and visions
for their futures. More speciﬁcally, students spoke to the ways the program imparted to
the importance of preparing for post-secondary attainment and possible career paths.
Despite literature pointing to the decline in goal orientation during the early years of
adolescence, Jamal, Keith, Charles, and Eric reported having established clear goals and
expectations about the future, as inﬂuenced by their participation in TTD. They seemed
to have acquired goal-oriented dispositions in thinking about their plans and outlook for
their futures. Goal orientation is deﬁned by Caraway, Tucker, Reinke, and Hall (2003) as
the individual's ability to make plans and set goals, it works in conjunction with self-
efﬁcacy to increase motivation. Goal-oriented individuals set challenging goals for
themselves and maintain high levels of commitment to those goals despite encountering
obstacles or challenges. Although my data do not directly support any empirical claims
about the lasting commitment these students made to accomplishing their goals, their
responses do support a move in that direction.

Ames (1992a) has argued that individual goal orientations may be inﬂuenced
by the motivational climates that are created by what teachers and signiﬁcant others say
and do. According to Kaplan and Maehr (1999), educational practices that are geared
toward facilitating goal orientation among African-American students address an
important social concern involving the achievement of a group of students who have
typically been marginalized and not given opportunities envision their future success.
Additionally, providing students with the opportunities to create goals for the future helps

to keep them mobilized toward success and empowers them to take control of their own

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academic and social destinies. The views of students in this study support the ecological
theory of goal orientation and add to existing knowledge about the ways that it may be
developed in African-American students, males in particular.
Connections to Releiant Literature

The ﬁndings in this study support and are connected to three broad areas of the
literature that were presented in Chapter Two. The ﬁrst area dealt with the critical
adolescence period in child development. The second was related to viewing
development from an environmental perspective. Lastly, ﬁndings align with a more
positive view of development among African-American youth.
Adolescent Development

Theorists who believe in critical periods believe that children who do not get
special stimulation during their window of receptivity are going to be "stuck" forever and
never gain the abilities they should have gained in that period. However, other theorists
believe that those very sensitive times in a child's life are just sensitive periods. They
agree that children who do not get the right nurturing at the right times to jumpstart their
developmental potential are going to have problems later in life, but they do not think that
this inability to develop is permanent (Lilliard, 1996).

During adolescence youth face a range of developmental issues. Havighurst
(1952) suggested that two important issues included work and relationships. Levinson
(1978) focused on changing relationships and on exploration, while Erikson (1968)
commented on intimacy and commitment to goals. Super (1963) indicated that exploring
and crystallizing vocational choice are also important to older adolescents and young

adults. What seems evident is that older adolescents and young adults enter transitions

162

with the goal of becoming independently functioning adults, as they strive to meet
evolving personal and career related needs. This theory could perhaps explain or help to
understand how and why Jamal, Keith, Charles, and Eric reported various feelings about
their future goals, relationships with program staff, cultural identity. Erikson (1968)
suggested that in our culture, adolescence affords a "psychosocial moratorium,"
particularly for middle - and upper-class American children. They do not yet have to
"play for keeps," but can experiment, trying various roles, and thus hopefully ﬁnd the one
most suitable for them (Child Development Institute Resource Guide 2006). Although the
participants of this study displayed characteristics similar to other adolescents during the
critical period of development, they also showed in their responses about academic
achievement and social mobility, that they were in fact playing for keeps. For these four
boys, every decision and choice would determine signiﬁcant life outcomes.
Environmental Views of Development

Second, ﬁndings from this study also support the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner
(1.975 ) and other researchers who use the ecological theory to explain how factors in a
child’s environment can affect how he or she grows and develops. Bronfenbrenner (1975)
labeled different aspects or levels of the environment that inﬂuence children's
development, including the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the
macrosystem. The microsystem is the small, immediate environment the child lives in.
Children's microsystems will include any immediate relationships or organizations they

interacts with, such as their immediate family or caregivers and their school or daycare.

In this study the students’ microsystem included the Truth Tubman Douglas

Program. Similar to ﬁndings from Dryfoos’ (1998) study, how the program interacted

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with the student participants may have an effect on how they grow and develop. The
more encouraging and nurturing these relationships and places are, the better the child
will be able to learn and thrive. When viewed from this perspective, developmental paths
are shaped by the reciprocal interplay between personal factors and diverse inﬂuences in
ever-changing societies. The environment in which people live their lives is not a
situational entity that ordains their life course. Rather it is a varied array of transactional
life events in which individuals interact and respond to elements of their surroundings
(Bandura, 2005). These surroundings are typically linked to age, status, and their roles in
educational, familial, occupational, and other institutional systems. Findings of this study
support the idea that adolescents may be inﬂuenced by their participation in the organized

structure of TTD.

Positive Views of African-American Development

Lastly, the participants in this study and their articulation of their experiences
result in a common narrative that lends itself well to a larger body of research that
focuses on what may be working in African-Americans’ lives, not to the deﬁciencies. As
mentioned in chapter two, more often than not empirical research that focuses on
African-American students, especially males, highlight at length the disparities and
disadvantages that exist. Ladson Billings and Tate (2006) suggest that research should be
transformative in that it serves to enhance social justice and democracy, while also
advancing the ﬁeld of educational research. This paradigm is especially signiﬁcant for
inquiries involving students of color as they have been historically marginalized the most.

Ladson-Billings (2000) notes that “references to the educational needs of African-

164

American students are folded into a discourse of deprivation” (p. 206). Furthermore, “the
educational research literature, when it considers African-American learners at all, has
constructed all African-American children, regardless of economic or social

circumstance, within the deﬁcit paradigm” (p. 206).

This research showcases a sustained effort that was providing parallel yet
different experiences from traditional school for African-American youth. It presents a
description of their learning and teaching in afﬁrmative ways. To be sure, these ﬁndings
serve as a response to the prevailing historic patterns of the sometimes incorrect and
biased estimates of the developmental capacity of students of color, particularly African-
Americans. There is a place for understanding and examining factors that lead to the
negative outcomes of African-American adolescents, as it contributes to the creation of a
comprehensive view of their educational and social experiences. However, the current
study as well as future analysis of this data will seek to shed light on the ways that
African-American youth can achieve healthy developmental outcomes.

Limitations
Although purposeful sampling can provide rich and insightful cases that

increase understanding about certain phenomena, this is sometimes achieved with a
limited sample. This study utilized a very small sample of students. Because there were
only 4 participants, there is further need to investigate this area of educational research to
determine whether ﬁndings from a larger and broader sample would match these results.
It is also important to note that three of the four boys were from middle-to upper-class
black families. An examination of whether

(or not) these boys’ experiences are representative of African-American adolescents in

165

their peer group is needed. It could be the case that this sample of boys is atypical in that
beyond their participation in the Truth Tubman Douglas program, they had fairly stable
and strong support networks via their families and communities. Unlike students in
Owens’(2005) study or the youth that Milbrey and McLaughlin (2000) highlight in
Urban Sanctuaries, these four boys did have other sources of reinforcement. Given
different background circumstances of the boys, their responses to how the program
inﬂuenced them may have been slightly different.

This sample also consisted of all boys. The selection of all boys was based on
the availability of those who volunteered to participate and was not necessarily
purposeful. Further discussion and inquiry on how adolescent girls respond to a program
like TTD is needed. Additionally, the analysis of students’ perspectives about the TTD
program relied on my interpretations of interview data which are ultimately self reports.
In attempting to examine student voice and gain insight through interviews, it is
important to note the complexity that this type of method presents. Self-reports are
although rich and insightful, still pose questions about the validity of information shared,
particularly when the participants are asked questions that could potentially depict them
or those close to them in a negative light. As the researcher, I was conscious of this
limitation throughout the duration of the study.

I attempted to control for self-report as much as possible in my analysis and
interpretation of student responses. In order to protect the privacy of the participants,
information they provided about their experiences was not cross-checked or corroborated
with program staff. However, two parents of the boys participated in interviews where

they discussed their views on TTD as well as how they observed their children’s

166

responses to participating. This data was used minimally in the analysis of participant
responses but not formerly included in this dissertation. These interviews revealed that
generally parents saw TTD as being an asset to their children academically and were
pleased that their sons enjoyed their experiences with the program. Although students
and their parents saw me as a member of the TTD “family,” my role as researcher and the
nature of this study were explained to all four boys and their parents at multiple times
prior to and during the course of data collection. I would describe the requirements of my
doctoral program to conduct research for a dissertation, and while 1 was connected to the
program, my obligations to conduct the study were primary. It is my hope that this offset
the tendency for them to depict the program in a favorable light.
Implications

The ﬁndings from this dissertation have implications for three broad areas of
educational research: university outreach programs, adolescent learning and
development, and student voice. In considering how this study contributes to what we
know about academic outreach programs, I am ﬁrst reminded of Dr. S’s comment to me
about the importance of doing this work so that people understand the nature of the TTD
program, “I’m so glad you’re on board, we need the work that you will doing, so that
people can know what we’re about.” On a larger scale it is important for all educational
stakeholders including program facilitators to know about academic outreach programs
and how they function. TTD is just one academic outreach program among hundreds and
maybe thousands in the United States, and it is beyond the empirical reach of this study
to generalize to other programs. However, there are certain elements of this work that

may be useful in understanding the work being done in these settings. Speciﬁcally, the

167

TTD program engaged successfully in such practices as teaching students about the
positive aspects of the African American culture, relaying high expectations for student
success, exposing them to the world of college, and creating a family-oriented space for
with the students.

The voices of participants represented in this study demonstrate that outreach
programs play a viable role in providing students, particularly African-American
students, with positive ideologies and skills they need to function and succeed
academically. Educators, policy makers, and researchers interested in creating effective
support networks for the positive development of students of color can utilize information
and insight from this study and similar studies to realize this goal. Future research should
be undertaken to examine the perspectives and views of students in other programs in
order to examine and assess the generality of the results reported here. More speciﬁcally,
this line of work could reveal signiﬁcant information about the pedagogical approaches
that are being implemented within these spaces.

The presented ﬁndings also have implications for the ﬁeld of adolescent learning
and development. They shed light on the construction of their cultural identities as
students as well as the development of academic skills and goal orientation.

This study contributes to the socio-cultural view of adolescent development as presented
ﬁrst by Vygotsky (1978) and later by Cole (1990). This view of learning and
development relies on understanding development through the enactment of social
activity. First, the study provides insight into the ways that adolescents may be
constructing and negotiating their identities via social activity within academic outreach

programs. Through their participation and positive interaction with peers and adults,

168

youth are able to build appropriate identities about who they are culturally. Second, the
study has shown how the TTD program has been a context for this acquisition of
academic skills and for their becoming more self directed learners. Third, the study has
documented their progress toward becoming more goal-oriented, when exposed to certain
academic practices. According to Eccles (2001), positive development is inﬂuenced and
nurtured by what happens within contexts and relationships as well as across the people,
places and possibilities young people encounter in their daily lives.

Lastly, this study has implications for understanding and focusing on student
voice. Cook-Sather (2002) has observed that, "Because of who they are, what they know,
and how they are positioned, students must be recognized as having knowledge essential
to the development of sound educational policies and practices (p. 5)." One step toward a
comprehensive view of students is through the exploration of their perspectives and ideas
on their learning and development. This study contributes to this area of educational
research by offering an analysis of the perspectives, voices, views, and experiences of
students who actively participated in an educational context. Although the perspectives
and experiences created from youth perspectives will not generalize across contexts, they
do offer contextual ideas and issues that are pertinent to the conversation about how to
address the needs of adolescents, particularly African American students.

It is my hope that by presenting the voices of students in this program,
researchers and practitioners can begin to thoughtfully reﬂect on their work with these
adolescents by understanding how they may be experiencing academic spaces outside of
school that are shaping their social, emotional, and academic development. A focus on

student voice helps educational stakeholders to understand that students do know what

169

types of support they need, and that they can articulate those needs while also critiquing
their own socio-cultural environments. Much of the research on African American
students emphasizes their cultural discontinuities, portraying them as students with
limited hope and academic aspirations. Yet the voices of Eric, Charles, Jamal, and Keith
do not illustrate academic or social deﬁciency. They are not disconnected from schooling
or achievement but rather reveal their resilience and dedication to their academic success.
Future Directions: Developing a Research Agenda
This dissertation serves as a platform for developing a future research agenda

in examining student voice and the learning and development of African-American
students. There are still remaining questions for exploring students’ perspectives within
traditional classrooms to broaden our understanding of their learning and development
via various kinds of curriculum and practices. For example, what are students’
perspectives on standards based testing or culturally responsive pedagogy? It is my hope
to continue these endeavors and build a line of research that helps in our understanding
the ways that African American students learn and develop. Over the next ﬁve years I
would like to contribute to the body of research that utilizes student voice to understand
the intricacies, complexities, and nuances within the wider world of education.
Additionally, following Ladson-Billings and Tate (2006), I view my role as researcher to
be “transformative” in that it serves to enhance social justice and democracy, while also
advancing the ﬁeld of educational research and the knowledge of students. In the words
of John Hope Franklin (2005), a notable African-American scholar and historian,

“While I set out to advance my professional career on the basis of the

highest standards of scholarship, I also used that scholarship to expose the

hypocrisy underlying so much of American social and race relations. It
never ceased being a risky feat of tightrope walking, but I always believed

170

that if I could use my knowledge and training to improve society it was
incumbent on me to make an attempt (pg. 376)”

171

APPENDICES

172

 

APPENDIX A

Student Participant Interview Protocol #1

Introductory Questions

El

E1

El

El
El

What grade are you in?
How old are you?

Tell me about yourself. Like what you like to do for fun. What type of music do
you listen to. What is your favorite subject in school?

What type of student do you think you are? Good, ok, Not so good.
We’ll talk more about this later?

General Questions

E]
El
E

El
E
El

SIB

How long have you participated in the KCP Rising Stars Program?

This is my second year. {Didn’t participate in the summer residency program}
Have you participated in this program?

Do you have friends or family members that participate?

What have you liked or enjoyed most about KCP Rising Star?

Were there things that you maybe didn’t like so much about the program? If so
what were they, and why?

What has been your favorite activity in the program?
What do you think the purpose of KCP is?

Do they say anything speciﬁcally about the importance of college for urban youth
or minority students? If so what?

Has KCP taught you about academic achievement in general?
What have they taught you about culture and identity (speciﬁcally about your own
culture or about other cultures)?

0 Have these things helped you to think about how you identify or view
yourself as a person or student?

173

What resources and support (i.e. summer workshops, speakers) has helped you the
most, if at all?

Thinking back to a couple months ago when we discussed leadership and
initiative, what do you a leader is ?

Have you Ieamed anything in the program about conﬂict resolution or how to
resolve conﬂicts.

Last month was the Rosa Parks Tribute and they talked about activism, what do
you think activism is?

174

APPENDIX B

Student Participant Interview Protocol #2

General Questions

Q] What is this notion of “We are family” that is present in KCP, what are your
views on that? Do you feel connected to KCP and if so how is this helpful for
you?

0 Have you developed friendships and relationships within KCP

E KCP talks a lot about knowing what type of student you are and how you learn
best. Describe who you are as a student. What do you drink about your own
academic ability?

B How often do you use these learning style skills that are taught by the program?

Q What do you all think the signiﬁcance of African American student achievement
is, or is it important?

Q What have been some of the things that KCP has taught you about academic
achievement and how does that ﬁt or not ﬁt with what your parents tell you about
achievement?

El What do you think the social and academic needs are of young people around
your age are? What do you think are some of your needs are? (i.e. what would
you need to help you be successful in school and in society)

E Describe your idea of success? What does it mean to be successful? Good job,
lots of jewelry, what?

B How does KCP help you think about your cultural identity as a young black male?

3 Has KCP made you socially aware about what is going on in the world? (i.e. in
schools, in government, in the media)

3 Does the staff at KCP have certain expectations for you as a student? If so, what
are they?

0 If so, do you try to live up to those expectations?

J AMAL

El Do they say anything speciﬁcally about the importance of college for urban youth
or minority students? If so what?

175

 

Has KCP taught you about academic achievement in general?
What have they taught you about culture and identity (speciﬁcally about your own
culture or about other cultures)?
0 Have these things helped you to think about how you identify or view
yourself as a person or student?

What resources and support (i.e. summer workshops, speakers) has helped you the
most, if at all?

Thinking back to a couple months ago when we discussed leadership and
initiative, what do you a leader is ?

What do you think activism is? What did KCP talk about at the Rosa Parks
Tribute. Do remember any of the things that from Saturday about activism?

From last time: In what ways has KCP helped you to think about your purpose?

Why is it important to be open? What does that mean to you?

CHARLES

In what speciﬁc ways has KCP helped you to prepare for college and “ make
better grades”

What does social justice mean for you? Probe: What does it mean to “be educated
so you can ﬁght back”

What is meant by some students “being smart but not having opportunities”

Talk more about the comparison of the two different middle schools. Are there
connections to what is learned in KCP.

DJ
The difference between his statement about his potential to do good work and
how he actually performs and what he perceives he might needs to do better.

Importance of making friends and developing relationships within the program

Social view of minority/black students “ we know what we’re worth but we’re not
viewed like that” pg. 5

176

El Signiﬁcance and Meaning of staff views and relationships. How signiﬁcant is the
staff’ 5 belief in your potential and ultimate success to you and does it help you in
school?

B Probe further on the deﬁnition of success. Pg.9

177

E

8 58885585 8

8

APPENDIX C

Student Participant Interview Protocol #2

.IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT: What is a rising star? What do you think it
means to be a part of KCP and what makes you different from young people who
are not apart of the program?

What sessions have you attended this year? Which workshops stand out for you
the most? Note: (Can also get this info from program as well)

Opening Kick-off Workshop
Technology Day

Cultural Day

Tribute to Rosa Parks
Summer Sign-Up Info Session
Study Skills

Test Taking

Pet Visit

Talk more in general about how this program is helping (impacting) you? Are
there any drawbacks? Are there ways that the program may not be so helpful?

We’ve talked about utilizing skills from KCP in the classroom but are there other
things that happen in the program that inﬂuence you in school?

PEER SUPPORT: How important are the relationships you build here in KCP?

YOUTH NEEDS: What do you think is important for or needed for young people
like yourself to be successful?

KCP PROGRAM: Ultimately do you think KCP has or will help you accomplish
your goals? Why and in what way?

How has KCP helped you make plans for you future and do you think this is
important? Why or Why not?

Do the program staffs’ high expectations of your success make you conﬁdent
about what you are capable of?

In what ways have you tried to use leadership skills taught by the program?
Speciﬁc examples from school and home.

178

Do you consider yourself to be different from your peers? Do you feel that your
participation in KCP inﬂuences you in a way that makes you different from others
who do not participate? If so, how and in what ways?

LEADERSHIP AND ACTIVISM: Do you feel that leadership important for
African American students?

Is Leadership connected to being an activist, or are those two different things?

Do you think about the decisions you make to succeed in school as a form of
activism?

Why is it important for black children to have a better future? (Kyle)
How does education make you more equipped to “fightback”?

What do you think are some of the major issues facing young people? (In schools,
in their neighborhoods, in their homes)

Is it important for you to deﬁne your own success?

BLACK IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT: What examples have you used to think
about your future success (the program, your friends, your parents?

Do you think about the importance of African American achieving and does that
help you make decisions in school?

What are some of the images of black males that you see in the media (T.V.
movies, music videos, etc.) Do you identify with those images. If so, in what

ways? If not, why?

How do you think black males are perceived at your school? Do you think this
perception impacts their learning?

Do you think black male’s needs are different from other students?
What do you think it means to have a positive cultural identity?

What type of support would you need in order to have a positive view of
yourself?

Do you think that your cultural identity is connected to how you perform in
school?

179

EZI CONCLUSION: This is our last interview so are there other things that you want
to tell me about your participation and experience in KCP that might be helpful in
me understanding your views and experiences?

180

588888

888885

8

APPENDIX D
Staff Interview Protocol
How did you come to be involved with KCP? How long have you been involved
and in what capacity?
How long has this program been here at Michigan State?
What do you perceive as the major goals and objectives of the program?

How do you think those goals are carried out in program activities?

In what ways have you personally tried to transfer these goals and objectives to
the youth participants?

How do you attempt to align program activities and program curriculum with the
goals and objectives?

Are there components of the program that you feel are particularly signiﬁcant for
the youth? If so, what are they?

In what ways does KCP attempt to address the academic and developmental needs
of the participants? What do you perceive these needs to be?

Are there components or areas of the program that you feel can be improved? (i.e.
structure of activities, programs, staff, etc.) If so, what are they?

What does it mean to be a KCP participant?
What types of ideas and values aligned with being KCP?

How important do you feel that these resources and supports are for young
people?

How important do you think they are to urban and/or minority youth?

In thinking about gaining useful information on student experiences in the
program, what types of questions do you think could be asked of current
participants? What areas may be helpful to focus on?

How important do you think this program is for young black males? Why?

What components of the program do you think are or would be most signiﬁcant
for them?

In general, what do you think the academic and social needs of young black males
are?

181

E1 Are there ways that you try to speciﬁcally support the males in the program?

182

APPENDIX E

Key Informant Interview Protocol

How old are you? What school do you attend?
How long did you participate in the KCP Rising Stars Program?

Did you have friends or family members that participated or are currently
participating?

What did you like or enjoy most about KCP Rising Stars?

Were there things that you maybe didn’t like so much about the program? If so,
what were they, and why?

What did it mean to be a KCP participant?
o What types of ideas and values aligned with being KCP?

In your view, what did KCP teach you if anything about going to college and
planning for college?
0 Did they say anything speciﬁcally about the importance of college for
urban youth or minority students? If so what?
0 How did you feel about what they were saying? How similar, if at all, was
it to what your family and friends said or felt about college?

What did they teach you about culture and identity (speciﬁcally about your own
culture or about other cultures)?
0 Have these things helped you to think about how you identify or view
yourself as a person or student?

What resources and support (i.e. summer workshops, speakers) helped you the
most, if at all?

How important do you feel that these resources and supports are to young people?
0 How important do you think they are to urban and/or minority youth?

In thinking about gaining useful information on student experiences in the
program and thinking about your own experience as a Rising Star, what types of
questions do you think could be asked of current participants? What areas may be
helpful to focus on.

183

 

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