Sifting for Success: A Grounded Theory Approach to Black Student Academic Success

• In Event: Roundtable Session 35
  In Roundtable Session: Ensuring Student Success: New Directions in Black Education

Abstract

Numerous theories have been used to examine of African Americans students’ educational successes and experiences. Along those lines, the purpose of this study is to generate a theoretical framework of 'sponsorship' that is grounded in Black students’ educational experiences. Sponsorship is taken to be the process through which agents provide, stymie, and/or enhance access to valued resources for select student(s). The author termed the constructed grounded theory "sifting for success". Three constitutive components comprised "sifting for success": (1) naming institutional and systemic racism, (2) defining success, and (3) positioning some Black students as 'academic afterthoughts'. The author argues that teachers' involvement in "sifting for success" is rife with tensions and serves to create and exacerbate educational inequalities.

Author

• Shameka Nija Powell, Tufts University