Hearing the Voices of Married African American Mothers As They Describe Their Sons’ Experiences with White Teachers in Urban Secondary Schools

Abstract

This study was conducted as a qualitative study of five married middle-income African American mothers’ perception of their African American sons’ White teachers in an urban secondary school district. The study was intended to hear the voices and perceptions of the five African American mothers’ who have or had a son who attended a secondary urban school in their community. The African American mothers would share their perceptions their sons’ personal interaction with their White teachers. The first purpose of this study was to broaden the limited research on mothers’ perception of White teachers’ interaction with their African American male students. The second purpose was to investigate the challenges that African American male students face with their White teachers. The results revealed that mothers perceived White teachers demonstrated: (a) lack of interactions with African American males, (b) lack of care towards African American males, (c) a lack of cultural competence, (d) the teachers’ lack of understanding of the mothers’ preparation of the success of their children, (e) preferential treatment toward students, and (f) low expectations for students.

This study contains actual conversations of the mothers’ narratives. The data collected in the study was collected through semi-structured interviews, field notes, and open-ended questions.