They (Don’t) Care about Education - A Counternarrative on Black Male Students’ Responses to Inequitable Schooling

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by moss~

Article examining how dominant educational discourse portrays Black male students as indifferent to schooling, drawing on prior research that emphasizes remediation, disadvantage, low completion, underpreparation, disengagement, and low degree attainment. It challenges this narrative by arguing that teachers’ unsubstantiated beliefs, culturally unresponsive K-12 environments, and structural inequities shape outcomes. The study frames a counter-narrative that investigates why some Black male students who pursue education pathways care deeply despite reported patterns of disinvestment.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

They (Don’t) Care about Education

Background on Dominant Narratives

Explanatory Factors in K-12 Schooling

Outcomes and Representation Gaps

Purpose and Research Question

Conceptual Framework

They (Don’t) Care about Education: A Counternarrative on Black Male Students’ Responses to Inequitable Schooling By Shaun R. Harper & Charles H. F. Davis III Shaun R. Harper is on the faculty of the Graduate School of Education, Africana Studies, and Gender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he also serves as director of the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education. Charles H. F. Davis III is a Ph. D. student and research assistant in the Center for the Study of Higher Education atthe University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. The images created of Black men in our society often confine them to environments shaped by drugs, crime, athletics, and academic failure. In education, we have contributed to this negative portrait by the disproportionate amount of research that emphasizes remediation and disadvantage.(Fries-Britt, 1997, p. 65) Whatever the source, some teachers have unsubstantiated, unquestioned, and inaccurate thoughts and beliefs about Black male students; put simply, these thoughts can be harmful and quite detrimental…Black male students can and do succeed in every type of school across the world. Their success in urban schools is not an exception.(Milner, 2007, p. 245) Anyone who takes time to read about them could confidently conclude that Black male undergraduates are troubled, their future is bleak, they all do poorly, and there is little that can be done to reverse longstanding outcomes disparities that render them among the least likely to succeed in college. (Harper, 2009a, pp. 699-700) Perspectives on Black male hopelessness and underachievement are evidenced by the numerous publications that highlight their educational upbringing in insufficiently resourced and culturally unresponsive K-12 schools (Noguera, 2003; Toldson, 2008); their low rates of high school completion (Lynn et al., 2010; Schott Foundation, 2010); their underpreparedness for the rigors of college-level work (Bonner & Bailey, 2006; Palmer, Davis, & Hilton, 2009; Palmer & Young, 2009); their patterns of academic and social disengagement, inside and outside the college classroom (Cuyjet, 1997; Kimbrough & Harper, 2006); and their low rates of baccalaureate degree attainment (Dancy & Brown, 2008; Harper, 2006a, 2012; Strayhorn, 2010). Moreover, Black male students across education levels reportedly place considerable effort into being perceived as popular and “cool” by their peers (Osborne, 1999; Stinson, 2006), and prioritize athletic aspirations above academic achievement (Benson, 2000; Harper, 2009b; Sellers & Kuperminc, 1997) . While many of these issues are indeed quantifiable and much has been written about them, they work together to convey a dominant message in academic and public discourse pertaining to Black male students: they don’t care about education. Kunjufu (1995) noted that Black boys effectively stop caring about school around the end of elementary school. He contended that teachers halt their efforts to nurture and promote achievement among Black males as early as fourth grade, thus inciting apathy and disengagement among those students. In his visits to K-12 classrooms, Kunjufu noticed that White teachers taught in ways that failed to stimulate enthusiasm for learning among Black boys, curricula at most schools were non-Africentric and disproportionately focused on memorization instead of problem solving, and few classrooms were led by Black male teachers. Visiting an average of four schools per week, Kunjufu saw no male teachers in any of the classrooms he assessed during an eight-year period. Instead,“men can usually be found as janitors, physical education teachers, or administrators”(p. 38), he observed. These explanatory factors for Black male students’ disinterest in education have been linked to unfavorable psychological and educational outcomes (Howard, 2008; Jackson & Moore, 2008; Milner, 2007; Thomas & Stevenson, 2009), and used to help expla

FAQs

What dominant message about Black male students does the article critique?

It critiques the public and academic narrative that Black male students “don’t care about education.”

Which factors does the text link to Black male students’ disinterest in schooling?

It links disinterest to teachers’ harmful beliefs, K-12 environments that are culturally unresponsive and non-Africentric, limited problem-solving curricula, and few Black male teachers, alongside unfavorable psychological and educational outcomes.

What research question motivates the study described in the text?

The study asks what compels Black men who progress through high school and college, aspire beyond the baccalaureate, and pursue education career pathways to care about education despite literature reporting gradual disinvestment and lower attainment.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by moss~