Building Student-Teacher Relationships That Affirm the Capacity of Black Males

• In Event: The Humanity, Emotionality, and Love of Teaching

Abstract

This paper looks at how teachers initiate and maintain productive student-relationships with Black males. I propose a framework in which the tenets of culturally relevant critical care (political clarity, asset-based thinking, and critical hope) and working alliance theory (relationships built on interpersonal bonds, common tasks, and common goals) inform the specific ways teacher relate to Black males. Additionally, I examines the ways a teacher’s race, gender, and teaching context impacts the way they initiate and maintain working alliances based in culturally relevant teacher care.

Author

• Colleen Gannon, Johns Hopkins University – Baltimore