The Dilemmas and Duality of Black Male High School Student-Athletes: Negotiating Racial and Academic Identities

• In Event: Same Story, Different Places: Examining Cross-Regional Variations in Black Students’ Educational Experiences

Abstract

A number of scholars have highlighted how the academic identity development of Black male athletes has been neglected (Beamon, 2010; Dawkins, Braddock II, & Celaya, 2009; Edwards, 2000). Studies of Black male athletes are often at the college level and primarily rely on interview data (see Martin & Harris III, 2006). Based on observation and interview data with 18 Black male high school athletes in a predominantly black suburb in the U.S. South, research findings in this paper capture the saliency of ethnic and contextual variations in how Black male student-athletes negotiated academic, social, and athletic identities. Findings illustrate the contrast between high- and low-achieving student-athletes. Although high achieving student-athletes were sometimes teased by peers, parental support and influence, and these athletes’ pursuit of future academic goals allowed them to transcend criticism and to effectively balance academic and athletic goals. Low-achieving student athletes also discussed the importance of academic achievement but struggled to balance their pursuit of their athletic goals with the pursuit of academic excellence. Second-generation immigrants and African-American high achievers viewed sports participation as a way to stay in shape and to learn discipline–but academic excellence was salient to their overall development. The parental (SES) levels of the high achieving student-athletes were higher than those of the lower-achieving athletes, across ethnicity.

Research that focuses on high school Black male athletes is very important because adolescence is a period of time in which young people attempt to gain an integrated sense of self (Erikson, 1968). For African American youth, this process can be further complicated by race, gender, and class status (Ogbu, 2003; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999; Phinney, 1990; Spencer, 2001a; Spencer, 2001b; Tatum, 1997). As the findings in this paper illustrate, Black male high school students are placed in a very precarious position because they face the dilemma of having to perform dual roles—as students and as athletes—while attempting to conform or dispel societal expectations of them as young Black males.

Another important aspect of this paper is that it goes beyond limited notions of Black youth as primarily African American, by incorporating Black youth who are also second-generation immigrants. This is significant because existing studies of Black male athletes rarely capture the ethnic distinctions within Black populations and the implications for how these young people navigate spaces traditionally considered “non-black.” The only time such distinctions are made among Black athletes from different ethnic groups is when they are used to reify existing preconceived notions of Black people. The purpose in recognizing these differences is to go beyond unilateral notions of Black male identity as well as to understand how such nuances may help inform how they approach schooling, and how schools and adults within schools respond to Black youth.

Authors

• Adeoye Adeyemo, University of Georgia

• Jerome E. Morris, University of Georgia