The Effects of Learning Context and Racial Composition of Study Groups on Academic Outcomes

• In Event: Promoting Gap-Closing Outcomes for Diverse Learners Through Asset-Based Teaching

Abstract

The condition of African-American children is in a state of grave danger. Though scores in reading and mathematics have increased for all students, there remains a significant gap between African-American children and their European American counterparts (NAEP, 2011). Though many have taken a stance against this obstacle, there remains a substantial amount of work to be done in regards to solutions being made. The work of the likes of Boykin, Ellison, Albury and others has shown strides in the use of African-American children’s culture to enhance their ability in their classroom settings and the assertion that all children can learn and achieve at a high level if the schooling institution focuses on their assets rather than what they lack. This paper proposes to not only bolster the arguments of those who have previously conducted research on the achievement of African-American children, but to forge new ground on methods to close the achievement gap.
This paper uses Boykin’s (1983) Triple Quandary model which asserts that African-American people, psychologically, must navigate three realms of experience to function at an optimal level. These are the mainstream experience (patterns of behavior that are mandated by the dominant culture), the minority experience (African American’s interaction with the social forces impinging on African Americans that result from economic, political, and social oppression due to their race), and the Black cultural experience (an intrinsic foundation from which African Americans “order, interpret, and negotiate social reality that is functionally linked to a distinctive patterning of behavior”). Keying on the Black cultural experience, the communal learning context is an adaptation of the fundamental orientation of African-American people toward group duty, sharing, and social orientation used to create intersubjectivity in the classroom. However, previous work has not shown how this learning context operates when African-American and European-American students study together.
Through this lens, this paper attempted to understand the mathematics performance of African-American and European-American children in terms of how they work together and separately in homogeneous and heterogeneous cooperative learning study groups. The work found that students placed who studied in the heterogeneous racial composition condition performed better when told that individuals would receive a reward for scoring the highest in their group. Also, the white students’ perceptions of how much they mattered in the study groups differed based on the racial composition of the study groups such that those studying with only White students felt they mattered more than those who studied with White and Black participants. Implications and next steps will be discussed. The changing demographic face of this country—deemed the browning of America—necessitates a hard look at how America would like to move forward. As the United States come closer to becoming inhabited by all minorities, we have to be open to completely altering the course of the educational institution. Cultural assets matter, group interactions matter, but most importantly how students perceive their existence in the classroom can determine greatly their subsequent achievement and attainment both today and in the future.

Author

• Richard D. Dixon, Capstone Institute at Howard University