Early Adolescent Black Boys, Intersectional Identities, and Single-Sex Schooling

• In Event: 61.035 - Boys' Intersectionality and Schooling: In Pursuit of Interpretative Frameworks, Policy, and Practice

Abstract

Black boys and men lead the U.S. in rates of homicide, suicide, and incarceration (National Urban League, 2007). They are overrepresented in suspension and expulsion rates, and underrepresented in advanced-placement and honors courses (Oakes, 1985; Skiba, et al., 2002). Some scholars link these deleterious outcomes to the intersection of Black boys’ race, class, and gender identity (Ferguson, 2000; Stevenson, 2004). Mass media outlets, in turn, often portray Black males as “hypermasculine,” a persona rooted in hyperaggression, anti-intellectualism, and hypersexuality. (Cose, 2002; Majors & Billson, 1992)

Single-sex schools for boys of color have been embraced in the U.S. as a strategy to ameliorate this “Black Male Crisis” (Sharpton, 2004). With hypermasculine identities shaped by urban poverty considered a profound contributing factor (Anderson, 2008; Cunningham, et al., 1999), these schools not only express a commitment to educating boys, but also fostering identity construction (http://www.coseboc.org). Prior research purports how supporting Black male identities can promote positive outcomes (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Smalls, et al., 2007). Scholars must therefore strive to best understand how this intervention school model influences Black boys’ intersectional identities.

The outgrowth of a multi-site, longitudinal study of single-sex schools for Black and Latino boys (Fergus et al., forthcoming), this paper maps the dynamics of low-income, Black boys’ (ages 13 and 14) race, class, and gender identity construction within a single-sex middle school in New York City. School observations, two-hour interviews, and student identity projects were used to examine the intersectional identities of seven, 8th grade Black boys shadowed for 10 months (academic year). Data sources were analyzed using an integrated method comprised of “open-coding” (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and cross-case analysis. (Huberman & Miles, 1994)

Two preliminary themes of Black boys’ intersectional identities emerged: (1) School Setting Matters; Whether in the classroom, hallway, lunchroom, or playground, the identity markers of race, class, and gender were either emphasized or deemphasized in response to where the boy was located within the school environment. (2) Relational Intersectionality; Although largely determined by the quality of the relationship, boys’ peer and adult relationships at school significantly influenced the centrality of particular identity markers to their presentations of self (Goffman, 1979). Together, these interrelated themes begin to reveal the complex dynamics of Black boys’ intersectional identities within a single-sex school context for boys of color, and thus underscore the need to consider how intersecting race, class, and gender identities are shaped by school environments.

Identities nevertheless are regarded as distinctly racialized, classed, and gendered in the U.S. and globally. Educational research, however, grappling with the intersections of race, class, and gender acknowledges a more nuanced human condition with far greater implications for understanding identity construction across the critical social contexts of home, neighborhood, and school. This inquiry stance requires scholarship to embrace intersectional approaches to inform educational policies sanctioning successful programs, classrooms, and schools engaging identity construction, academic performance and the social development of not just boys, but all students.

Author

• Joseph D. Nelson, Swarthmore College