Risk and Protective Factors in Mathematically Talented Black Male Students

Introduction

Black males have been caricatured by a bleak host of educational statistics that place them at chronic levels of risk: Only 52% of African American males graduate from high school, compared to 78% of White, non-Latino males; African American’s K-12 suspension rate is more than three times that of White students (Schott Foundation, 2012); and Black males are nearly three times more likely to be placed in remedial and special education programs than all other racial/ethnic groups combined (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). Yet despite the persistence and academic successes of Black males at every level of schooling, these statistics contribute to the normative conception of failure for Black males in the education system. The challenge facing researchers who wish both to improve the life trajectories of and counter the deficit-based conceptions about Black males is to understand and highlight (a) the protective factors that support academic achievement and (b) the barriers that impede academic achievement. This article, therefore, endeavors to unearth the complexity and contours of protective and risk factors that influence the academic successes of high-achieving African American males.

As elementary and middle schools fail to educate Black males, research and news reports support the contention that mathematics achievement for African American males is all but impossible. For instance, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2009) reported that only 12% of Black 8th-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44% of White boys. Another report suggested that 12th-grade Latino and African American students perform as well as 8th-grade White students on the NAEP’s mathematics assessment (Wilkins & Education Trust Staff, 2006). Although many would argue that increasing Black male achievement is a moral and civic imperative—and efforts along these lines are increasing—the majority of Black male students continue to be underserved.

Mathematics high achievement for Black male students is often met with skepticism and doubt. Martin (2009) argued that under-theorization of race in relation to mathematics learning and participation has contributed to bleak and limited illustrations of African American mathematics success. Moreover, some researchers suggest that the cultural disconnect inherent to traditional mathematics pedagogy, with its emphasis of abstractions and individualized notions of achievement, might actually serve to disengage Black students as compared to Whites and Asians (Davis & Martin, 2008; Ellington & Frederick, 2010). However, there are Black men and boys who stand in opposition to traditional mathematics education literature that consistently document their failure and underachievement (Berry, 2008). Being perceived as mathematically talented by significant others such as principals, teachers, academic coaches, and guidance counselors can contribute to the development of a positive mathematics identity, positioning students for school success. Students identified as mathematically astute enjoy the perception of being intellectually accomplished and universally smart (Greer & Mukhopadhyay, 2003).

This article addresses the missing narrative of early, Black male mathematics achievement by contextualizing lived experiences of mathematical success within a broader framework of risk and protective factors, both in- and out-of-school. Through examining a series of life-story narratives, this study seeks to provide a more complete picture of the processes through which young Black males achieve in mathematics within their first eight or nine years of schooling. We argue that a more comprehensive examination of schooling trajectories that highlights meta-narrative occurrences, personal understandings, contextual influences, and schooling outcomes will provide opportunity to countervail the literature’s waning absence of Black male mathematics achievement and advance a more holistic picture of their academic trajectories.

This article begins by offering a brief overview of the literature on academic achievement and engagement during the elementary/middle school stage. ¹ Then we describe the utility of the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) for studying stage-specific outcomes during the early school experiences of Black males. After outlining the current study’s methods, we employ PVEST to explore the life histories of 13 high-achieving Black male students to understand better the constellation of factors that enabled their mathematics success. We close with several recommendations to better support Black male mathematics achievement.

Black Male (Mathematics) Achievement in Elementary School (K-8)

For more than two decades, numerous reports have documented underachievement and limited persistence of African Americans in mathematics (Berry, Ellis, & Hughes, 2013; Tate, 1997). Remedial mathematics classrooms at both the high school and collegiate levels contain disproportionate numbers of African American students, while advanced mathematics classes mainly serve White and Asian American students. The disturbingly low rates of mathematics achievement by students of color (African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans), women, and low-income students have gained increasing attention across the education community.

The early academic lives and mathematical experiences of high-achieving Black male K-8 students remained until recent years virtually invisible within the literature on the academic achievement of Black boys. In one of the few recent studies focused on this subpopulation, Berry (2008) performed extensive studies on Black males in Grades 5 through 8 and has provided five themes that support Black middle school male students achievement in mathematics: (a) positive early educational experiences with schooling and mathematics; (b) recognition of mathematics abilities by being placed in high-track mathematics groups; (c) families serving as guardians of opportunities, standard setters, and as mathematics resources; (d) positive mathematics and academic identities; and (e) other developed identities related to co-curricular, sports, and religious activities. Furthermore, his in-depth analysis of two mathematically successful African American male middle school students extended beyond traditional in-school support systems to include proactive racial socialization and positive self-definition, as well as intrinsic motivation to succeed in mathematics specifically and in school more generally (Berry, 2008). Borman and Overman’s (2004) study on academic resilience in mathematics of low-income minority students of elementary school age identified the internal locus of control in mathematics activities, a more positive outlook toward school, and higher self-esteem as supportive of mathematics success. Their research included 120 mathematically high-achieving African American third graders and discussed the importance of supportive school models that shield children from adversity.

Studies that emphasize supportive school models, however, may understate the importance of considering the interaction of multiple identity markers. For instance, called for greater examination of the intersectionality between race and gender when examining African American male achievement in the early years. He further supported this statement by reporting that a very high percentage of Black boys have very positive reflections of the kindergarten experiences; however, in middle and high school, Black boys are more likely to be depicted and treated as failures. In addition, Tyson (2002) showed (through ethnographic research) that Black boys who were successful in elementary school were achievement-orientated and highly engaged in the process of learning. These contributions support a more gendered and racialized view of how students learn and highlight the rich cultural and historical practices found within communities of color. This research also exposes the turbulent and sometimes oppositional behavior patterns that Black boys in K-8 school contexts exhibit when they find themselves tracked into lower level mathematics classes (Berry, 2008).

Unfortunately, few researchers have documented the voices of mathematically successful Black male students from an ecological, human developmental perspective. This brief synopsis of studies showcasing Black male mathematics achievement in K-8 schooling demonstrates that a small but critical base of research exists within and beyond mathematics education that provides a voice for this misinterpreted population. Further substantiating this research is a growing literature that implicates traditional mathematics education pedagogy, curricula, and research in the reproduction of class, race, and gender-based oppression (McGee, 2013d; Martin & Gholson, 2012; Terry, 2011; Walker, 2012). Importantly, this critical trend in current research moves beyond deficit models that suggest Black students are lacking in ability or potential.

Theoretical Perspective

This research was guided by the PVEST, which conceptualizes how students make sense of their experiences despite the many challenges they face growing up in urban ² enclaves. PVEST is a life-span model of identity development processes and outcomes that stresses the importance of gender, context, and race/ethnicity. The PVEST framework maintains that risk and protective factors are dynamic and situational in nature. Crucial to this study’s objective is the first component of PVEST, the Net Vulnerability Level, which involves the operation and negotiation of both risk and protective factors.

The PVEST framework presupposes that all humans are vulnerable and must deal with both risk factors and protective factors. As these students’ lives unfold across multiple contexts, risks are translated into typical and uncharacteristic challenges, while protective factors provide a variety of supports. The level of vulnerability varies according to individuals’ diverse histories, biological and psychological attributes, phenotypic characteristics, and contemporary experiences (Spencer, 2011). For some Black males, their meaning-making and expectations may be influenced by an embedded belief of inferiority that heightens challenges based on race and gender (Thomas & Stevenson, 2009), which can create psychological conflict. Schooling for Black males can simultaneously provide multiple forms of psychological distress and protection, thus offering varied levels of neglect and support.

Black male students often are presumed to be highly vulnerable, due to the unyielding high-risk factors they face and a lack of awareness of protective factors. Failing to acknowledge Black males’ protective factors often skews the data, resulting in crude, stereotypical, deficit-oriented perspectives (Spencer, 2008, 2011). The resilience and agency Black male students exhibit to cope positively to high vulnerability levels is largely understudied (notable exceptions include Harper, 2012; Spencer et al., 2012; Toldson, 2008). The lack of research on resilient African American male youth who employ effective coping strategies in meeting challenges has contributed to the misrepresentation of their experiences and outcomes (McGee, 2013c; T. L. Harris & Taylor, 2012; Spencer, 2008). PVEST takes into account how individuals perceive both risks and forms of protection, which can be inferred from a variety of contexts, including their homes, schools, peer groups, and communities.

The current study investigates the early lives of mathematically talented, African American, male, high school students learning in urban charter high schools. Life narrative analysis of both successes and challenges are delineated to examine the nuances and differences between internal and external forces that impact the academic and mathematical success of their young lives. The high school participants were asked retrospectively about their K-8 experiences. The study addresses two primary questions:

Research strengthening our knowledge on early Black male identity and its intersection with mathematics might assist in creating and sustaining the academic achievement of K-8 Black male youth. In addition, such research can greatly contribute to an understanding of Black males’ resilience in the face of racial, gendered, and sometimes class subjugation—insights often unacknowledged in educational literature. This framework acknowledges the process of human development, understanding that individuals mature significantly during the K-8 school years (Spencer, 2008). This research study, through the use of PVEST, will explore this developmental period as the participants constructed and negotiated their gender and racial identities.

Method

This research is part of a larger study consisting of interviews with 24 mathematically high-achieving Black high school students (male and female) at four charter high schools. This dimension of the larger study investigates the development and formation of identity and explores those factors that lead to resilience and success in mathematics (McGee, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c). The first author conducted all interviews. This study was guided by narrative analysis procedures (Creswell, 2012), the theoretical tenets of PVEST (Spencer, 2008). Our qualitative design structure speaks to a wider argument of the sheer paucity of research focusing on Black male mathematics achievement presupposes a need to explore micro-related phenomena through healthier understandings of their identities. We employed a narrative analysis approach to capture and understand the unique experiences of the participants. We employed a semi-open coding procedure, which allowed us to capture distinctiveness and shared commonality of the students, while attending to the PVEST identity formation framework.

Participants and Context

In 2009, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes published a scathing report on the quality of charters schools, suggesting 83% perform the same or worse than traditional public schools. In addition, charter schools with high concentrations of Blacks and Latinos performed even more poorly. Canvas Public School District (CPSD, a pseudonym) serves a population that is under 10% White, almost 5% Asian American, and 5% “Other.” With about 600 traditional schools and 70 charter schools in the district, more than 80% of the students qualified for reduced lunch. It was estimated that less than 60% of high school freshmen graduated and less than 55% of those graduates went on to post-secondary education. Thus, the majority of the district’s youth are leaving school (either dropping out or graduating) without the skills and knowledge required for higher-paying professional work (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Easton, & Luppescu, 2010).

This article draws on data from interviews with 13 mathematically high-achieving Black students who completed their K-8 schooling in Canvas city and were enrolled in one of the four charter schools during the spring and summer of 2010 (Table 1). Criteria for participation in this study included high achievement in upper-level mathematics classes (e.g., Calculus, Algebra II, Trigonometry, Mathematical Logic, Probability, and Statistics).

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Table 1.

Black Male Student Participants.

Participants	Grade	Age	Gender	Primary caregiver(s)	Grade-point average (GPA) a	Mathematics GPA b	Colleges considering	Career aspiration(s)
Brianc			Male					Pro-football player/electrical engineer
Brice	10	15	Male	Mother	3.5	4.0	Morehouse College, Florida State University, Clark Atlanta University	Financial advisor
Charles	10	15	Male	Mother, father	2.9	3.5	University of Miami	Engineer, pilot
Damani	12	17	Male	Mother	4.0	4.0	Grinnell College	Entrepreneur
Eddie	9	14	Male	Mother, father	2.3	3.5	Aims to attend college in Italy or France	Business, dancer, entrepreneur
Gerald	11	16	Male	Mother, grandmother,	3.4	3.0	University of Illinois at Chicago	Own a law practice, choir
Harper	10	16	Male	Aunt, mother	2.7	3.0	Michigan State University	Chef
John	9	14	Male	Mother	3.5	3.7	Michigan State University	Graphic design
Leon			Male					Pro-football player/architect
Leonard	11	16	Male	Mother	3.2	3.8	Univ. of Illinois, Northern Illinois University, University of Michigan, Ohio University, Northwestern University	Undecided
Nicholas	10	16	Male	Mother, father	3.12	4.0	Morehouse College, Southern Carolina State University, Florida A&M University, The Ohio State University	Undecided
Randy	11	16	Male	Mother, father	3.1	3.7	Butler University, Drake University, Northern Illinois University	Professional athlete
Trashawn	10	16	Male	Mother	2.9	3.4	Michigan State University	Fireman

a

Values in this column represent student’s cumulative grade-point average in all courses taken.

b

Values in this column represent student’s cumulative grade-point average in all mathematics courses taken.

c

Some demographic information not available for this participant.

The interview protocol consisted of a two-page demographic questionnaire and a combination of semi-structured, open-ended interview questions. This protocol was designed to elicit rich accounts from the students of experiences at home and in school, neighborhood, and mathematics classroom contexts. Their school, mathematics, and life experiences where further unpacked through a life-story format interview style with a focus on three different time periods: K-8 or the early school years, their experiences in high school (not reported herein), and the students’ future outlook (not reported herein). In life-story interviews, the aim is to better construct the story of interviewees’ lives (McAdams, 2013). The life-story interview format incorporates important moments such as high, low, and turning points, along with future and general values and life themes. The study explored the students’ emerging identities—racial, mathematics, and otherwise—and the interconnections and co-constructions of these identities that helped to form their individual and collective sense of being Black as a doer of mathematics (Martin, 2006). At all of the sites where the interviews took place, school administrators were very helpful in securing private rooms for the interviews. The interviews lasted, on average, 69 min, with a range between 54 and 91 min. Although it was made explicit that videotaping was completely optional, every student agreed to be videotaped.

The aim of our analysis was to “map” resiliency in the lives of our participants. In so doing, we utilized narrative analysis to unearth the complexity within the academic trajectories of our high-achieving participants. Narrative is one fundamental strategy used historically to illuminate both marginalized and empowering experiences and is often analyzed through “storied lives” (Creswell, 2012). Narrative analysis provides a constructed reality that includes perception, reflection, and subjectivity (Cortazzi & Jin, 2012), and privileges the importance of one’s meaning-making process in constructing and understanding one’s own experiences.

Through PVEST, narratives were situated in life-span interview format in which processes and outcomes were investigated through a race- and context-sensitive lens. To capture the mathematics and life experiences of the students, three time periods were delineated (K-8, high school, and the future). These sequential time periods afforded a developmental approach to establishing the participants’ mathematics, racial, and other identities. As indicated, this article attends to the first of these periods. Students’ vulnerabilities, resilience, challenges (identified by risk factors), and supports (identified by protective factors) in their social and academic lives, in line with the PVEST framework, were, in part, identified by the students themselves, based on their individual perceptions and meaning-making processes (Spencer, 2011).

The analysis conducted in this article is a result of an examination of students’ experiences relayed through semi-structured interviews that attempted to elicit the rich detail of those experiences in narrative form. Axial coding gave insight into the elements of their educational experience that have enabled success in school mathematics for the Black male participants; several types of supports, challenges, risk, and protective factors emerged. We conducted an additional round of selective coding and analysis that allowed us to structure a broad narrative that describes the strategic roles that played in facilitating their successes in mathematics classrooms. After data were broadly coded as risks/challenges versus supports/protective factors, we scanned the data for categories of phenomena, and relationships among the categories emerged. These served as the initial category set and were assigned short names. (See the Appendix for a detailed description of the initial coding structure).

Results

Overall, the results demonstrate a dynamic interplay between protective and risk factors. The protective factors are delineated between internal factors (self-described motivations) and external factors (resources and supports). Risk factors are represented as internal distress and external challenges. Figure 1 provides an illustrative description of protective factors (internal and resources) on the top half of the page and the risk factors (challenges and distress) on the bottom half of the page.

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Figure 1.

K-8 Black male resilience map.

Discussion

As expected, parents and guardians served a critical role in providing undeniable support for these high achievers. Less acknowledged in both popular discourse and academic literature was our finding regarding the willingness and availability of Black fathers/male relatives as a stable and consistent encouragement to students’ mathematics achievement. To be sure, there seems to be a growing wave of research problematizing the idea that Black males symbolize “fatherlessness” (James, 2012). This literature has begun to demonstrate the multiple ways that Black fathers, even if not married, forge supportive relationships with their children. In other words, as the title of a recently edited anthology suggests, we have largely accepted “The Myth of the Missing Black Father” (Cole & Green, 2013).

That these father figures represent just one aspect of students’ supportive social ecology speaks to a communal ethic that seemed to characterize the social spaces that respondents traversed outside of school, and, for several respondents, inside as well. A sense of community was fostered within respondents’ home lives through shared cultural activities such as dominoes and “bid whist” [a mathematically sophisticated card game prevalent in African American communities] that moreover affirmed students’ racial and mathematical identities. In addition, students described a sense of community deriving from a collective sense of struggle based upon economic and social hardships that created mutual respect, admiration, and inspiration. In other words, not only did a collective sense of struggle create a sense of community among respondents and their families, but also respondents were able to leverage a sense of collective struggle into a motivation to succeed to lighten the burden of others within their community. As we discussed above, for instance, after his mother lost her job, Leon responded that he could “help her out” by working hard and achieving good grades in school.

For a few respondents, a sense of community extended beyond students’ outside of school experiences. They discussed a sense of belonging, accountability, and mutual respect deriving from relationships with teachers and staff members who were themselves residents in respondents’ home neighborhoods. This afforded respondents and their families a certain type of social capital: closure between the networks associated with a child’s educational trajectory (Domina, 2005). In other words, the fact that parents, family members, and in some instances school staff shared a close social network produced greater opportunity for shared expectations, trust, and parental involvement, which supported and encouraged respondents’ mathematical resilience and achievement.

One of the more explicit means through which teachers mediate students’ early mathematical identity development is the selective labeling of students as talented or high achieving. Indeed, a growing literature suggests that labeling students (or teacher expectations) directly influences student identity development (Gushue & Whitson, 2006; Milner, 2010). More recently, the subject of labeling has increasingly highlighted the role of context. For instance, in examining how context influences identity development, Nasir (2012) submits that contexts afford identity resources that individuals “take up” in varying degrees to inform and shape their own identity trajectory. In Nasir’s framework, being labeled “mathematically talented” constitutes an ideational resource in that it allows one to think of oneself as a meaningful participant in a community of practice. Being labeled mathematically talented allows one to think favorably of oneself as a mathematician, which supports positive identity development in relation to the practice of mathematics itself.

This study, however, not only speaks to the importance of understanding the psychological role of ideational resources in identity development (e.g., being labeled a high achiever) but also challenges researchers and practitioners to understand the ways in which the organization of schools might be structured more suitably to leverage and support the positive mathematics identities of its most precocious learners. To be sure, Nasir refers to this contextual element of identity development as the availability (or lack thereof) of material resources. As we learned in this study, participants viewed being labeled as “mathematically talented” as both a protective and risk factor. Concerning the latter, participants indicated that in their under-resourced schools, high achievers were often forced to skip a grade level, and, consequently, they missed important mathematical competencies along the way. To state concisely a crude remedy for this rather complex identity-based issue, to sustain students’ positive mathematics identities, the material and operational aspects of school contexts must be organized in such a way so as to support mathematics identity development—not the least of which concerns the availability of an advanced course progression with equally competent teachers. To put it differently, the organization of course offerings must not function to stifle identity development, as was the case in the present study.

Closely aligned with the issue of identity management were participants’ responses to what they perceived as negative stereotypes about Black male academic achievement. This phenomenon has been described elsewhere as “stereotype management” (McGee & Martin, 2011), which refers to a tactical response to negative assumptions about one’s reference group. Such management is often characterized by a shift in one’s approach to achievement from one in which the goal is more or less characterized by proving deficit-oriented stereotypes wrong to one in which the aim of achievement becomes self-defined, for example, succeeding to give back to one’s community. Such management has been posited to reduce the overall psychological and emotional toll of navigating racial stereotypes in a context with which one identifies.

Nevertheless, a key takeaway from the present study is the difficulty even high-achieving students have with transitioning to a more healthy management of stereotypes, that is, developing more self-defined objectives for success. In describing the immense pressure associated with attempting to prove stereotypes wrong, students discussed a heightened sense of fragility, or what Smith and colleagues (2007) refer to as “racial battle fatigue,” associated with being a young Black male. This finding supports an extensive literature pertaining to psychological effects on Black male trajectories of perceived racial inequities, structural racism, and systemic oppression (Pieterse & Carter, 2007).

Another interesting finding was the participants’ active constructions of a “calm” demeanor within classroom spaces. In their own words, participants indicated that their calm demeanor was a learned coping response to repeated interactions in school contexts in which these high-achieving students observed teachers reprimanding their “rowdy,” “boisterous,” Black male classmates. Identity theories have long stressed the importance of social interaction and social structure in identity development processes (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Bucholltz & Hall, 2005; Hogg & Terry, 2000). From this perspective, a student “learning” a calm demeanor through a consistent coping response is not too surprising in that moments of admonishment provide opportunities for feedback and, therefore, identity development.

We realize that mandatory universal schooling within its implementation and design disallows most children from most demographic groups from freely expressing their authentic identity due to constraints on the individualization of education (Baldridge, Hill, & Davis, 2011; Mutegi, 2011). In addition, operating a classroom where children could express their authentic identity while learning and meeting state standards would require a different way of envisioning education. However, even as most children are negatively impacted by the current institutional structures of schools, Black young boys are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of having their authentic identity squashed because of their racialized and gendered school (and life) experiences. Thus, what became problematic for these participants is how social and discipline organization of school life served to stifle their diverse, vibrant personalities. Participants discussed the creation of passive versions of themselves, which they felt contrasted with their authentic identities. While the scope of this study precludes any sort of analysis of the long-term implications of giving up or repressing salient aspects of one’s identity, suffice to say research has indicated that internal stress pertaining to perceived inauthenticity can lead to a host of social, mental, and academic issues (Jackson, Knight, & Rafferty, 2010). In other words, an unnatural demeanor imposed on Black male students can have a lasting, toxic cost on their overall well-being. This cost is further exacerbated when one considers our findings related to the health complications associated with surviving in inner cities.

Although scholars have yet to integrate the poverty–illness connection into educational research, it has been the subject of an extensive literature that suggests a vicious link between lower socioeconomic status and greater exposure to risks, more limited access to health services, and, ultimately, poorer health (Rose & Hatzenbuehler, 2009). Therefore, it should come as no surprise that health issues forced participants to miss significant school time. However, the sheer number of school days that students themselves missed due to various illnesses should cause great concern. Students reported illnesses including asthma, severe flu, and respiratory problems that kept them out of school for months over multiple occasions, which provide supportive, anecdotal evidence for the poverty–illness thesis. Therefore, research is needed to uncover precisely how chronic illness shapes learning experiences and how school–community partnerships might best compensate for the health-related issues that afflict urban Black males.

Recommendations

Looking at the intersectionality of race and gender within an urban school context has offered a sobering though promising glimpse into the educational and mathematical lives of these youth. As survivors of dangerous neighborhoods and under-resourced schools, respondents’ narratives indicate the importance of both the power of agency and the necessity of external supports to overcome the worst of circumstances and attain a measure of academic success. Such acknowledgement provides a greater appreciation of the structural constraints that may stimulate certain harmful behaviors. We have argued throughout this article that it is critical to study the lived experiences of high-achieving Black males to understand how schools and school personnel might better serve the academic, social, and emotional needs of Black males in general. Based on our findings, we would like to conclude this article by offering three suggestions to teacher practitioners and school personnel interested in increasing Black male achievement in STEM-related disciplines.

To leverage both the well-acknowledged influence and the less-acknowledged availability of Black fathers/male relatives in children’s mathematics achievements, we recommend that schools create a culture of involvement in which schools welcome BFIs into everyday classrooms practices and/or school-based activities. Promoting a school culture that welcomes BFIs into its daily happenings advances multiple objectives simultaneously: (a) It dissolves the symbolic barriers that may exist between BFIs and school environments (Crozier, 2001); (b) it affirms the critical role of Black males in the achievement of African American students (McBride, Schoppe-Sullivan, & Ho, 2005); (c) it provides Black male students consistent images of Black male role models that can help shape positive racialized identities and foster student learning (Nasir, 2012); (d) it provides meaningful exposure for students who may not otherwise have access to BFIs on a regular basis. In addition, such a climate will likely counteract teacher bias regarding the absence of BFIs, and increase teacher expectations for Black male students in general, which may lead to positive academic results (Milner, 2010). Furthermore, such a climate will contribute to a broader community culture that both recognizes and celebrates Black male achievement and involvement.

Culturally relevant pedagogy has long attempted to center African American students within their own culture, building from their traditions, experiences, and perspectives to critique and transform society. An additional wave of researchers appropriated the culturally relevant construct into the field of mathematics by arguing that traditional forms of mathematics pedagogy, for example, whole-class instruction and individualized problem solving, often function to disengage, marginalize, and demean ways of learning most familiar to and effective with Black students, including affective emphases, expressive creativity, and collaborative problem solving (Gay, 2010). Notwithstanding current critiques of culturally relevant math instruction (Enyedy & Mukhopadhyay, 2007; Leonard, Napp, & Adeleke, 2009), it is our belief that a pedagogical approach that aims to build from students’ outside-of-school cultural practice may provide a promising way to better engage Black students with mathematics-related disciplines.

One of the more startling findings in this study was the number of high-achieving students who missed significant school time due to chronic illness or residential mobility. As a result, these high-achieving students needed to attend summer school. The students, however, assessed summer school as “a joke” in that it barely assisted students who were persistently underachieving, even less so for high-achieving students like themselves. In other words, as it is often organized, summer school is typically reserved for chronically low-achieving students and shortchanges those whose performance difficulties have more to do with missing school days due to various issues. As a result, summer school often fails to meet the needs of high-achieving but recurrently absent students.

We submit that schools might implement accelerated-compensatory initiatives during the summer months, or perhaps before-and/or after school during the traditional school year. One promising possibility concerns the growth of non-profits that specialize in preparing students of color for careers in mathematics-related disciplines through the implementation of project-based learning curricula. Several of these programs function as in-school, after-school, and summer workshops (for an excellent example, see Project SYNCERE, www.projectsyncere.org). We believe that strategic partnerships with organizations such as these can fill the learning gap for many of high-achieving Black males while creating enriching experiences that can further support the building of their mathematics identities.

Concluding Remarks

This research study not only highlights the resilient and agentive aspects of these students’ quests to achieve and maintain mathematical and academic literacy, but it also challenges many assumptions about what one sees when he or she looks at Black male students. Will one see a “menace to society” or Black brilliance (Leonard & Martin, 2013)? As painful as it is to achieve under negative stereotypes, the strength of these young Black, male students to challenge distorted academic images of themselves is a testament to show that they are much more than the sum of these stereotypes. Studies that interrogate, interrupt, and challenge the messy and variegated histories of Black male (mathematics) achievement are sorely needed to showcase the talents and expose the tribulations of this vibrant and vastly misunderstood population. In terms of generalizability, by emphasizing the phenomenological, real-world context in which achievement occurs for a subset of young Black male student mathematicians, a population mostly ignored in the dominant research tradition, the findings in this study may function as the groundwork for replication, contrasts, and extensions in a process of formulating and re-formulating more nuanced, understandings of young Black male mathematics achievement (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007).