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One of America’s greatest challenges in improving student achievement in public schools is trying to understand the reasons behind the persistent achievement gap between African-American and white students.
A University of Georgia education researcher hopes to shed some light on these factors by studying the experiences of African-American adolescents in a predominantly black Atlanta suburb in a new four-year study sponsored by the Spencer Foundation.
“Adolescence is a period of time when young people are attempting to gain an integrated sense of self,” says Jerome Morris, an associate professor of social foundations of education in UGA’s College of Education and a research fellow at the Institute for Behavorial Research at UGA. “For African-American youth, this process can be further complicated by race, gender and class status.”
Morris has received a $505,000 Spencer Foundation grant to investigate issues of identity formation and negotiation in a project beginning in January 2006 called African- American Adolescents in a Black Suburb in the U.S. South: A Social Study of Schooling, Identity, and Achievement.
He will explore the role of class status and context as mitigating factors to improve the educational experiences of African-American students.
“This study attempts to find out what might be different in the more ‘middle class’ black suburbs and schools and how that might influence how African-American adolescents understand school achievement and identity,” explained Morris.
Based in DeKalb County – considered “the heart of Black Mecca” because of its burgeoning predominantly black population – Morris’ study will employ sociological and anthropological research methods to follow adolescents over a four-year span as well as evaluate the school district and county.
“By studying the school district, it will help us to understand how district policies and practices shape African-American schooling and will allow us to see the factors that surround academic engagement and promote students’ success, shape identity formation and inform teachers’ perceptions of African-American students,” said Morris.
DeKalb County is 80 percent black, and has a predominately African-American school board as well as an African-American superintendent. The county is also at the center of the largest growth spurt of any black community in the United States and has outpaced other Georgia counties in terms of “Black Buying Power.”
“Unlike many inner-city areas, poverty does not pervade the school system,” he said.
Morris and his family live in Stone Mountain, which is located in DeKalb County, and he has collected anecdotal information from neighbors about the county’s schooling for the past three years. Furthermore, a recently awarded smaller research grant for $15,000 from the American Educational Research Association has enabled him to collect preliminary data for the study.
“One unique aspect of the research is that I am a resident of where I will study,” he explained. “My familiarity with the county, its people, its communities and its schools has enabled me to gain initial insights.
“The preeminent scholar on race in the 20th century, W.E.B. Du Bois, noted how it was critical for researchers who study African-American culture, institutions, and communities to spend an extended period of time living in African-American communities.”
Specifically, during the study Morris will employ multiple data collection methods – conducting extensive interviews and observations with about 100 adolescents and their families in DeKalb County, seeking diversity in grade-levels, gender, achievement-levels, socioeconomic status and the extent of involvement in school-related activities.
Additionally, he will review U.S. Census and other geographical data on the communities and county and gather sociological data on the adolescents’ parents, school personnel, schools and district.
“There are lots of ideas out there regarding black achievement gaps. Some argue it is about structural discrepancies, and others say there are discriminatory practices in place,” said Morris. “The most recent view has asserted that African-American culture is a major cause for the academic achievement gap. I believe there has to be a multi-disciplinary approach to looking at black achievement.”
To incorporate multiple scholarly traditions and disciplines Morris will focus on understanding the adolescents’ social identities as students and African Americans and as members of other social groups, as well as how they see themselves as students.
His advisory board for the research project will also incorporate the input of top scholars from multiple disciplines including those from fields such as anthropology, educational studies, history, political science and sociology.
Unlike previous studies that have looked at African Americans in either urban, low-income areas or predominately white and affluent areas, this study focuses on African-American adolescents in predominately black suburbs in the South.
“I suspect that the different geographical, school and racial contexts will make a difference because African-American adolescents’ experiences may be different in a black suburb, in comparison to a setting that is predominately white and affluent or one that is African American, urban and low income,” said Morris.
The UGA researcher believes the information he gathers from studying adolescents and the school district will help policymakers develop strategies that will reduce the achievement gap between African-American and white students in the nation’s public schools.
“I want to inform policymakers on matters regarding the school system’s commitment to black children and provide a more informed perspective to the scholarly community in terms of the myriad of issues that contribute to this persistent achievement gap,” he says.
Morris is no stranger to the subject of black achievement. In past research he has examined a number of issues related to educational policy such as school desegregation, school choice, and the achievement gap between African-American and white students. He is completing a book on African-American families, schools and communities in urban and low-income areas. The book is based on more than 10 years of research in three urban centers of the United States (St. Louis, Atlanta and Cincinnati).
Morris’ interest in improving African-American student achievement can be traced back to his time as a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. There he founded a mentoring program for African-American males at a public school in Nashville, TN, called the P.E.A.K.S. (Pride, Esteem, Achievement, Knowledge, Success) program and directed it for four years. The P.E.A.K.S. program was a local effort that responded to the well-documented social and academic difficulties experienced by many African-American students.
As a young assistant professor at UGA, Morris received his first Spencer Foundation grant in 1999 for a research study titled, “Examining Communal Bonds Among an African-American School, Black Families, and a Community.”
A solid researcher and scholar, Morris has also been an engaged member of the larger UGA community. In addition to his research, teaching and service on a number of students’ dissertation committees, Morris served as president of the Black Faculty and Staff Organization (BFSO). In this position he spearheaded efforts to create a senior-level administrative position that focused on diversity and equity, resulting in the creation of the Office of Institutional Diversity.
Morris currently serves as a co-leader of the Community, Ethnicity and Identity in Context Research Group at UGA’s Institute for Behavioral Research, which consists of researchers from across the University.
“As researchers in the future, we have to pull from multiple disciplines and scholarly traditions in addressing social science issues of today. This is how I am approaching the study of the achievement gap facing African-American adolescents,” he said.
Nicole Richardson, who will receive her master's degree in journalism and mass communication in December 2005, was a College of Education publications assistant in 2004-05.
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