Volume 28, Issue 4
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and
the Challenge of Teacher Licensure Tests
Reginald Nnazor, Jo sloan, Patricia Higgs
The current highstakes accountability environment which emphasizes testing and consequences, requires colleges of education to meet acceptable passing rates on teacher licensure tests. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are responding to the accountability challenge by developing and implementing a variety of initiatives aimed at strengthening their teacher education programs, and helping their students to pass licensure tests. Nevertheless, the accountability climate generates considerable anxiety within teacher preparation institutions generally, and tends to threaten both the historical mission of HBCUs, as well as the goal of achieving teacher diversity in schools. Illustrating with initiatives at the Kentucky State University, this paper focuses on how HBCUs are responding to the challenge of the current accountability environment. Some key policy issues and unintended consequences of the accountability environment are highlighted.
pp. 449-452
Historiographical Concerns in the History of Anthropology
Vernon J. Williams, Jr.
Anthropology has not exhibited the degree of continuity on the issue of black Westerners’ presence in the discipline–for it certainly has skeletons in the closet in reference to this issue–that one might presume by focusing solely on Franz Boas’s pioneering yet futile efforts in diversifying the racial composition of his students. Nevertheless, some of anthropology’s leading practitioners (both black and white) are making a concerted push to reinvigorate Boas’s early mission.
pp. 453-457
Prevalence and Chronicity of Dating Violence
Among a Sample of African-American University Students
Alan A. Bougere, Lucille M. Rowley, Glenell M. Lee
This study investigated African-American college students in the Southern United States as a part of the International Dating Violence Consortium. The study used the Personal and Relationship Profile (PRP) and the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2) to study factors important in defining dating violence among African-American college students. The sample was comprised of college students from three historically black universities and one historically white university from the southern United States recruited from social work classes in the spring and summer 2002 semesters. Of those, 228 students identified themselves as African-American. The findings indicate that this sample of African-American college students in the southern United States looks similar to Euro-American samples when it comes to experiencing different forms of dating violence.
pp. 458-478
Psyche and Society in the Slave Construction of Race
Rhett S. Jones
Scholarship now generally agrees that race was constructed and that blacks played an important role in their own history. If race was created and blacks were historical actors, does it not follow that they played a role in the development of race? This paper examines the different ways in which soon-to-be whites and soon-to-be blacks built race before the 19th century. Because these two groups agreed on the importance of race the different ways they constructed it has been obscured, as has the different meanings they assigned it.
pp. 479-488
From Bakke to Grutter: The Supreme Court and the Struggle
over Affirmative Action in the Era of Globalization
Johnson A. Kamalu, Ngozi C. Kamalu
This paper explores the progress and evolution of the legal fight over affirmative action. Relying on primary and secondary sources, the study examines selected landmark cases over the years, from the Bakke case of 1978 to the recent Grutter case of the 2003. The study concludes that the central theme in the courts’ position is that any program to achieve racial or ethnic diversity must be flexible, with race considered as a plus factor. However, such program must be conducted in a holistic fashion so as to create the opportunity in which applicants are compared against others, as to guard against arbitrary use of numerical quota, which is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, a racial quota may be tolerated only if such program is” narrowly” tailored in order not to adversely affect the rights of others and to correct long history of racial discrimination, where the need to correct the effects of past discrimination far outweigh the effects or burdens such remedy might impose on innocent parties. While the courts have consistently frowned at the use of “quota” to achieve ethnic or racial balance in employment, government contracting or in admission into educational institutions, they have recognized “diversity” as a compelling national interest worth pursuing, as long as it is “narrowly” tailored to achieve racial and ethnic diversity, especially in this age of globalization.
pp. 489-500
Racial Identity and Policy Making: Redefining Whiteness
Seth N. Asumah
In the American polity, race has an agency in almost every policy making process. Race has been used as an instrument for acquiring different forms of results, whether positive or negative. Race will continue to secure a permanent domain in both our individual and institutional patterns of interaction. In this essay, my primary argument is that in, multiracial societies, such as the United States of America, where public policy makers at all levels are predominantly White, the dominant group’s acknowledgment of its whiteness as power and privilege, and the conceptualization of whiteness as a group-phenomenologically sustained variable, could enhance race relations, facilitate the policy making process, and enrich policy contents through cultural competence.
pp. 501-510
An Investigation of African American College Students' Beliefs About Anti-Middle Eastern Hate Crime and Victims in the Wake of September 11th
Kellina Craig, Melissa Brown-Sims
Since September 11th 2001 and the ensuing American attack on Iraq, Americans who appear to be either Arab or Muslim are regarded as different, and are sometimes singled out for hate crimes. The current study examined African American college students’ ideas about what constitutes a hate crime as well as their beliefs about why Arabs and Muslims are targeted for these types of incidents. Findings demonstrate that participants in the present study see hate crime targeting those who are perceived to be Muslim or Arab as retaliatory, and related to offenders’ beliefs about the causes of the September 11th attacks.
pp. 511-517
Book Reviews
Du Boise and His Rivals
Author: Raymon Wolters
Reviewed By: Jamie Jaywann Wilson
pp. 518-519
The Making of "Mammy Pleasant":
A Black Entrepreneur in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco
Author: Lynn M. Hudson
Reviewed By: Ramon Julian Vasconcellos
pp. 519-520
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