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African American females make up two-thirds of African American postsecondary enrollments and 60% of all African Americans with at least a bachelor's degree. How do brothers and sisters with shared experiences have such markedly different outcomes? I find that African American females are more likely than African American males to apply to college, to attend college, and to attend two-year colleges, four-year colleges, and selective colleges. Students' backgrounds, academic achievement, and Catholic school attendance explains the differences in the type of colleges African American females and males attend, but fail to explain differences in college application and attendance rates.

Consistent research highlighting their utility for documenting historical protest events find social movement scholars relying heavily on newspapers. Simultaneously, research consistently finds racial bias in the media. Together, these findings suggest that scholars’ reliance on mainstream media accounts of protest by minority groups could lead to inaccurate histories and explanations. This chapter compares reports of a six-year-long protest case featuring African American activists found in both a mainstream media source, the New York Times, and two New York-based African American newspapers, the New York Amsterdam News and the New York Age, which were then triangulated with data from archival manuscript collections. Doing so revealed considerable and important differences. The ethnic press reported more protest events than the New York Times, which contained descriptive bias reflecting existing racial stereotypes and effectively silenced activists. These findings suggest that social movement scholars focusing on minority activists should engage in both ethnic and mainstream press accounts of protest events and political activity to ensure accurate descriptions of events and activist sentiments.

Introduction. This study examined the association between self-rated physical and oral health, cigarette smoking, and history of criminal justice contact (i.e., never arrested; arrested, but never incarcerated; or incarcerated in reform school, detention, jail, or prison) among African American men and women. Methods. We conducted descriptive statistical, linear regression, and multinomial regression analyses of the African American subsample (n = 3,570) from the National Survey of American Life (2001–2003). Results. Overall, African American women reported lower arrest rates and histories of incarceration than African American men. Additionally, we found that criminal justice contact was associated with lower self-rated physical health and oral health and higher levels of smoking for both men and women. African American women who had been arrested and detained in facilities other than jail had more chronic health problems than their male counterparts. Furthermore, having been arrested or spent time in a reform school, detention center, jail, or prison significantly increased the odds of African American men being a current smoker. Lastly, among African American women, those who had any level of criminal justice contact were likely to be current smokers and former smokers compared to those without a history of criminal justice contact. Conclusion. Addressing the health of African Americans with criminal justice contact is a critical step in reducing health disparities and improving the overall health and well-being of African American men and women. Furthermore, attention to differences by gender and specific types of criminal justice contact are important for a more precise understanding of these relationships.

This chapter focuses on successful strategies for increasing the number of males who enter and succeed in science at the college level. These strategies reflect lessons we have learned over the years from the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, launched in 1989, for high-achieving African American students in science and engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

Burgeoning research indicates that career and postsecondary educational aspirations are salient among rural African American high school students. Yet, factors and processes that lead to their success as college students remain unclear, despite accumulating evidence suggesting the need to understand these students' college experiences. The dearth of scholarship elucidating the postsecondary experiences of African American students from rural backgrounds is particularly striking given the extensive research about the college experiences of African American students from urban and suburban locales. This chapter, grounded in W.E.B. Du Bois's Double Consciousness theory and qualitative in nature, focuses on the college experiences of rural African Americans who successfully operated simultaneously within White and Black communities in postsecondary educational settings.

Drawing on the slavery history of the United States, the theoretical framework of the post-traumatic slave syndrome is used to understand the influences and challenges of contemporary assessment and counseling issues of African American offenders.

Through a qualitative review of the literature, supporting evidence is given from an investigation of slavery’s historical laws, practices, experiences, and beliefs’ and its influences on contemporary assessment and counseling issues concerning African American offenders and the challenges met by counselors.

The laws, the practices, the experiences, and the beliefs during slavery have had a profound influence on contemporary issues of assessment and counseling African American offenders. The transgenerational adaptations associated with previous traumas during and after slavery influenced counselors’ ability to effectively assess and counsel African American offenders. Moreover, transgenerational adaptations are equally present among white counselors, which have contributed to challenges with assessments and counseling of African American offenders.

Understanding history that is theoretically framed out of the post-traumatic slave syndrome builds knowledge in understanding present challenges and barriers to effective counseling of African American offenders in three ways: (1) it makes the connection between slavery and contemporary issues concerning assessment and counseling of African American offenders; (2) it explains how race might complicate counseling and assessment process; and (3) it sheds light on significant counseling concepts related to rehabilitation or sanctions of African American offenders.

The authors draw upon the African proverb: “How Do You Eat an Elephant?” One Bite at a Time to couch emerging practices and programs connected to and within California community colleges that are specifically designed to counter historical and topical institutional neglect and exclusion one initiative at a time. To this end, we discuss the Umoja Community, Men of Ujima Manhood Development Program, and the African American Male Educational Network and Development (A²MEND) organization. The authors maintain that the study of Black men in general is in need of its own theoretical framework that can articulate their position and trajectory in the world drawing on and accounting for their pre- and post-enslavement experiences while capturing their spiritual, psychological, social, educational development and station. Thus, we first build upon critical race theory (CRT) and African-centered theory to construct an emergent conceptual approach that more accurately articulates the experiences of African American men in community colleges and that both explains the existence of the aforementioned independent educational programs and organizations and provides the framework to produce and maintain additional self-determined spaces. Beyond theory and research, however, the authors call community college educators to a personal accountability and action to create spaces, initiatives, programs, organizations, and institutions based on the conceptual framework outlined in this current chapter.

Estimates of the prevalence of AS in children throughout the entire population of the United States are highly limited and greatly variable. Ozonoff, Dawson, and McPartland (2002) stated that estimates of AS range from 0.2 to 0.5% (or 2–5 individuals in 1,000), while Volkmar and Klin (2000) cited studies reporting rates of 36 in 1,000 to approximately 1 in 10,000. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (2000), fourth edition (DSM-IV-TR), states that “definitive data about the prevalence of Asperger Syndrome does not exist.”

This chapter reports on findings from a study that explored the experiences of African American young men who graduated from Du Bois Academy, an all-boys public charter secondary school in the Midwestern region of the United States. The chapter considers issues of African American male persistence and achievement and how they are impacted by school culture. Specifically, the author discusses how school culture can help shape these students’ educational experiences and aspirations. Using student narratives as the guide, a description of how Du Bois Academy successfully engaged these African American male students is provided. The students articulated three critical components of school culture that positively shaped their high achievement and engagement: (a) sense of self, (b) promotion of excellence, and (c) community building. The student narratives provided a frame for promoting positive school culture that enhances the educational experiences and academic aspirations of African American male students.

Since the 1960s and 1970s, participation in postsecondary education has increased considerably. In 1965, for example, fewer than 6 million students were enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions; by 2009, however, that figure exceeded 20 million (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2011). This expansion is due in large part to the advent of federal and institutional policies (e.g., Title IX, affirmative action, and the advent of federal financial aid) intended to facilitate college access for diverse student populations (Astin & Oseguera, 2004). Indeed, much of the growth in college enrollment over the past several decades has been driven by the rising college enrollment among women of all races (NCES, 2011). In 1979, the number of women enrolled in some form of postsecondary education exceeded that of men for the first time. Since then, college enrollment rates among women continued to surpass those of men, leading to the increasingly severe gender disparities that persist today.