“I Do This for All of the Reasons America Doesn't Want Me To”: The Organic Pedagogies of Black Male Instructors

ABSTRACT

This article examines the teaching philosophies of Black male teachers of Black male students in manhood development classes in a district-wide program in Oakland, California. Drawing on observations and instructor interview data, we explore the teachers’ histories, teaching philosophies, and the trajectory of their racial-educational understandings. We utilize Gramsci's (1971) theory of the organic intellectual, Mills’ (1997) and Leonardo's (2013) theories of the subperson and substudent, and Dumas’ (2014) notion of Black suffering to theorize the ways that race comes into play in the teaching of African American male students. We find that racialization and re-humanization are key to instructors’ teaching, and we identify two key aspects of their teaching philosophies: (1) Humanization/Love and (2) Reciprocity.

Notes

1. Gramsci notes that “hegemony … is characterized by a combination of force and consent which balance each other so that force does not overwhelm consent but rather appears to be backed by the consent of the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion (which in certain situations, therefore, are artificially multiplied)” Gramsci, Buttigieg, & Callari, 2011). Hence, hegemony can be understood as the ruling class ensuring their values, interests, and beliefs are accepted as common sense by the larger society while ensuring this process appears natural. Although it is often portrayed as synonymous with domination, hegemony relies heavily on the consent of the people of a society. Still, that consent can be achieved only because hegemony is always supported by the threat of force and force will do the work that consent cannot.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

kihana miraya ross

kihana miraya ross is a PhD candidate in the Social and Cultural Studies program in the School of Education at University of California, Berkeley. Her program of research explores the experiences of black students in a variety of formal educational settings with a focus on racialization, anti-blackness, and resistance in urban schools. 

Na’ilah Suad Nasir

Na’ilah Suad Nasir is the Birgeneau Chair in Educational Disparities in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, where she holds a joint appointment in the African American Studies Department. Her program of research focuses on issues of race, culture, and schooling. 

Jarvis R. Givens

Jarvis R. Givens is a PhD candidate in the African American Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. His research explores nineteenth and twentieth century African American educational history and he's currently completing a dissertation on the educational philosophy of Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950). 

Maxine McKinney de Royston

Maxine McKinney de Royston is a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research examines the design characteristics of equitable learning environments for black students, with a focus on issues of race, identity, and pedagogy.

Sepehr Vakil

Sepehr Vakil is a PhD candidate in the Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology program at University of California, Berkeley, and a Diversity Dissertation fellow at the University of San Francisco. His research focuses on the intersections of race, technology, and learning in both school and non-school settings.

Tia C. Madkins

Tia C. Madkins is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on equity-oriented STEM in K-12 learning environments, preservice teacher education, and teacher workforce diversification strategies for the recruitment and retention of black teachers.

David Philoxene

David Philoxene is a PhD student in the Social and Cultural Studies program in the School of Education at University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on racialized trauma and violence in urban schools.