Title: Flying the plane
Description: This dissertation explores how America's "opportunity gap" impedes the academic achievement of African-American students in the San Francisco Unified School District. This multi-generational study focuses on African-American high-school students performing at or above grade level; examines the factors to which they and their parents attribute their academic success; and documents what they believe needs to be done to close the achievement gap. This research closely examines both the ways that parents support their children's academic success and the contexts in which this support is provided--at home, in school, and via direct communication with their children and educators. It draws on research positing that while structural inequities contribute to lower achievement within some racial and socio-economic groups, there are tools with which African-American students and parents can counter these inequities and improve their educational outcomes (Ferguson, 2007; Noguera and Wing, 2006). First, I examine how the structures and educational practices of two San Francisco high schools, Franklin and Maya Angelou, create impediments to students' success, despite the teachers' and principals' best efforts. These impediments can be classified as three of the ways the opportunity gap affects public schools and student achievement: unequal structures, staff members (including their beliefs and practices), and "the psychology of doubt" (Darling-Hammond, 2010).

I compare African American students' task of overcoming the daunting array of obstacles to academic success to the challenge of trying to fly a plane while building it. They must be brave enough to practice unfamiliar academic skills in front of others (who may hold preconceived notions about their abilities) while simultaneously demonstrating and proving their competence. My research reveals that parental values are the tools that enabled children to simultaneously build and fly this plane. These values provided them with the confidence to troubleshoot both structural obstacles, such as academic tracking, and psychological ones, such as stereotyping and questions about their mental abilities. This provides powerful evidence of the often-undervalued contributions of many African-American parents, whose engagement with their children happens beyond school walls. This study points to an important opportunity for educators and parents to join forces to strengthen self-efficacy among African American students--a central factor of academic success (Bandura, 2004). Participating parents' communication with their children contributed to students' confidence and level of self-efficacy; this self-efficacy became an essential tool for successfully navigating the opportunity gap. The resulting successful engagement in academic tasks further increased their self-efficacy as learners and subsequently increased teachers' confidence in them. This positive-feedback loop indicates potentially productive directions for educators and policy-makers concerned with remediating the effects of our nation's opportunity gap.
Subjects: Discrimination in education, African Americans, Education, Parent participation, Academic achievement, Social aspects, San Francisco Unified School District
Places: United States, California