In recent years, the use of culturally appropriate humor as a tool for change within the parameters of counseling has grown within the literature. In comparison, the art of storytelling has had little attention within the literature as a tool for strategic change. This article outlines a framework for the use of humor and storytelling as…

Previous studies have documented Black churches' receptivity to implementing adolescent sexual health programs within their congregations. Some authors have argued for new sexual health programs to be designed specifically for churches, similar to the development of school- and community-based interventions. However, strategies and curricula used…

In this essay, Charlene Desir reflects on her role as an academic from the Haitian diaspora and her journey to reconnect to her Haitian roots after the 2010 earthquake. Desir begins by exploring her family background and the centrality of "lakou"--a sacred family space in which to connect to her ancestors and cultural ways of knowing. By…

This article offers an analysis of the dozens using Black feminist theory. The dozens are a ritualized verbal game of insults that historically have used sexual offenses against Black women as the vehicle for insults. Rather than simply viewing the dozens as a cultural phenomenon, the article draws a connection between its occurrence in West…

It is the purpose of this paper to describe how the identification of linguistic differences in Black English helped eradicate the language barrier in a rural Georgia classroom and enhanced the communication between the teacher and the students.

This article introduces and recommends mindfulness as a significant resource for earliest childhood practice, especially for parents and providers. Mindfulness is defined as it is coming to be understood and used by increasing numbers of people and systems in North America. The article also addresses how mindfulness is sometimes expressed and…

This article examines the relationship between oral- and textual-literacy systems that existed during the antebellum period of United States history. I argue that African-American intellectual processes are more accurately understood as existing on a literacy continuum that reflects equality between oral literacy and textual literacy. A literacy…

The purpose of this study was to explore college mentorships that involve undergraduate Black male mentees and their Black male mentors as a means to understand how such mentorships function at predominately-White institutions (PWIs). Researchers have often examined the experiences of such mentorships through the lens of research that focuses on…

This study explores biracial identity development in the adolescent years through fusion autoethnography. Using an ecological model of biracial identity development, this study illustrates how family, peers, and school curricula validate and reject racial self-presentations. We pay specific attention to the different forms of silence (i.e.…

Women of color, especially Black women, are underrepresented in the extant literature and research of adult development and mind, body, spirit leadership. This in-depth qualitative portraiture study explored the lives of three Black women who have been leading their communities as adult educators of mind, body, spirit practices. This examination…

There is a need for culturally relevant teaching in dance education. Many dance teachers have heard the buzz words "culturally relevant teaching methods." Yet these dance educators acknowledge that the "dance culture" is not always synonymous with "culturally relevant." This paper examines the issue of culturally…

This article examines founder Frank L. Gilyard's role in the establishment of the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania, through the dual lenses of African American rhetoric and performance studies. It concludes with an analysis of how these insights informed a community-based research course in honors first-year…

In this essay, filmmaker and educator Caroline Stephenson tells how Hurricane Irene started her on a journey to make a documentary about Rosenwald Schools in her native Hertford County, North Carolina. After many years working as an assistant director in Los Angeles on films and television shows, Stephenson moved back to the family farm to raise…

Findings from a 1.5 year study of black adolescent mathematics students attending an African-centered school in the US are used to highlight the benefits of separate schooling for this population of students. Critical race theory is used to frame a dialogue surrounding the ways in which this type of school environment and embedded racialized…

This article presents a model of public scholarship in which the knowledge-generation binary in traditional and public scholarship can and does blur, even dissolve, through interdependent partnerships. The author analyzes the overlapping issues of authority and voice between the scholarship of community-engaged research and the discipline of…