Mobility and Insecurity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd M. Michney
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Geographic Mobility ◽  
Black Middle Class ◽  
African American Families ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
White Families ◽  
Downtown Redevelopment ◽  
The American South ◽  
American Families

This chapter considers the structural factors and life dilemmas upwardly mobile black Clevelanders faced even after achieving geographic mobility, and explicates the dynamic whereby less-affluent African American families steadily moved into new, outlying black middle-class neighbourhoods. Topics discussed include lending discrimination, the unfavourable financing arrangements available to African American homebuyers and the associated economic setbacks they experienced, the role of black professional real estate brokerage associations, the phenomenon of isolated white families remaining in post-transitional neighbourhoods, and the forces driving lower-income African American families into outlying neighbourhoods, mainly downtown redevelopment and ongoing migration from the American South. It also investigates black middle class notions of status and the intra-racial, cross-class frictions that ensued around issues of property upkeep, personal comportment, child rearing, and leisure-time practices.

“Give a Brotha a Break!”: The Experiences and Dilemmas of Middle-Class African American Male Students in White Suburban Schools

2012 ◽  
Vol 114 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverly M. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
African American Male ◽  
Suburban Schools ◽  
African American Families ◽  
Male Students ◽  
African American Male Students ◽  
Suburban Communities ◽  
American Families

Background/Context Today, in the era of the first African American president, approximately one third of all African Americans live in suburban communities, and their children are attending suburban schools. Although most research on the education of African American students, particularly males, focuses on their plight in urban schooling, what occurs in suburban schools is also in need of examination. Purpose/Focus of Study This research focused on the lived experiences of 4 middle-class African American male students attending affluent White suburban schools. Through vignettes focusing on their various experiences and recollections, this study provides a preliminary snapshot, part of a larger study, of the schooling environments in the life stories of middle-class Black suburban youth. Research Design Qualitative methodology was used to explore the life histories of the 4 African American males. Each student participated in a tape-recorded interview to examine what it meant to grow up in White upper-middle-class suburban communities and to matriculate within suburban district schools from elementary through high school. Findings/Results The salient themes that emerged from the rich, interactive conversations and dialoguing address issues related to disillusionment and resilience; the presence or absence of racism; academic pressures; social bonding and identity development in racialized social and academic settings; and the gatekeeping role of athletics. Conclusions/Recommendations Suburban education may not be the panacea that African American families had hoped. The socioeconomic status of African American families who live in affluent White suburban communities may not be enough to mitigate against the situated “otherness” that Black students—in this case, males—experienced in affluent White suburban schools. More research is needed to understand the positionality of Black male students in suburban schools; relationships between suburban Black adolescent males and females; school life beyond athletics; the role of the family and community in combating racism and otherness; and how student agency can be a force for change.

We've Been Post-Raced: An Examination of Negotiations between Race, Agency, and School Structures Black Families Experience within “Post-Racial” Schools

2015 ◽  
Vol 117 (14) ◽  
pp. 148-170
Author(s):  
Rema E. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Families ◽  
African American Families ◽  
School Structures ◽  
American President ◽  
Education And Society ◽  
American Families

This chapter draws from empirical research on middle-class African American families to examine the ways middle-class African American parents and students make meaning of their experiences within public schools. In light of the current mainstream contention that the United States has entered a post-racial epoch with the election of the first African American president, this work posits that post-racial rhetoric obfuscates the continued racialized experiences of Black families regardless of class status. In particular, this work examines how middle-class African American families navigate conversations about race, agency, and structure as they relate to access and opportunities in education and society as a whole.

Middle-class African American families’ expectations for adolescents’ behavioural autonomy

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 371-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Daddis ◽  
Judith Smetana
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
African American Families ◽  
African American Mothers ◽  
Mothers And Fathers ◽  
American Families

Timetables for adolescents’ behavioural autonomy were examined using a modified version of Feldman and Quatman’s (1988) teen timetable measure with 73 middle-class African American middle adolescents (M age 1 / 4 14.96 years, SD 1 / 4 1.29) and their parents (73 mothers and 44 fathers), who were followed longitudinally for 3 years. African American mothers’ and fathers’ expectations for adolescents’ behavioural autonomy did not differ, but expectations varied greatly across issues, and mothers consistently endorsed later timetables than did adolescents. Autonomy expectations each could be described in terms of two empirically derived, conceptually meaningful, and internally consistent composites pertaining to personal and prudential issues. They were earlier for personal than prudential issues and for prudential issues, for boys than for girls. Mothers’ (but not adolescents’) expectations for the desired timing of adolescents’ autonomy over personal and prudential issues predicted increased autonomy over those issues 3 years later.

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