Author : Mercy Agyepong
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (111 download)
Book Synopsis Blackness and Africanness by : Mercy Agyepong
Download or read book Blackness and Africanness written by Mercy Agyepong and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this multi-sited critical ethnographic project, I examine the school experiences of Black West immigrant students at two Bronx, NY public high schools during the 2016-2017 school year. This project explores the following: 1) the ways in which perceptions of Blackness and Africanness impact how Black West African immigrant students are viewed and treated by teachers, guidance counselors, and peers; 2) how these African students make sense of the ways in which they are perceived and treated by these institutional actors, and how that shape their self-identity; 3) and how school context influences the types of academic challenges and advantages afforded to African students. With the use of postcolonial theory and anti-Blackness, the research interrogates the racialization of Black African youth and examines racialized discourses and practices that impact their schooling experiences. The research findings are based upon ten months of data collection at both schools, including over 270 hours of in-school observations and in-depth interviews with forty-four students (Africans and non-Africans), teachers, and school counselors. Findings from this project shows that school context impacts perceptions and understandings of Blackness and Africanness in unique ways. For example, perceptions about who is and what makes a person Black (i.e. Blackness) differs at both schools and therefore influences the different ways in which Black students (Africans and non-Africans) are treated. These findings display the heterogeneity and complexities surrounding the Black racial category. Findings also show that African students' Black and African identities both simultaneously act as a source of privilege and struggle, socially and academically, within both schools. Further findings show that while African students are perceived as model minorities by teachers, counselors, and peers at both schools, some students' grade point averages did not reflect this perception. Still, the perception and discourse of Africans as model minorities was used to denigrate their African American and Latinx counterparts at both schools. This research contributes to the literature on race, ethnicity, and immigrant students by illuminating how the increase in the immigrant population complicates yet maintains dominant racial ideologies and structures (i.e. Whiteness on top, Blackness on the bottom) in the U.S.
