Educating Black Males: Critical Lessons in Schooling, Community, and Power

Educating Black Males: Critical Lessons in Schooling, Community, and Power, by Ronnie Hopkins. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. 145 pp. $16.50, cloth. Reviewed by Maxwell C. Manning, School of Social Work, Howard University. Educating Black Males begins with an overview of the educational crises facing today's Black males. Indeed, the introductory chapter is replete with findings and statistics detailing the disproportionate numbers of such males who have been labeled "slow learners," emotionally and cognitively "impaired," and "uneducable mentally retarded," and who demonstrate poor performance on standardized reading tests and other academic achievement indicators. As author Hopkins argues, part of the problem is that Black males are being poorly educated in the nation's public school system, leading some to drop out of school as early the fourth grade. Moreover, schools, as public institutions, tend to reflect society's hostile attitude toward Black males. Consequently, school personnel typically have low expectations regarding these males' academic potential. Out of this dismal scenario, Hopkins asserts the need for schools developed exclusively for the education of Black males. Such institutions, he claims, can foster the development of specific skills among this population by offering nurturing, Afrocentric environments in which Black males' strengths can be fully recognized, supported, and extended. Thus, this book purports to provide readers with a close look at Black all-male academies, their role in educating at-risk Black male students, and the various controversies surrounding the implementation of such programs. It is based on interviews that Hopkins conducted with staff, students, and parents at 17 Black all-male academies dispersed throughout Detroit and East Lansing, Michigan; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Baltimore, Maryland; Raleigh, North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; and Cincinnati, Ohio. Focusing on the significant features of these academies, Educating Black Males addresses the arguments posed by their opponents. Many critics of Black all-male academies, Hopkins notes in chapter two, argue that such institutions promote gender discrimination. They assert that schools historically have favored males over females, and therefore unfairly limit female students' educational opportunities. They further argue that samesex schools have not been proven to raise students' academic achievement levels. In response to these arguments, Educating Black Males emphasizes the importance of early intervention in educating Black males. It also reviews issues of gender relative to African Americans and education, and stresses the relevance of an Afrocentric perspective with regard to these matters. While noting the lack of research supporting the arguments of the opponents of Black all-male academic programs, Hopkins nevertheless admits that the effectiveness of all-male schools for African American boys remains open to debate. Chapter three provides an excellent description of the five categories of Black all-male programs that have evolved in recent decades: all-male schools, evolving all-male schools, single-gender classes, school-affiliated all-male programs, and community-based programs focusing on males. However, because many of these initiatives seem to overlap in some cases, further clarification of each category would have been helpful. Chapter four presents the findings from Hopkins's interviews with administrators and directors from six Black all-male programs. These findings support his opinions regarding the utility of Afrocentric perspectives in developing and conducting such programs, the need to involve Black male volunteers as role models within them, and the need for increase participation on the part of the African American community in providing a nurturing environment for its Black male youth at the earliest stages. Though Hopkins's writing style is strong and descriptive, this chapter could have been strengthened by the inclusion of more information corroborating or refuting the specific academic improvements made by Black male students participating in these programs. …