Purpose Statement
The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study will be to explore the Black male perspectives about the lack of Black male educators within the K-12 teaching force. This proposed study will utilize a qualitative approach to examine the research problem in an attempt to find the most applicable solutions. Approximately 15 percent of educators in North Carolina are Black (The Education Trust, 2020). In the larger districts of North Carolina, there has been an increase of Black male educators within the past year (Lavigne, 2021). Currently, there are 277 Black male educators in Durham Public Schools. This is 11 percent of all of its teachers. However, the make up of Black male teachers in Cumberland County Schools are 283, making up only 7 percent of the district’s total. But, in a much larger district such as Wake County, the number of Black male educators represented are 316, meaning less than 3 percent (Murphy, 2021). The target population of this research will be 5 Black males in the United States, who are between the ages of 35-40, who are currently or were previously educators in the American education system within the last 10 years. I selected this number because according to Dworkin (2021), 5 to 50 participants are adequate to reach data saturation when conducting qualitative research. I will be using the snowball sampling method because it allows individuals to also name others who meet the criteria of the research and study.
I will reach out to Black male educators who meet the requirements. These individuals are ones who I have either worked with previously in an urban school setting school system, or have networked with in the past years. I will then set up interviews, conduct a data collection, and end with an analysis. For this study, I will explain to each interviewee how the process of answering each question will go. From there, I will record the interviewee’s responses using a voice recorder app. If the interviewer sees areas in which he believes the interviewee could elaborate more upon, he will encourage additional conversation. The data collection process will incorporate in depth interviews that are structured in a way that allows the interviewees the opportunity to elaborate on their perspectives and give their opinion on being an Black male educator in an urban school setting. The goal of these conversations will be to highlight Black male educators and how they perceive teaching in Urban schools. The most suitable software that will be used for the data analysis is the NVivo, a qualitative data analysis computer software package produced by QSR International (2022). The analysis that will be conducted is a thematic analysis (Caulfield, 2022). The results from the thematic analysis will inform the education practice regarding the various factors that influence the lack of diversity within the teaching force of the K-12 education system.
Problem Statement
The problem to be addressed by this study is the lack of Black male educators within the K-12 teaching profession. The teaching profession is predominantly female and/or White. Therefore, there is an acute shortage of K-12 Black male educators. Black students, especially males, are impacted by the lack of Black male educators in education (Callahan, 2020). Studies show that if a Black male student has a Black male educator for at least one year in elementary school, they are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to consider college (Callahan, 2020). The National Center for Education Statistics revealed a study that male teachers collectively make up 23% of the total teacher population while Black male educators make up only 2% of the total teacher population in public schools (Underwood & Robert, 2020). Walley (2018) revealed that the few Black male educators available are often assigned to schools with poor working conditions, resulting in high turnover rates. Further research entails that not many Black males even consider teaching when attending their college or university (Graham & Erwin, 2017). Because the population of Black male educators are disproportionately represented in the United States, the chances of K-12 students having one are extremely low, especially depending on the district.
Today, there are very few schools in the United States, specifically in North Carolina that have multiple Black male educators serving as teachers and administrators. KIPP Public Schools which are a part of the KIPP Foundation network and Movement Schools operating under the Movement Mortgage network are among the few schools in North Carolina that have the presence of Black male educators. Within these two schools, you feel a difference in culture, engagement, and overall excitement for learning within the scholars. KIPP North Carolina Public Schools currently has eight operating schools and within those six schools the Black male population is 6% (Whitfield, 2019). In the Movement network of schools, they have four operating schools and three percent of those educators are Black males (Esquith, 2022). Though Black male educators make up just 2 percent of the educator population in the United States, Alexander Callahan’s (2020) research shows that they play a vital part in education.
Review of the Literature
The student performance gap between African American and Caucasian scholars has existed for ages and still exists today (Hill, 2018). Many researchers have been inspired to look into the teaching methods used with African American students to address this issue (Okezie, 2018). A study from the Urban Review regarding motivation and academic achievement implies that success can be reached when educators move away from traditional teaching approaches and toward teaching strategies that reflect the individual student (Okezie, 2018).
Since its establishment, the public education system in the United States has operated to prepare achievers to succeed. According to the Center for National Education Policy (2021), schools were established to better all students’ socioeconomic stations, educate students in a way that allows them to compete in a global society, celebrate differences, and make all students self-defined and self-sufficient (Okezie, 2018). Inclusion and assistance for all students should not be limited to the lines of poverty against affluence, immigrant versus native-born, African American versus Caucasian, or, in this case, African American males students versus other learners (Okezie, 2018). It is difficult to overlook the truth that African American students suffer significant obstacles in today’s society, as seen by national statistics on education from the Noble Education Initiative (2022) unemployment, and imprisonment. The educational experiences of African American scholars has drawn much attention over the previous four decades (Okezie, 2018).
The purpose of the review of literature aims to give a better understanding of the impact that critical racial ideology creates on the success of African American scholars in urban school settings and how the presence of African American male educators could potentially change the trajectory of student performance. The themes that emerged from this study are the historical background of African Americans in education, critical race theory, the effect of race, stereotypical threats, the African American achiever, the importance of student-teacher relationships and the African American educator. Other themes included the findings of an African American male educator and their expectations, reflections from the African American male educators of urban schools or districts, the retention of African American male educators, the benefits of having an African American male educator, and the gaps in literature regarding the African American male educator. During this time, I have been using the Northcentral University Library to conduct research and plan to use EBSCOHost (2022) and JSTOR (2022) as supplemental data bases. The search terms that will be used are Diversity, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Urban School Setting,