School culture, racial identity performance, and the academic achievement of Black adolescents

For the purposes of this paper, I was interested in the roles of Black high school students' school cultures and developing sense of racial identity on their academic performance. The guiding principle of this research is the conception that racial identity is mediated by the context in which in one finds oneself. In a pilot study conducted on the same sample, I found that Black students in small schools were more likely to report positive school-related values and experiences than Black students in large schools. Furthermore, the data from this pilot study indicated that the small schools manifested racialized aspects of school cultures that allowed Black students to explore the relevance of their racial culture and identity. By considering the importance of the school culture, I was able to begin to understand some key differences in how Black students perceived their racial identity and how they experienced and valued their school experiences.; In my current research, I looked more closely at the intersection of racial identity and school culture by examining how Black students describe and understand their context-based racial identity and the racialized aspects of their schools' cultures. I was also interested to see if there was any relationship between how Black students understand their context-based sense of racial identity and their academic achievement. One of the main findings of the research showed that high-achieving Black students, across different types of school cultures, were more likely than Black students of other achievement levels to display a critical racial awareness, while also identifying meaningful opportunities to explore their racial identity at their schools. Also of interest is the fact that students of different Black ethnicities displayed differences in both how they made sense of their racial identity and in how they perceived racialized aspects of their schools' cultures.; This work is important because it indicates a need to look at the achievement gap in ways that do not over-generalize its causes or solutions. Black students who have specific ways of looking at themselves and their academic contexts may face different challenges in their individual attempts to bridge the achievement gap.