Award Date

12-1-2012

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Committee Member

James R. Crawford

Second Committee Member

Edith A. Rusch

Third Committee Member

Gene E. Hall

Fourth Committee Member

Linda F. Quinn

Number of Pages

165

Abstract

Over the last four decades black men have become increasingly underrepresented in all aspects of the teaching profession. Identifying the factors that influence African American men to enter or avoid the education field can help increase the recruitment of black men into the field of education. The dearth of black men in our classrooms can be reduced by collecting data as to the reasons that influence their decisions about the education field.

This qualitative study examined the experiences and perspectives of African American men serving as classroom teachers to identify common factors that may influence African Americans, in general, to enter the teaching field. The study also sought to identify barriers that African American men had to overcome in order to enter the teaching profession. This study was designed to collect participant experiences and perspectives through in-depth one-to-one interviews, through analysis of the interview responses to identify factors that influenced the participants to enter education and may help to address the issue of so few black men in America's classrooms.

This dissertation study was guided by three main research questions: (1) What life experiences influence African American men to enter the teaching profession? (2) What educational experiences influence African American men to enter the teaching profession? (3) Once in the profession, what are the lived experiences of African American male teachers? The interview protocol developed for this study was intended to draw in-depth responses from study participants.

The field of education has and continues to draw among the fewest African American male graduates when compared with other professional fields; this is indicative of a challenge which requires greater investigation and study. The very nature of this study and the study population based on teachers who are African American men means race was an inescapable aspect of the research, requiring an approach that respects the racial, gender and cultural nature of such a study. The primary conceptual framework for this study was the Culturally Sensitive Research Framework.

Though our country's student demographics increasingly represent a pluralistic, multicultural and multiracial society, the demographics of America's teachers reflects little change. It has proven difficult to recruit more teachers of color into our schools, especially African American men. Qualitative one-to-one interviews enabled this study to ascertain the factors which impact the decisions of African American men who enter teaching careers, provide additional information on the subject and help to address the issue of low rates of black men teaching in America's classrooms.

Keywords

African American men; African American teachers – Recruiting; Black men; Education; Male teachers – Recruiting; Males; Recruitment; Teacher

Disciplines

African American Studies | Educational Leadership

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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