The Relationship Between Perceptions of Neighborhood Characteristics and Academic Performance Among Urban African American Adolescent Males

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: How Do Perceptions, Attitudes, and Identities Affect the Learning Opportunities of Underrepresented Students?

Abstract

Academic underachievement among African American males is a concern that has reached the agenda for several policy makers, practitioners and educators. In many ways, the solution to the problem is beyond the capacity of local urban schools. To this, Ladson Billings suggests that what we have in not an achieving gap, but an opportunity gap. Thus, this works aims to help better understand how the relationship between neighborhood microsystems and student achievement from a students’ perspectives focusing specifically on the perspectives of African American boys.

Author

• DeMarcus Antonio Jenkins, University of California - Los Angeles