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While the Afrocentric Worldview is established with elements of interdependence, communalism, and kinship at its foundation, many Afro (of African-descent) and African-American scholars within social science/helping-fields, such as psychology, have come to view “alternative” sexual orientations (i.e., homosexuality or bisexuality) as functional or dysfunctional solutions to problems existing in Black America. Afrocentric Worldviews include key concepts of racial and cultural survival thrusts. We must examine the marginalized subgroup of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-, and Queer (LGBTQ) individuals navigating through higher education, especially those within the Afrocentric-driven fields, such as psychology, at a Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs). This chapter discusses (1) several theoretical concepts that guide driving philosophies and academic curricula, (2) possible ramifications and experiences Black LGBTQ scholars face as they navigate through such educational contexts and (3) possible stances gay and straight scholars may take when operating under a paradigm/worldview with views that may seem counter to “alternative” sexual orientations.

Decolonizing the curriculum is an important topic in education but what does it really mean to decolonize the curriculum? In this self-study, I reflected, with the help of a critical friend, on what decolonizing the curriculum could mean in the context of my biology education classroom using the Pedagogical Content Knowledge model by Davidowitz and Rollnick (2011) as the guiding framework. From these reflections, I came to the conclusion that decolonizing the curriculum is not about erasing the known facts and principles of science but rather, it is about contextualizing it by replacing the Eurocentric stories, texts, and examples among other things, with our own Afrocentric ones. Contextualizing our curriculum is, however, fraught with challenges which include underdeveloped indigenous languages available to be used as languages of instruction, lack of locally produced teaching and learning resources including textbooks, and lack of documented indigenous knowledge that curriculum implementers can use in their teaching in order to make it contextually relevant. In this chapter, I share insights from my reflections.

The role of implicit provider bias in mental health care is an important issue that continues to be of concern in the twenty-first century for the Black/African American community. Access to mental health and quality care remains elusive as members of this social group lack access to mental health screening, diagnosis, and attention due to institutional and cultural barriers. Supporting the position that implicit and explicit provider bias exists in the mental health profession, this chapter will explore how implicit provider bias is an intractable institutional barrier that prevents Black/African Americans from accessing mental health and quality care. A review of the implications related to mental health outcomes with Black/African American clients will also be explored.

A brief overview of the Black/African American cultural responses to implicit provider bias will be discussed later in this chapter. There will be an exploration of the ways to help identify, address, and eliminate implicit provider bias using evidence-based personal and community engagement strategies that promote mental health wellness within the Black/African American community. Implications for best practices in Black/African American mental health will also be addressed to eradicate the risk of unethical or medical malpractice with Black/African American clients, reduce the mental health disparity experienced by Blacks/African Americans, and create mental health equity for this population.

In this chapter, the editors provide a reflective anecdote describing the professional and personal journey which led to the production of the current volume. The chapter presents the aim and scope of the text, chapter descriptions, and the overall goal of the text which includes facilitating conversations around how historically Black colleges or universities (HBCUs) might best support underserved populations of students and faculty.

By engaging in critical literacy, participants theorized Blackness and antiblackness. The purpose of this study was to have participants theorize Blackness and antiblackness through their engagements with critical literacy.

The authors used a youth-centered and informed Black critical-race grounded methodology.

Participants’ unique and varied revelations of Blackness as Vitality, Blackness as Cognizance and Blackness as Expansive Community, served to withstand, confront and transcend encounters with antiblackness in English curricula.

This paper provides a model for how to engage Black youth as a means to disrupt anti-Black English education spaces.

This study provides a foundation for future research efforts of Black English outer spaces as they relate to English education. Findings in this study may also inform existing English educator practices.

This study theorized both the role and the flexible nature of Black English outer spaces. It defined the multi-ethnic nature of Blackness. It proposed that affirmations of Blackness sharpened participants’ critical literacies in Black English outer spaces as a transformative intervention to anti-Black English education spaces.

The purposes of this research are to understand the complex communication environment of South Africa, to determine to which extent previously identified communication models can be applied to this burgeoning field and to propose a new model of communication: an integrated marketing communications model.

This research used surveys.

The results largely found support for the integrated marketing communications model and confirmed the activist, situational and oral communication models found in the previous study.

The results show that the use of these models are stable across job and organization types, which provides support for applying theoretical constructs across different communication disciplines in order to build the field of strategic communication.

The theoretical basis of strategic communication is elusive, and not many studies exist that have tried to offer a cohesive theory of the field. This research is one of the first steps in the process of building a robust and cohesive strategic communication theory and focuses on the development of models of communication with audiences or stakeholders. This is a line of research typically pursued in public relations but not in on other areas of communication practice such as marketing and government relations.