Compares 20 African-American rites of passage programs for adolescents, and considers the place of such rites for African Americans and their communities in current and future society. The adolescent rite of passage is a supervised developmental and educational process to assist young people in becoming adults. (SLD)

To improve urban schools, we must create a culture of success for African-American students. A multicultural education that infuses African and African-American history and culture throughout the curriculum is appropriate at this time because problems have reached such critical proportions. (SLD)

Reviews the debate concerning the impact of Afrocentric education and multicultural education on U.S. history instruction and course content. Responds to criticisms of Afrocentric education by historians Diane Ravitch and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Contends that multicultural education can help recognize divisions in U.S. society and show a…

Demonstrates how introducing students to African literature can appeal to their imaginations and encourage them to develop their insights into African culture. Outlines the procedures in a middle school class where the students are transformed into anthropologists as they read Chinua Achebe's, "Things Fall Apart." (MJP)

Explains and characterizes some of the basic concepts of East African music. Fundamentally an enhanced way of storytelling, East African music techniques are rooted in the play and rhythm of spoken language. Compares and contrasts East African and Western musical conventions. Includes a list of East African music resources. (MJP)

This article discusses the appointment of Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust as the first woman named president of Harvard University, which marks a diversity high point in the storied history of the nation's oldest university. At age 9, Faust famously wrote to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower calling for an end to segregation. And in her current role as a…

This article addresses two long-standing tensions in the education of linguistically marginalized youth: (a) the cultural tension, or cultural combat, that such students engage in as they form their linguistic identities, and (b) the tensions between the development of critical language pedagogies and the lack of their broader implementation due…

This article concerns the tragedy of the misuse of power and the power of imagined inferiority. African Americans must lose misconceptions about the majority, heighten understanding about being Black in America and how that makes their children vulnerable to this nation's worst, stop fighting losing battles like affirmative action, and find and…

In this article, Alfred Tatum argues that the current framing of the adolescent literacy crisis fails to take into account the in-school and out-of-school challenges confronting many African American male adolescents today, particularly those growing up in high-poverty communities. Using the metaphor of literacy instruction as a human body, he…

For David E. Kirkland, the New English Education locates English language arts in the realities of youth, where texts emerge from students' lives, and the notions of reading and writing in English classrooms are open to revision. Kirkland reflects on how "postmodern Black experience, especially as seen in hip-hop, gives English teachers one way of…

America is a true melting pot, as exemplified by the diversity of students in our classrooms. Many are concerned with how teachers are providing instruction for the diverse groups of students they teach. Failure to embrace multiculturalism allows members of society to continue to promote disenfranchisement. For example, proponents of the complex,…

Focusing on traditional African families, villages, and cultures, this teaching guide presents objectives, activities, resources, and evaluation suggestions for use in grade one social studies African area programs. The instructional guide is a product of a summer workshop for teachers on African curriculum development. It is intended as the basis…

The document presents a seventh grade social studies unit on Africa. The unit is one of a number of products developed by a summer workshop for teachers on African curriculum development. The objective is to help students understand the concept of culture, how cultures develop, and how and why cultures change. The document is divided into two…

The paper explores the effects of industrialization on objectives and content of education for women. Three groups of women serve as examples--Jewish women who immigrated from unindustrialized areas of Europe to the growing industrial economy of early 20th century United States; Ghanaian women who function in a dual economy historically and…

THIS CURRICULUM GUIDE PRESENTS THE SECOND OF FIVE PROPOSED SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL UNITS ON CULTURE AREAS OF THE NON-WESTERN WORLD. SUGGESTED "STRATEGIES" ILLUSTRATE TECHNIQUES TO ENCOURAGE STUDENT AND TEACHER INVOLVEMENT IN ACTIVE CLASSROOM LEARNING. CHAPTER TITLES INDICATE THE SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT MATTER--"THE TEACHING OF AFRICAN…