Newswise — Although the National Assessment of Educational Progress last year reported a slight narrowing of the achievement gap between black and white students in math, African-American students still tend to make significantly lower scores than their white peers on standardized tests. University of Virginia assistant professor Robert Q. Berry decided to look at what factors help African-American students succeed. He will discuss his findings at the American Educational Research Association meeting in San Francisco on April 8.
"I wanted to ask, what makes them resilient? Able to overcome obstacles?" he said. The gap has been attributed to socioeconomic status, school conditions and even genetics.
The success factors he has identified include: positive early education experiences, a caring ethic shared by parents and teachers, participation in rigorous curricula, academic peer interactions and the children's own perceptions of themselves.
At the AERA session, he will present a paper co-authored with University of Memphis professor Angiline Powell, who has studied the success of math majors in college. Berry said their goal is to develop and describe a pipeline through the school years, identifying what characteristics and conditions enable black children to succeed in mathematics.
For his study, Berry has followed a cadre of eight African-American boys from seventh and eighth grades through high school, interviewing them, their parents, teachers and others significant to their learning. The boys, who are from a range of economic and home situations, benefited from getting into a higher-level academic track by seventh grade including math classes, he said, which began with early success. For example, the boys talked about the importance of learning their multiplication tables when younger. That access to higher-level math classes carried over from elementary to middle to high school. Parental involvement and having high expectations for their sons doing well in school is key, stressed Berry, and that requires being an advocate and sometimes even a defender. At one point six of the boys were identified as possibly having learning disabilities, with which their parents disagreed. When the boys were tested, it turned out that five of the six were identified as gifted.
"As advocates, the parents were actively involved to make sure the school was 'doing right by' their child," Berry said. They also helped to select courses. One mother talked of trying to figure out the differences in algebra classes such as advanced, honors and advanced placement.
One or two teachers who were particularly encouraging clearly made a difference. In addition, access to other learning opportunities reinforced the boys' academic strengths.
A strong network of support involves not only parents and teachers, but also an extended community, according to Berry.
The students participated in activities through churches, such as youth groups, as well as tutoring programs and sports. They became tutors themselves, and he noted they were diligent about preparing for the lessons they would work on with younger students. Through these activities the boys were part of a larger group of academically motivated students.
They also attended pre-college programs that helped them see what they could do at that level. They loved visiting laboratories and having hands-on experiences, Berry said.
These experiences helped the boys persist in doing well in school. They perceived themselves as "smart" and they wanted to maintain that perception, he added.Berry plans to follow the young men through the college years: six are going to college, one is going into the military — part of a family legacy — and wants to attend college later, and the other wants to pursue a music career. In reflecting on what can be learned from this group's success, Berry said it is hard to quantify, but he thinks there is definitely a correlation between their experiences and the boys being able to imagine and work toward a bright future.
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