Mind-Set, Agency, and African American High School Students

• In Event: Roundtable Session 49
  In Roundtable Session: Promoting Social Justice in Black Education

Abstract

In light of slow progress in reforming macro structures that maintain racial inequality, individual mindset and agency are essential tools in success. A qualitative secondary analysis of pre-existing interview data from African American high school students revealed fixed, growth, and hybrid mindsets and multidimensional agency. Fixed, growth, and hybrid mindsets viewed circumstances as immutable, malleable, and simultaneously stable and changeable, respectively. Agency dimensions included reflection, analysis of the effects of a situation; evaluation, judgment of performance; self-direction, a determination independent of others about circumstance-related enactments; and coping strategies, student-initiated efforts to address circumstances. When viewed in tandem, fixed mindsets with minimum dimensions of agency and hybrid mindsets with maximum dimensions of agency emerged as insightful findings that warrant further study.

Authors

• Eileen R.C. Parsons, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Terrell Roderick Morton, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Beth E. Kurtz-Costes, University of North Carolina

• Lionel Howard, The George Washington University