Ideology and Identity Among White Male Teachers in an All-Black,All-Male High School

Abstract

National data trends underscore the “problem” of Black male achievement. Beneath the causes and consequences are the ideologies used to frame the problem and its solutions. The ideology of meritocracy is routinely employed to rationalize educational disparities. This article examined how White male teachers, in a charter school designed to promote academic success among Black boys, made sense of boys’ academic achievement patterns. Interview analysis revealed the persistence of meritocracy, as teachers (a) located the problem within Black boys’ identities; (b) constructed race, masculinity, and social class as barriers to students’ academic success and teachers’ effectiveness; and (c) positioned themselves relationally away from their students and the problem itself. We discuss implications for the academic development of Black boys.

Keywords

identity ideologies intersectionality Black males relational teaching

Nationwide, at every level of education, there are disparities in academic achievement for Black boys (Moore & Lewis, 2014; Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2015; Toldson, 2008). The consequences of this “problem” for Black males and society at large are far reaching and well documented, and its causes are multifaceted and rooted in structural inequalities (e.g., Howard, 2014; Jackson & Moore, 2006; Noguera, 2008). Beneath the dialogue of causes and consequences, however, are the ideologies that are used to frame the problem. Ideology can be defined as a system of beliefs that “offers a unified answer to problems” (Shaw, 1997, p. 285). Ideologies are cultural and personal; they “create rationales” about why a problem exists, how it ought to be resolved, and who is responsible (Coburn, 2006, p. 344). Meritocracy is an example of an ideology that has long been used to explain and rationalize achievement in the United States (MacLeod, 1987; Noguera, 2003). The ideology of meritocracy rests on the beliefs that the world is fair and just, that hard work and effort lead to success, and that individuals are responsible for their own behaviors, choices, and life outcomes. Applied to disparities in achievement, meritocracy reasons: Black boys are not successful in school because they do not work hard. The solution to the problem, then, is to change, or fix, Black boys’ academic work ethic and motivation.

It is useful to examine ideologies because they are deeply political and interwoven with cultural systems of power (Coburn, 2006; Delpit, 2006; Shaw, 1997) and simultaneously intimately personal—part of the way individuals see others and themselves in relation to the problem being rationalized. In this article, we consider how ideology and identity are enlisted as teachers make sense of the “problem” of Black male underachievement. Specifically, we explore how two White male teachers, working in an all-Black male high school, frame what Black boys need to be successful. Teachers’ meaning-making is key because teachers are frontline agents in (de)legitimizing racist achievement ideologies (Allen, 2015; Brown, 2009; McKinney de Royston et al., 2017) and what teachers believe about their Black students matters for student experience, engagement, and achievement (Diamond, Randolph, & Spillane, 2004; Milner, 2007).

Meritocracy and Teachers’ Beliefs

Meritocracy, the belief that society is equal and success is determined by individual effort, is a long-standing ideology in America, the bedrock of the American Dream (MacLeod, 1987; Noguera, 2003; Weber, 1905/2001). In the lens of meritocracy, all youth have an equal chance to be academically successful, to access quality education, resources, and learning opportunities, and those who fail, do so because they lack the work ethic to achieve. Even when structural barriers, such as poverty, racism, employment and housing discrimination, and school quality are acknowledged, meritocracy supports a “rags to riches” narrative in which individual determination, passion, and grit can overcome any obstacle.

Ideologies matter because they are tied to power (e.g., Swidler, 1986). Thus, the power of meritocracy is wielded not merely by the individual who holds the belief but also by the society that structures and maintains it (McLean & Syed, 2015). In a society characterized by inequality, meritocracy is not a neutral or benign view of the world but rather a perilous one that legitimizes oppression. America, including its education system, was built on racist ideologies that dismiss and delegitimize Black children (Dancy, Edwards, & Davis, 2018; Dumas, 2014; Jennings & Lynn, 2005; Noguera, 2008). Despite the legal revocation of separate-but-equal education, a wealth of scholarship demonstrates the persistence and prevalence of meritocracy in America’s schools (Anyon, 1997; Lewis, 2001; Noguera, 2003). It is a belief system invoked by school administrators (Lynn, Bacon, Totten, Bridges, & Jennings, 2010) and classroom teachers (Allen, 2015; Emdin, 2016; Jupp, Berry, & Lensmire, 2016), as well as by stakeholders and politicians (Noguera, 2003; Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2015). For example, Lynn et al. (2010) studied a district wherein Black male students consistently trailed behind their counterparts and found that teachers and administrators consistently employed narratives of meritocracy by emphasizing students’ (lack of) effort to explain and rationalize the underachievement of Black male students. Relatedly, Allen (2015) found that some Black teachers also attributed Black boys’ academic problems to unstable families and communities and lack of effort. The persistence of meritocracy in schools is evident, and it ignores the intersecting inequalities that perpetuate academic disparities.

Swidler (1986) maintained that while ideologies are cultural products, they are also taken up and negotiated by individuals. In other words, individuals have the agency to adopt, question, disrupt, and repudiate the dominant cultural narrative (McLean & Syed, 2015; Rogers, 2018a). We focus on teachers’ ideologies in this article because teachers are cultural agents within the system. As such, teachers are not autonomous actors but co-participants in a racialized system that is trained toward oppression (Alexander, 2010; Dumas, 2014). From this contextualized view, teachers matter; they are levers in the system of educational inequality, pivots that can shift its effects. Indeed, Emdin (2016) argued that a teachers’ effectiveness “can be traced directly back to what that teacher thinks [italics added] of the student” (p. 207). A core recommendation in Milner’s (2007) principles for empowering Black male students is to change how Black males are construed. “If teachers believe Black males are destined for failure and apathy”, Milner writes, “their pedagogies will be saturated with low expectations” (p. 244).

A robust psychological literature also demonstrates empirically that teachers’ beliefs exacerbate or reproduce achievement inequalities, particularly for marginalized students (Jussim & Harber, 2005; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). Moreover, research shows that teachers overall have lower achievement expectations for their Black male students (Allen, 2013; Davis & Jordan, 1994; R. F. Ferguson, 2003; Gushue & Whitson, 2006; Howard, 2014; Toldson, 2008) and that these reduced expectations beget even lower results in Black student achievement (e.g., Delpit, 2006).

Beyond student achievement outcomes, what teachers think about their students shapes the relational connection and support they provide, which is an essential ingredient for student success (Brooms, 2017; Irvine, 2003; Milner, 2007). Baldridge (2014) argued that how Black students are described by their teachers is directly related to how they are affirmed, supported, and engaged—or not. Teachers must “care and demonstrate care” in their classrooms in order to successfully educate their students (Milner, 2007); such authentic and caring relationships are rooted in ideology (Dumas & Nelson, 2016).

While teacher expectancies focus on specific beliefs about student abilities, ideologies are the larger belief system, the hammock that holds these specific beliefs and ties them together into a unified rationale with explanatory power (Coburn, 2006; Swidler, 1986). Moreover, because cultural ideologies are shared, endorsing meritocracy conjures power that extends beyond an individual teacher. Dumas and Nelson (2016) have called for educators to “reimagine” Black boys, suggesting that addressing teachers’ low expectations requires the much deeper work of shifting in how teachers view the humanity of Black boys (Goff et al., 2014). If we are to reimagine Black boys in educational spaces, we must unpack the ideologies that frame them.

Ideology, Identity, and Intersectionality

Prior research on the prevalence of meritocracy in schools and among educators offers a few explanations as to why teachers endorse meritocracy. First, meritocracy is a pervasive American narrative, a master narrative, that is both ubiquitous and imperceptible (Ledesma & Calderón, 2015; McLean & Syed, 2015). As such, unless teachers are intentional and deliberate about disrupting meritocracy, they are likely to reinforce it by default because this is how dominant cultural ideologies function. A second reason teachers rely on meritocracy is lack of knowledge or awareness. Some teachers are ignorant of inequalities and structural obstacles due to their own privileged positions or background (Crowley, 2016; Picower, 2009). For example, some White teachers working in communities of color remain blatantly unaware of students’ home lives, familial dynamics, and neighborhood stressors and threats that comprise daily obstacles (Emdin, 2016; Sleeter, 1992). Blind to such realities, teachers reason that individual effort sufficiently explains achievement disparities. A third explanation points to teachers’ racial beliefs or attitudes and general anxieties with racial dialogue (e.g., Picower, 2009; Sleeter, 1992). Research suggests that White teachers, in particular, are racist toward “other” students (Delpit, 2006), holding deficit perspectives about non-White students and their families and presuming Whiteness to be both normative and ideal (Masta, 2018; Sleeter & Bernal, 2004). Teachers also endorse racial color blindness, claiming that race does not matter, it justifies disparities and reifies meritocracy (Bell, 2002; Lewis, 2001; Pollock, 2005). Bell’s (2002) study found that a sample of 65 White teachers invoked color blindness in their teaching narratives to “espouse a position of innocence,” which revealed their attempts to absolve themselves of both challenging and changing racist structures (p. 239).

The persistence of meritocracy may also be understood through the lens of identity—that is, the way in which meritocracy implicates the self and the other. Psychosocial identity theory (Erikson, 1968) describes identity as a relational process—a subjective sense of the self and the other—that unfolds within a sociocultural and political context. Similarly, Nasir and Saxe (2003) frame identity from a “cultural practice perspective,” wherein individuals develop their identities in the moment-to-moment interactions that are simultaneously informed by the historical and the present moment. The ideology of meritocracy activates and depends on these identity processes. For example, with respect to how meritocracy creates and maintains a narrative about the “other,” it weds academic failure to the identities (and personhood) of Black boys. The intersectional race, gender, and sexuality stereotypes that frame Black boys as aggressive and volatile, and intellectually and emotionally stunted, have implications for how others interpret the nature of Black boys (Davis, 2001; Majors & Billson, 1992; Spencer, Fegley, Harpalani, & Seaton, 2004). Allen (2013), for example, found that although the parents of middle-class Black male students stressed the importance of education to their sons, both sons and fathers “spoke of microaggression events in their school, which included the negative and stereotypical views teachers and administrators held of Black men that resulted in racialized assumptions of intelligence, deviance, and differential treatment” (p. 179). In school contexts, Black male students are frequently construed as problems and troublemakers rather than curious and competent contributors to the learning community (A. A. Ferguson, 2000; Howard, 2014; Milner, 2007; Noguera, 2008), and as a result, they are disciplined and demonized rather than engaged, loved, and instructed (Brooms, 2019; Davis, 2003; Dumas & Nelson, 2016). Moreover, Black boys are constructed more as “men” than “boys” and are rarely afforded the freedom, exploration, and curiosity that otherwise characterizes childhood (Dumas & Nelson, 2016; Goff et al., 2014). Delpit (2006) suggests that these oppressive stereotypes create a “culturally clouded vision” that prevents teachers from seeing students, particularly those who are different from themselves, for who they really are.

At the same time that meritocracy accuses the identities of Black boys, it also implicates the identities of teachers. That is, as White male teachers reason about the academic achievement patterns of their Black male students, it also situates their own race, gender, and class identities. For example, prior research on White teachers’ racial identities has revealed the tendency of White teachers to adopt color-blind views of race or to center their own experiences in their conceptualizations of race (Crowley, 2016; Jupp et al., 2016; Picower, 2009). Bell’s (2002) research with White teachers showed that color blindness was not only about the system but also about the self, as teachers subscribed to a color-blind ideology “as a way to avoid appearing to be racist” (p. 239).

Attending to the role of identity in ideology is important because identity embeds motivational qualities; individuals are driven to maintain a view of the self that is coherent and to behave in ways that are consistent with their identities (Erikson, 1968; Oyserman, 2001). As such, the ideology teachers employ to make sense of the achievement of Black boys functions to support not only a view of Black boys but also a view of the self. This link to identity offers a way to interpret the persistence of meritocracy; specifically, that disrupting the ideology may require changing not only teachers’ beliefs about the other (Black males) but also beliefs about the self—what it means to be White and male.

Current Study

The current analysis used an interview case study to examine how two White male teachers working at an all-Black, all-male high school made sense of the problem of Black male achievement. Because ideologies are cultural products negotiated at the level of individuals (Swidler, 1986), we were interested not simply in the existence of meritocracy but also in the ways in which White male teachers employed, negotiated, and potentially resisted it in their explanations of Black boys and the achievement disparities. We were further interested in how their ideologies implicated their own identities and those of their Black male students.

We examined this question in an all-Black, all-male charter school. Schools are social institutions and often reproduce the inequalities of society—including its ideologies (Jennings & Lynn, 2005; Noguera, 2003). At the same time, Perry (2003) argues that schools can be “counterhegemonic communities”—institutions that exist because of oppression and operate intentionally to repudiate the ideologies that sustain inequalities. Charter schools have been positioned as possessing the potential to be such counterhegemonic spaces, as a solution to the problem (Fergus, Noguera, & Martin, 2014), but researchers have documented the ways that racism is often (re)structured into the fabric of charter schools (i.e., “No Excuses” models), perpetuating rather than redressing inequality (Black, 2013; Dixson, Buras, & Jeffers, 2015). Against this backdrop, we examine how the ideology of meritocracy may persist among teachers working in an all-Black male public charter school intentionally designed to serve Black boys. We focus on the White male teachers because the White supremacy that governs society positions them as key players in the maintenance and disruption of inequality—within and beyond the school walls.

Method

Data for this analysis were collected by the first author as part of a larger longitudinal, mixed-method study at an all-Black, all-male high school (Rogers, 2012; Rogers, Scott, & Way, 2015; Rogers & Way, 2016). Black Male Charter School (BMCS) is a public charter school with lottery enrollment. BMCS was established to address the dismal graduation rates of Black males in this particular urban center where approximately 60% of Black males in the district drop out of high school (Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2015). Data collection included observations as well as surveys and one-on-one interviews with students, teachers, and administrators (Rogers, 2012). Here, we report data from in-depth interviews that were conducted with two White male teachers during the first year of the study.

School Context

Founded in the mid-2000s, BMCS is a college preparatory high school situated within an economically depressed and underresourced urban neighborhood. The school was conceived as part of the city-wide educational reform effort engineered by the city mayor to improve schooling options for Black communities and families. According to the founder and president, “[BMCS] is not just a regular high school that happens to be all boys . . .” Rather, BMCS was designed with intention. According to the school’s founding team, a group of five Black males who were civic leaders, education stakeholders, and community activists, BMCS exists

because the statistics say that the other schools are not working; Because there were a lot more Black men going to college in 1975 than what there is right now; Because of the overpopulation of Black young men in special education; Because not only have some of our young men failed, but our school systems have failed them; Because we’ve identified that this is a problem that needs to stop.

The mission, vision, and practices of BMCS were designed to create a school where young Black males were surrounded with support by people who believed in their abilities to garner educational success. (For further details on the school context, see relevant publications: Brooms, 2014, 2017, 2019; Fergus et al., 2014; Rogers et al., 2015; Rogers & Way, 2016.)

Participants

A total of seven teachers were individually interviewed as part of the larger study. Teachers were selected for interviews based on their role as grade-level mentors. Mentors at BMCS were charged with supporting students’ social-emotional and academic development, providing homework help and oversight for student engagement, and creating a safe space for students to discuss personal topics and issues. Of the seven 9th-grade teachers who were in this role, two of them were White males. This article is based on interviews with both the White male teachers.

Mr. Scott and Mr. Benson (pseudonyms) are informative case studies because, like nearly 80% of teachers at BMCS (and similar charter schools), they transitioned into teaching through alternative certification programs. They are of similar age and both novice teachers—in their first and third year, respectively—and both in their first year at BMCS. They were also mentors. Alongside their instructional roles, grade-level mentors were responsible for a cohort of 20 to 25 Black male students with whom they met three times each day. These daily sessions gave the mentors additional time and latitude to discuss students’ personal lives for the explicit purpose of building more intimate relationships. Thus, their roles as mentors center our interest in the ways in which ideology and problem framing may facilitate (or impede) authentic, caring relationships in the classroom. Listening to both White male teachers’ narratives, which converge but also diverge in interesting ways, reveals the functionality of race, masculinity, and social class within the ideology of meritocracy.

Procedures

Teachers were informed about the larger study during the summer orientation program held for incoming students. Teachers serving as the grade-level mentors were identified at this time and invited to participate in an interview. The interviewer (first author) met with each teacher individually at the school. Interviews occurred before or after school, or during teachers’ lunch and/or planning period, and due to teachers’ schedules, they occurred in two separate sittings (e.g., began interview before school and finished during lunch). Mr. Benson’s interview lasted 112 minutes, and Mr. Scott’s interview lasted 91 minutes. Both interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed by a professional company, and then verified by an undergraduate research assistant.

Interview Protocol

Interviews followed a semistructured protocol, which privileges the knowledge and perspective of the participant and considers the interview a dynamic “speech event” that centers relationship, power, and the broader cultural context (Marecek, Fine, & Kidder, 2001; Mishler, 1986). Interviewing from this approach is particularly suited to investigate complex phenomenon, such as ideologies (Gilligan, 2015). The interview questions explored teachers’ perspectives on (a) teaching at an all-Black male high school, (b) the challenges Black males face in school and in society, (c) whether and how race and gender were discussed in their classrooms, and (d) thoughts on the school as a solution to Black male underachievement. Sample interview questions include the following: What are some of the challenges or problems that Black boys face? What do you think Black boys need to succeed? What is working well/not-so-well at BMCS?

Data Analysis

The purpose of case study analysis is to illuminate nuance rather than draw casual inferences (Stake, 1994). Although two subjects are not enough to generalize (Guest, Bunce, & Johnson, 2006; Roy, Zvonkovic, Goldberg, Sharp, & LaRossa, 2015), even a single case can highlight a larger issue, condition, or problem (Stake, 1994). Using a within-group case study approach also emphasizes complexity, allowing us to attend to how ideologies are negotiated at the level of individuals’ experiences and relationships and within a particular context. The question guiding our analysis was the following: How do teachers make sense of the needs and achievement patterns of their Black male students?

Preliminary analysis involved “getting to know” the data (Charmaz, 2006) by constructing analytic memos to capture the concepts and ideas generated within and across each interview. Preliminary coding was conducted by the first author and an (Black male) undergraduate research assistant. The primary analysis was conducted in QSR International’s NVivo 11 qualitative data analysis software (2014). NVivo’s organizational platform is well suited for multiaxial coding. We coded each narrative in three layers. First, we coded for the content of teachers’ explanations of Black male underachievement, which included individual-level explanations (e.g., effort and interest in school, attitudes, and value of education, intelligence, and ability), family/community-level explanations (e.g., family structure, community resources and violence, attitudes and value of education, and role models), and societal/structural explanations (poverty, racism, and negative stereotypes). Second, we coded for whether teachers reinforced or repudiated the ideology of meritocracy. For example, if a teacher stated that student effort (individual level) was part of the issue but discussed student effort as a product of external obstacles (e.g., poverty), then this reference was coded as challenging rather than reinforcing meritocracy. Finally, we coded for references to identity—whether and how teachers discussed race, gender/masculinity, or class in their explanations.

Validity and Positionality

The validity of qualitative analysis is determined by staying close to the data so that interpretation is empirically grounded (Maxwell, 2005). Lincoln and Guba (1986) outline credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability as components of qualitative validity. Credibility refers to the “truth” of the findings. We employed two particular strategies that strengthen the credibility of our analysis: prolonged engagement and persistent observation (Lincoln & Guba, 1986). Teacher interviews were collected as part of a larger project at the school that included more than 300 hours of on-site data collection. The interview analysis began with engaged readings and reflective memos to strengthen credibility of the interpretative analysis.

The data were collected by the first author and analyzed by both authors. The interviewer was familiar with each teacher, having spent more than 300 hours at the school over the course of data collection, talking regularly to students, participating in various school events, interacting with school personnel, and sitting in classrooms for observations. The coauthor was a teacher, coach, and administrator at BMCS for 4 years. Our intimate knowledge of the school influences the information we draw upon as we make meanings, construct analyses, and draw conclusions. Our disciplinary backgrounds, as a psychologist and sociologist, also brought unique perspectives to the analysis, enabling us to move between the psychologies of teachers and systems of society. Finally, our social identities (Black female, Black male) inform our responses to the data. These identity locations were relevant for the interview dynamics in discussions of both race and gender and during data analysis and interpretation.

Findings

We present the findings in a case study format to illustrate how each teacher used meritocracy as an ideology to explain Black male underachievement. Though the tone of their narratives differed, the base of meritocracy was consistent. Both teachers (a) implicated the identities of Black boys (their families and communities); (b) constructed race, masculinity, and social class as identity-relevant barriers to success; and (c) positioned themselves outside of the relationship with their students and from the problem itself. In alignment with the psychosocial and contextual view of identity (Erikson, 1968; Nasir & Saxe, 2003), we also noted how the all-Black male school—a counterhegemonic community—surfaced in teachers’ narratives and reasonings.

The Teachers

Mr. Benson is a White male in his mid-20s and a third-year teacher. He entered the profession because he “wanted to teach in urban schools.” When asked how he came to work at this particular school, he explained that after meeting the principal at a job fair, “I said, man, I’ll do whatever I can to come and work here.” Mr. Benson, like most of the teachers at BMCS, expressed a desire to teach at this school and with this population, suggesting a “shared concern” (Brown, 2009) for Black boys and the problem that the school sought to address. Mr. Scott is also a White male in his early 20s. He is a first-year teacher, entering education after working abroad for a year. Mr. Scott came to BMCS “because this is where I got placed. It wasn’t my first choice but, you know.” The school is located in the “type of community” Mr. Scott imagined he would teach in, though he did not seek out its all-male or all-Black demographic.

Mr. Benson and Mr. Scott may not have entered BMCS with equivalent intentions, expectations, or “shared concern” for the issues facing Black boys, but both teachers locate the “problem” of academic underachievement within Black boys, their families, and communities—their lack of effort, lack of preparation, lack of interest and motivation, and lack of support. Listening to both voices allows us to hear the nuances of meritocracy and in particular how race, class, and gender identities are embedded in their ideologies.

Mr. Benson

It is late spring, near the end of his first year of teaching at BMCS, when Mr. Benson is interviewed for this study. At this point of the year, Mr. Benson has been immersed in the lives of Black male students at the school. In addition to being a core-subject teacher, Mr. Benson is a mentor for a group of 20 ninth-grade boys whom he meets with three times per day. This mentoring role, coupled with the extended school day—running 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.—and the weekly Saturday school classes, creates an immersive experience. When we sit down in the last weeks of the school year to talk about the school, the students, and his experience, he has plenty to reflect on and process. What becomes striking through analyzing his interview is not simply that he uses meritocracy to make sense of the achievement patterns of Black boys, which he does, but how his own identities—and those of his students—are implicated in this reasoning.

Mr. Benson, on the surface, explicitly avoids talking about race, yet his narrative is saturated with stereotypes that surface throughout his references to gender, masculinity, and social class. For example, when asked whether the topic of race or racism is part of his instruction or conversations in the classroom, Mr. Benson responded,

We’ve had it [a conversation about race] only in the sense kind of . . . um they would ask me kind of like what it was like to grow up, how was your school, how was your family. But recently we’ve been talking about the American dream kind of throughout, ever since [reading] Gatsby and, you know, what does the American dream mean for this set of people and what does it mean for this set of people . . . [I]t’s been an interesting debate because some were saying it’s different depending on who you are. Some are saying it’s the same; you know you want a place to live and this and that, so those have been interesting conversations just in terms of expectations of success.

Mr. Benson intellectualizes and observes race at a distance—it is an interesting debate but not one that he personally interrogates. He traces race to his own upbringing (school, family) but connects race to the American dream, the mantle of meritocracy. He hints to systemic inequality but says that he rarely talks explicitly about race: “I guess, I mean that’s been kind of an ongoing discussion throughout, but not a whole ton, not a lot. Not a lot. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

Mr. Benson’s uncertainty about engaging race has a blinding effect such that he cannot see that racism is the foundation of the “problem” and the reason why BMCS exists. Instead, he implicitly (and perhaps unconsciously) draws upon the meritocracy ideology that locates the problem within Black boys, their families, and communities of “negative influence.” For example, when asked what is working well at BMCS, Mr. Benson said,

I mean even just to see Black men going to a job every day, caring about someone else besides themselves, um, I think it’s really cool that most of the men here are married, you know. So even just those little things that they see, you know they ask, “Mr. Benson did you get girls this week?” Married, you know, it doesn’t happen! And so, you know, the ones that they really look up to, Mr. T. [teacher], you know, then there are a couple of others, Mr. H. [teacher] are married and have children so for them to see that, for them to see kind of a selfless human being, more so a Black man, um who you know is very responsible, very respectful, but still cool and fun, it’s pretty cool for them.

While praising the positive Black male teachers at BMCS as counterimages to society’s negative narrative, Mr. Benson both privileges a heteronormative, patriarchal (and White) masculinity and simultaneously stereotypes all “other” Black men as jobless, careless, absent fathers who are irresponsible. His surprise that Black men can be “very responsible” but “still cool” suggests his implicit assumption of Black male qualities. He continues, describing the teachers at this school as “caring, compassionate men” who “really do care and put in time, call you at home and get in your face when you need it.” These teachers and supportive relationships, he explains, are crucial, just “Being able to sit down and have conversations about home, about family, about what’s going on, is, you know, it’s priceless for them.”

The reason it is crucial and “priceless,” based on the narrative and logic that Mr. Benson offers, is because his students do not have this type of support, these positive role models, beyond the walls of this school:

[Rogers: Do you get the sense that they have those kinds of opportunities outside of…]

Mr. Benson: Um . . . not with, not with, um—I guess, males that they should be listening to. There are no real good role models in their lives at all. There is a small majority who live with their fathers; an even smaller majority that see their fathers, you know, it’s a very matriarchal society and they do get that with their moms, but again it’s just men need other men and you need that masculinity infused in you somewhere, and to see a positive masculinity is a really cool thing

While Mr. Benson underscores the importance of relationships and creating space for boys to process their social and emotional experiences, he enters from a deficit perspective. First, by claiming that positive role models are absent beyond the walls of this particular school, he reifies a racist narrative of Black men—and other communal resources. From this ideological space, Mr. Benson is unable to “imagine” the lives and experiences of his students: “I can’t imagine not having a father around; there has to be some yearning for a male figure in their life.” Second, rather than an opportunity for him to learn about and connect with his students more intimately, the mentoring group is viewed as unidirectionally beneficial for Black boys because they lack these emotionally supportive spaces. Though constructed as a compliment to the relational culture fostered in BMCS, Mr. Benson’s narrative is notably constrained by a deficit perspective of Black boys specifically and Black communities and Black men more broadly.

While Mr. Benson avoids talking about race directly, he amplifies a racialized masculinity as central to the “problem.” When asked about the challenges Black boys face in school, he said his students need to “reprogram their ideas of masculinity.” Here, he locates the problem within Black boys, specifically within their masculine identities:

I don’t know where I heard it but, it might have even been in the staff [meeting], they were talking about how a lot of times in Black communities when you have sons and even when they’re really young they’re like, “Shut-up, you’re a boy and you can’t cry or a lot of these things,” whereas with daughters you know they’re very coddling. So, you know, they were saying even from age two when you’re told to shut-up it’s ingrained in you that you have to be tough, you can’t cry, and yet definitely it’s so very kind of a huge deterrence in terms of success.

Even though he is uncertain where he learned this narrative of masculine socialization within the Black community, he utilizes it to frame the challenges his students face in the classroom—academically and socioemotionally. Certainly, hegemonic masculinity is emotionally stifling and harmful (Connell, 1996; Way, 2011) but locating the problem within Black boys, opting to reprogram the boys (and their families and communities) rather than the racist and oppressive systems they are navigating, exemplifies meritocracy by emphasizing the individual rather than the system. The masculinity Mr. Benson describes is indeed a hegemonic masculinity, the patriarchy of America that originates in structural oppression and extends far beyond Black boys and Black communities (hooks, 2004; Mahalik et al., 2003).

Mr. Benson went on to explicitly describe Black boys’ masculinities as a barrier to their social, emotional, and academic success:

I’ve found and that’s [masculinity] probably a huge reason, they cannot maneuver past the emotions. If they’re angry they’re just stuck in that emotion. If they’re upset they’re stuck in that emotion and it takes so long to get them out of that. I had a student yesterday, his mom yelled at him and he just carried that with him all day long and so you know being kind of emotionally stunted they’re unable to maneuver through; I’m feeling sad now even with the conversation, “I can’t get past this way I feel and it’s going to affect me all day and even in my class,” so it’s tough; it’s very tough.

From his view, Black boys’ masculinities leave them “emotionally stunted” to the point that they cannot learn:

[Anger] it’s the one [emotion] that throws you so off. It shuts down every other emotion; it shuts down everything. I’m in class and I’m angry so I’m just going to walk out. I’m not going to pay attention or you know if Mr. So-and-so says get your books out and start learning, I’m going to be mad at him now. So, in terms of learning it just shuts you down.

I see it all the time. . . . It’s like, man, that was a very little issue. That’s another thing, just the smallest issues are blown way out of proportion. They can’t just maneuver through this is a really small issue. It’ll get solved really easily; if I could just communicate instead of you know resorting to yelling and arguing and now it’s a big issue.

Mr. Benson astutely assesses the negative impact of masculine stoicism and consequences that anger can have on learning and problem solving (e.g., Connell, 1996; Santos, Galligan, Pahlke, & Fabes, 2013). But he incorrectly assigns this to Black communities and families, framing Black boys as “emotionally stunted” and incapable of navigating “a really small issue.” The lens of meritocracy is blind to systemic oppression (hooks, 2004) and colors Mr. Benson’s view of masculinity, centering the identities of Black boys to rationalize a systemic problem.

Mr. Benson not only locates responsibility within the identities of Black boys but also positions his own Whiteness, masculinity, and social class as explanations for why he is not responsible. Implicit in this narrative is how Mr. Benson sees himself as a White male. For example, being White makes it “a bit more difficult” to “find that commonality” with students. When asked about teaching Black male students, he explained,

I think it’s just kind of learning how to communicate well with that specific group of students. I think too, you know, I mean it’s not the biggest deal in the world, but not having come up in a similar situation, maybe not even having the same skin color, um, plays into it. Again, I mean it’s not a huge deal, but. . . . It’s a bit more difficult.

Mr. Benson actively avoids naming race or Whiteness, instead using a phenotypic descriptor of race, “not having the same skin color,” and then actively dismisses it as “not the biggest deal.” When probed about whether this distance based on race was from the students’ perspective or his own, he admitted “probably my perspective” and went on to explain,

I mean it’s so funny, it’s really funny. Like the other day they were even saying, “Mr. Benson you can use the n-word around us now.” I was like that’s just crazy; I’ll never use it. But then I have other people like “hey, Black man, you’re like one of us,” you know, so it’s funny to me. So, it’s not necessarily them but I think it might even just be me who’s kind of trying to, you know, trying to find a different future for you in the midst of what you have experienced.

Mr. Benson perceives his students to be inviting him in, perhaps attempting to deconstruct the racial boundary between them, but he maintains his outsider status. This interpretation is not about his refusal to use the “n word” (which is a notably appropriate restraint) but rather that even as his students offer to include him (with the inclusive “one of us” language), he maintains his distance.

When probed about this point, Mr. Benson affirmed his comfort with diversity, stating that he “traveled the country, around the world more or less” and had “been in the Bronx and worked there, and been in L.A.” (working with diverse groups), but being positioned intimately with Black boys in this school space was unique—and anxiety-provoking. When asked to reflect on his mentor role at the school specifically, he said,

I guess having a [mentoring group] was a little nerve-wracking, not even my skin color, just such a difference of growing up and reality and now I kind of have to help you achieve that and not that it’s not possible, but to be able to find similarities.

Mr. Benson is candid about his uncertainty to find commonality and connection with his students because they are Black males and live in a different “reality” than his own. And, unfortunately, that difference is interpreted through a lens of meritocracy rather than relationship.

Mr. Benson’s reflections on race and masculinity in the context of teaching Black boys exemplify meritocracy, silencing race and focusing on individual-level factors with little regard for the broader systemic forces that create the conditions in which Black boys navigate their masculinities and educational experiences. Ultimately, his framing assigns responsibility to Black boys, their families, and communities, which disconnects him relationally not only from his students but also from responsibility for the problem itself.

Mr. Scott

It is a late spring when Mr. Scott is interviewed as well, but in addition to finishing his first year at BMCS, Mr. Scott is wrapping up his inaugural year in the teaching profession. In some respects, working in an all-Black male school is a rather unique first-year teacher experience. At the same time, Mr. Scott is part of a large percentage of first-year, White teachers funneled into urban areas via alternate teacher certification programs (e.g., Emdin, 2016). In addition to reflecting on BMCS, Mr. Scott’s interview reflects the challenges and steep learning curve that defines the teaching trajectory. What is interesting, in listening to his interview alongside Mr. Benson’s, are the many parallels that thread back to meritocracy. Mr. Scott, however, invokes race, class, and gender identities differently. Rather than avoid or silence race, Mr. Scott is explicit about naming race and the racial identities of Black students (and of Black people more broadly) as the root of the problem—telling familiar stories about individual responsibility. This story he tells is directly related to his own racial identity and sense of Whiteness and, like Mr. Benson, positions him away from the students and the problem.

Mr. Scott is similar to Mr. Benson in his view that race—his Whiteness and their Blackness—is a barrier; “I didn’t grow up and don’t know what it’s like to be Black.”

Um, well I specifically said to my kids that there are a lot of things that I probably can’t understand and speak on. You know, I didn’t grow up and know what it’s like to be Black. I didn’t grow up with money but I also don’t know what it’s like to grow up in an urban setting; I grew up in poor rural. Um, so they know and I’m honest with them, I can’t relate to them on some levels, but I can read and study and look at statistics and know, you know, that African American males don’t succeed in high school or generally don’t so I can speak on those things and intelligently talk to them about what they need to do.

From this description of (dis)connection with his students, Mr. Scott reveals the transactional nature of identities (Rogers, 2018b), viewing his students—and his relation to them—through an intersection of race (Black vs. White), social class (poor), and geographical location (urban vs. rural). More specifically, Mr. Scott views these identities as barriers between himself and his students. He can “know” about Black males through “the statistics” and tell them “what they need to do.” But since he does not know experientially what it is like to be a Black male, he cannot “speak on those things” or feel connected to or embedded in their experience. Yet reading and studying the statistics tell him all that he needs to know about Black males and “what they need to do” in order to succeed. In making sense of why Black males don’t succeed in high school, Mr. Scott positions himself outside of the problem and holds Black boys as responsible for it.

In contrast to Mr. Benson who is race-mute (Pollock, 2005), Mr. Scott names race by centering his own racial identity and the need to inform his students about Whiteness in order to bridge this racial distance:

I think that a barrier that I sort of indirectly broken with some of my kids is that every White person isn’t the same. I mean it’s funny, after I left school yesterday and—there were some girls outside as I was leaving—one of the [students] introduced me as Justin Timberlake. Which, I look nothing like Justin Timberlake, at all. But, you know, I’m White so he was the only person he could think of, Justin Timberlake, you know? Five minutes later it would have been Brett Favre. Or Brad Pitt or whoever, so. Um, some of them still joke about that but they realize now that I’m not every other White person.

Teaching Black boys to understand (his) Whiteness and to recognize the diversity among Whites (“every White person isn’t the same”) positions Black boys as responsible for the racial distance and their lack of racial knowledge. It is further tied to Mr. Scott’s endorsement of meritocracy, which becomes evident when he discusses whether race surfaces in the classroom:

I’ve had kids sort of imply racism or that you know I’m part of the “group” that is holding them down, but my response is “Yeah, you see how I treat all the White students right, so I’m pretty racist. I moved all the way up here to a school that I knew was all Black and I hate Black people.” I just make a joke out of it. Like, really? Do you really think that’s what I feel when I’m here every day?

Mr. Scott may be willing to openly talk about race, but he is blind to his own racism. He seems to equate teaching Black males with being antiracist, and assume that the mere absence of White students in his classroom erases his own racism. Furthermore, when challenged by his students, rather than engage with and listen to their comments about racism, he “makes a joke” of it and explicitly removes himself from the equation.

Mr. Scott’s narrative suggests a deep unawareness (or rejection) of the difference between individual-level racism and systemic racism. This distinction (or lack thereof) underlies his belief in meritocracy and who is responsible for the problem of academic underachievement among Black male students. Moreover, he ties this tension of racism to the school context:

That is something that bothers me about this place [BMCS], that there have been examples, like intermittently throughout the year, where White people have specifically been talked about as holding them down or oppressing them. Um, so for instance, when we talk about the community, about going to college, and all this stuff and about how White people aren’t going to help them do this and that and that as a young Black man you’re going to fight against the White majority and all that stuff, which I guess is true to some degree, but it’s put in the context of White people are trying to hold you down.

The fact that Mr. Scott is “bothered” when confronted with systemic racism suggests that he is unable (or unwilling?) to see racism as a system that operates beyond himself and his classroom. We also hear, in Mr. Scott’s narrative, the way the school context threatens his meritocracy and his own racial identity.

Mr. Scott spontaneously offers his reflection on why the school’s choice to invite a guest speaker made him “mad.” We include an extended excerpt below because it reveals his White fragility, which has consequences for how he views his Black male students:

[The Guest Speaker] wound this whole thing around like how White people have all this advantage and that because you’re Black you’re going to face that and you have to be careful of what you do because you’re Black and people are out to get you. And maybe in some places that is the case, but I guess the reason that that hits me directly, not just because I’m White, but because I’m from the part of the country that’s supposed to be the racist, you know, I’m from the South; we don’t wear shoes and we hate everyone that’s not White. There is racism everywhere; it’s going to always be there. White against Black, Black against White, you know Black against Hispanic; that’s always going to be the case, but it’s not as bad, at least from my experience, as it’s still portrayed to be. Like it’s not 1960 anymore. Are there still cases where Black people are held down or oppressed or somehow disadvantaged because of specific situations? Yes. But, to make a blanket statement like that I don’t think is right anymore. . . . I’m already one of the only White people here. I know people tend to be like readily willing to label me, but if I basically say racism is not as bad as it has been, can we not talk about it?

Mr. Scott’s narrative about racism, how opportunities are framed and understood for different racial groups, and how the social institutions and racial structures affect students’ lives are important. First, he privileges his own perspective and experience (Crowley, 2016). He notes that racism, from his view as a White male, “it’s not as bad . . . as it’s still portrayed to be.” Second, while he concedes that racism exists within the United States, it is subjective and isolated to individuals not systems. Third, he ignores the impacts of racism and abdicates responsibility by asserting the ubiquity of racism (“there is racism everywhere; it’s going to always be there”). Ultimately, it seems that Mr. Scott is not blind to racial inequality at all but is simply “tired” of being held responsible for the “crazy privilege” he is assumed to hold as a benefactor of a racist system.

When asked explicitly whether racism exists, Mr. Scott explained,

There are definitely differences between a White life and a Black life, you know economically and socially, and all this stuff, but I guess I just get tired of hearing all the time that if you’re Black you’re going to have to deal with this stuff. I don’t think that’s always the case. Just like because I’m White doesn’t mean I have some sort of crazy privilege and I have all this money and things, you know.

What is particularly relevant to the current analysis is the way in which Mr. Scott goes on to explain how these experiences and interactions fit into an existing ideology of meritocracy and are interpreted as evidence that Black males choose to be lazy and resign their responsibilities. When asked why he thinks it is problematic to discuss racism as the school does, he said,

I feel like a lot of times in their lives it’s okay to blame it on someone else. In some issues, it’s White people or in some issues it’s people with money or it could be the police or whatever it is, but they see so many times that people don’t take responsibility for their actions. . . . I think there are some systemic things like I said that were created by White people for the White advantage, so there is still some racism in the United States’ culture, but even with that said, if they are taught that as a way to shove aside their responsibility they’re always going to do that, so I mean I feel like it should be mentioned, but then it should be like, “But that is where you live and that is part of what America is right now; you just have to deal with it. Does that suck? Yeah it sucks, but you have to take responsibility for what you say.” I think it’s Bill Cosby who talks about that stuff. I’ve seen him in interviews and it’s just like I’m tired of people trying to say it’s everyone else’s fault; just go do what you have to do.

Mr. Scott laments that yes racism “sucks,” but these Black students (and other oppressed people by extension) “just have to deal with it” and take responsibility. The problem and solution lie within the individual and do not include him. Unlike Mr. Benson who expressed pity for his Black students for their “lack,” Mr. Scott expresses frustration and disgust and wants his students to take ownership for racial inequalities.

In comparison with Mr. Benson, Mr. Scott gives far less attention to gender or masculinity in his reasoning. “I think being a man is the same as being an adult,” he explained. This view of manhood, is of course, racialized as White and normative from his positionality.

I mean there is responsibility and I don’t think there is any—I mean obviously there are societal and gender roles and I mean we all follow those, including myself, but I don’t think that—I mean there is a phrase to man-up, what is that? I don’t know, I mean like maybe you should human-up or person-up. I mean I’m not like some advocate for you know gender rights; I don’t get into that stuff specifically.

While Mr. Scott is “no advocate for gender rights,” he does see value in promoting responsibility and begins to push against the cultural tendency to gender basic human capacities and qualities (“human-up”; Way, Ali, Gilligan, & Noguera, 2018). Yet when probed about his students’ masculine identities, his narrative parallels the racialized narrative told by Mr. Benson—a deviant reflection on gender dynamics in the Black community that misrepresents the ways in which Black women (mothers, aunties, grandmothers) are esteemed as matriarchs within the Black community:

Because a lot of times from what I’ve seen, at least in the cultural—they live in [neighborhood] and there is a very big division between men and women, I mean you know the men rule everything and tell the women what to do. Women are victimized big time, so they see them as lesser. The only thing that a woman is supposed to do is tell the kids what to do, as far as how these kids are concerned.

When asked whether he engaged with students about what it means to be a man, Mr. Scott again centers his own masculine identity (“I’m not macho”):

I mean I talk to them about responsibility and accountability and all those things, but I don’t put it in the context of manhood. I’m not the macho, like I’m not big and buff and you know like the quintessential example of what a man is; I mean I have a deep voice and a scruffy face, but you know. I feel like they see this image you know and they don’t look at me in that way; I mean I think in some ways because I’m White and some because I’m not—a lot of ways the respect is built around here is if they think they can beat you up or not. And a lot of them probably think they could and a lot of them probably could, especially the older ones. Um so, no!

Mr. Scott holds a stereotypical view of White masculinity that distances him from his students; “their” masculinity is not his, and his masculinity is not relevant to them “because I’m White.” He inserts his Whiteness and frames Black boyhood in terms of physical dominance. The elements of masculinity that he would teach his students are “responsibility, accountability, respect, um a work ethic, you know caring about what you’re doing.” But, reasserting his racist ideology, he assumes these masculine/human principles are irrelevant given the monolith of racialized masculinity he imposes on his Black male students.

From Ideology to Relationship

Both case studies suggest the ways in which ideologies matter not only for how they frame the problem of Black male achievement and how their identities are implicated but also for their relationship to the problem and, more intimately, to Black boys. For example, Mr. Benson discussed the distance he felt from his students and reflected,

[T]hey’re never accusing me, you know, it’s never even been a hard conversation but maybe it’s just my own thought—“You went to a good school, you had both parents who have Master’s degrees and are still married.” Just those kinds of things, that um, just on a social and economic and even emotional level that I was able to have that they miss out on.

Mr. Benson is deeply reflective of his own social location and privilege, and while he implies how his race and class (“You went to a good school, you had both parents”) set him apart from his students, it is not his students who accuse him of privilege but his own thoughts. Mr. Benson communicates a careful articulation of the structurally imposed distance between himself and his students as he struggles to make sense of their relational space: “Again it’s not like it’s hard; I’m luckily blessed with a personality that they [students] really appreciate me and like me, which is cool, but I think it’s just those little things that kind of make it hard.”

Mr. Scott also describes himself as “caring” because he is a teacher at the school and points out that he feels relationally connected with some of his students:

I mean some of them, you know, some of them it’s hard to connect with, but a lot of them I really care about them and I feel like I’ve connected with them and I would think they would say the same thing about me . . .

Yet the undercurrent of meritocracy upsets this relationship. In describing the challenges that he has faced in teaching, he said, “One of the things I complain to my students so much about is that it’s unbelievable to me that I can care more about their education than they do.” He continued, explaining that he offers students the opportunity to learn, and it is the student’s responsibility to capitalize on it; success and failure are theirs, not his: “I know that I’m doing my best to provide you with an education. But if you don’t take advantage of that you can’t blame that on me.” To illustrate this point, he told the following story about one of the students in his class:

I had one kid . . . he basically fails everything we do; he’s always in trouble, goofing around or whatever. And [a few tests ago] on the test he wrote a note and it said, “Mr. [Scott], I know you think that I’m going to fail this test, but I studied all night with so-and-so and I promise you I’m going to pass.” He got an A! I don’t tell him that I think he’s going to fail, but I guess because of his history he’s like I know you think I’m going to fail, but I’m not going to and he got an A because he studied—which shows that all those other F’s that he got were simply because he didn’t study. He’s getting the material; he just doesn’t care enough. And that’s the way with a lot of the kids.

Academic behaviors—not doing their homework, or paying attention—serve to reinforce his belief system that his students “just don’t care enough” even though he cares immensely. We also hear evidence of the ways in which these ideologies are transmitted to students. The student quoted above is aware of Mr. Scott’s position (“I know you think I’m going to fail”), not because Mr. Scott verbalizes it (“I don’t tell him that I think he’s going to fail”) but perhaps because teachers’ beliefs are palpable in the classroom.

Milner (2007) argued that empowering education for Black males “requires that teachers consistently engage in activities and experiences that allow them to know themselves and others—particularly their students—more intently” (p. 242). Both Mr. Scott and Mr. Benson suggested that race (their Whiteness) was a primary reason for their inability to identify with, understand, and relate to their Black male students. Statements such as “I don’t know what it’s like to be Black” and “I also don’t know what it’s like to grow up in an urban setting” acknowledge (fairly) that they do not experience the world as Black men but incorrectly conclude that this difference disqualifies them from genuine connection and alignment with their students. Likewise, the masculinity of Black boys was racialized as unknowable territory. Both case studies suggested that Black boys inhabit a spatial reality that is incomprehensible and unknowable to them as White men.

It is interesting to note that this distance was communicated differently by the teachers, characterized by apathy or pity. Mr. Scott expressed apathy, remarking that “racism exists but that’s just the way it is. Get over it!” Even when he acknowledged the barriers his students face, he was not particularly troubled by them. Mr. Benson, in contrast, expresses pity, as when he describes feeling guilty and sad for the boys who “didn’t grow up with the privileges” of an intact family and father present as he did. Their relational distance from Black boys and the problem meant that when Mr. Benson and Mr. Scott envisioned solutions to the problem of Black male achievement, they repeated the classic tropes of meritocracy: “reprogramming” students’ identities, increasing student effort and engagement, addressing students’ prior education and skills, and supplementing broken families and communities with role models. And because of their reasoning about race, gender, and social class as barriers, they describe solutions in which they, as White males, are not central actors. The teachers, in other words, did not see themselves as part of their students’ lives but apart from them; as teachers, they were there to “help” and “make a difference” but did not view their own lives as intertwined with their students’.

Discussion

Our research analysis focused on how teachers frame the problem of Black student achievement and what Black boys need because such meaning-making matters for the types of practices, pedagogies, and relationships teachers create for and with Black boys (Allen, 2015; Emdin, 2016; Milner, 2007). In alignment with prior research, we found that meritocracy was relevant to the framing of Black male students (Allen, 2015; Brown, 2009; Dumas & Nelson, 2016; Lynn et al., 2010), and White male teachers in our data rationalize achievement disparities through the lens of meritocracy. We additionally gained insight into how teachers’ own identities—specifically, how they positioned themselves in terms of race, masculinity, and social class relative to their Black male students—located them outside of relationship with their students and the problem itself.

It is worth noting that the evidence of meritocracy, while congruent with prior research, was collected in a school designed intently to be a counterhegemonic community—a school for Black boys that implemented a number of explicit practices toward this end (see Brooms, 2017, 2019; Rogers 2012). One interpretation and reminder that these findings offer is that reimagining a school does not divorce or exempt it from the long-standing systems of oppression and anti-Blackness rooted in education (Jennings & Lynn, 2005). Indeed, a robust literature on charter schools reveals how racism and oppression are reinstituted rather than resisted in many nontraditional schools that are intended to close achievement gaps (e.g., Buras, 2014; Dixson et al., 2015). Our data suggest that teachers’ ideologies are one of the pathways that meritocracy may find its way into counterhegemonic school spaces to perpetuate racist educational experiences. Unveiling these patterns within a school intentionally and critically designed by Black males for Black males suggests that there are limitations to what charter schools can deliver to Black youth and their families because these ideologies persist at multiple layers of the system: at the school level, the local governing board level, and the administration level; the day-to-day operations; the school activities and events; in-class instruction; and teachers’ interactions with youth. Ferguson (2000), in her analysis of the academically successful Black boys, argued that the “schoolboys” were “always being on the brink of being redefined into the ‘troublemakers’ . . . due to the force of racial and gender stereotypes working against them” (p. 10). Likewise, we find that the counterideology created by the school leaders is in constant (re)negotiation and confrontation with societal ideologies about Black boys. The relentless effort required to create and maintain a counterhegemonic space for Black boys that exists in response to widespread and persistent anti-Black discourse and ideologies is substantial.

The Persistence of Meritocracy

In alignment with prior research, our data suggest that meritocracy persists in part because of its pervasiveness as an American ideology (Ledesma & Calderón, 2015) and due to color-blind or otherwise dismissive beliefs about race and racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2017; Sleeter, 1992). In these data, meritocracy was not tied to lack of knowledge; teachers at BMCS were situated within an environment that was overtly attentive to the “statistics” and challenges that Black boys face and intentionally supportive of Black males. However, we did find evidence for the role of identity. Specifically, teachers’ own sense of Whiteness, masculinity, and social class were constructed as barriers to how they perceived their students, how they attempted to develop relationships with them, and the challenges they believed these students faced. Both teachers seemed to root the “problem” of underachievement within Black boys’ identities and to position themselves in opposition to Black boys—who possessed racialized, gendered, and classed identities that were largely “unimaginable” to them as educated, White males.

The relevance of these identities seemed particularly salient within the all-Black, all-male context as both teachers reflected on how BMCS was implicated in their own identity tensions and anxieties. One way to interpret these responses is that the context required them to engage a level of consciousness about themselves (identities and positionalities) and wider society (structural racism and inequality) that are unquestioned outside the school setting. In both case studies, we hear how the school’s explicit counterideologies seemed to threaten the teachers’ sense of Whiteness, masculinity, and privilege. Mr. Benson felt “accused” (not by his students but his consciousness) of being privileged relative to his students, and Mr. Scott expressed his exhaustion with being seen as the recipient of “crazy privilege” because of his Whiteness. Charter schools like BMCS face a real challenge in offering counterstereotypic messages to Black male youth about their value and worth while contending with teachers’ ideologies that may remain incongruent.

Relationship—To Students and the Problem

Ideologies inform how teachers position themselves in relation to students and how they work to ameliorate the challenges they face (or not). Our analysis revealed how teachers’ reasoning about the problem seemed to shape their relationships with Black male students. This finding is important because relationship is critical to educational outcomes (e.g., Milner, 2007). Du Bois (1935), in his poignant piece about equitable educational environments for Black students, argued that proper education required the “sympathetic touch” between teachers and students (p. 328). Valenzuela (1999) also argued that teaching ought “to follow from and flow through relationships [italics added] cultivated between teacher and student” (p. 21). And Dumas and Nelson (2016) called for radical relational transformation in the education of Black boys. Relationships are core to facilitating educational development for Black male students.

Unfortunately, our case studies suggest that teachers perceived a relational distance—not only from the problem itself but also from their Black male students. Both teachers structured Whiteness, masculinity, and class as justifications for their distance from the problem and from Black boys. Mr. Benson, for example, described his race, social class, and family history as inevitable hurdles between himself and his students. Mr. Scott expressed a shared working-class social position with many of his students, but his Whiteness and masculinity were used to “other” and pathologize his students’ identities as deficient. This psychological and emotional distance also seemed to translate to a lack of agency or responsibility to resolve some of the challenges that Black boys face. One example is that neither Mr. Benson nor Mr. Scott viewed themselves as playing a part in racism—in its maintenance or disruption. They viewed racism as a distal, societal issue rather than an intimate, personal one. “Racism and inequality may exist” their logic suggests, “and that is unfortunate, but it does not involve me.” Instead, their narratives center Black boys as the responsible parties; their personal role as teachers was to help boys “deal with it” and “make it” despite the broken system. Thus, as Mr. Scott and Mr. Benson downplay or dismiss the realities of racism, they also relinquish themselves from responsibility and from relationship—authentic care and connection—with the Black boys they teach.

Limitations

The case studies analyzed here represent the voices and experiences of only two teachers at one school—a school designed explicitly to address the problem of Black male achievement and thus likely attracts more critically conscious, social justice–oriented teachers. While narrow in scope, the teachers represent a significant growing demographic and trend in education: White teachers routing into education through alternative credential programs with the intent/desire to work with marginalized youth in urban settings (e.g., Emdin, 2016). The work is also situated in a charter school designed for Black boys, which is part of a larger policy approach to redress achievement disparities (Buras, 2014). As such, the case study analysis offers a window into much larger, salient social policy and education topics. Because of the reliance on interview data, the findings are also limited to what teachers say and are not measures of what they do. And, while specific extrapolations to pedagogy and praxis are beyond the scope of the analysis, teachers’ own reports suggest that their beliefs about Black boys differentially shape the content of their classes, curriculum choices, and discipline practices, for example. While we interpret the data through the lens of relationships, we did not measure student–teacher relationship quality in this study. It will be important for future work on teachers’ ideologies to explore the link to student–teacher relationships as well as students’ own identities and critical consciousness.

Implications and Conclusion

Our findings suggest the importance of engaging teachers’ ideologies and identities in thinking about student achievement and school reform. Even in a school designed to counter the racist systems and ideologies, meritocracy persists. These White male teachers were in weekly professional development sessions, and they were surrounded by and colleagues with “powerful Black male leaders” of the school (as noted by Mr. Benson); they were engaged daily through interactions with these leaders and teachers and intimately with their students through mentoring groups and classroom instruction. And, yet, they still held on to deficit-laden and disparaging views of Black boys as well as their families and communities. Intentional and targeted work on ideology and identity is required to counter these realities. Teacher preparation programs are one site where more can be done to speak to teachers’ ideologies and help them understand how ideologies matter for what they do in schools and what students experience (e.g., King, 1991).

Additionally, our data, in accordance with others, suggest the limits of charter schools to meaningfully shift the educational as well as socioemotional development of Black students (Black, 2013; Dixson et al., 2015). At a minimum, our data contribute to the evidence that charter schools are complicated and suggest, as noted above, the need for intentional and explicit work around ideology and identity. For example, through our two case studies, we see that BMCS is caught within a vortex of forces in its attempt to create a counterhegemonic space for Black male youth that positions them for (greater) educational successes and seeks to redress how they are framed, imagined, and seen. Charter schools, like BMCS, have been endorsed as spaces that allow for new possibilities for youth and in some ways have been seen as “saviors” of and for Black youth and other youth of color (e.g., Buras, 2014). Yet what we know and what we demonstrate is that charter schools are embedded within a macrolevel system of racism that is lived and experienced through microlevel interactions. Charter schools, and the students who attend them, are affected deeply by the ideological forces that structure, support, and sustain them (Dixson et al., 2015). As such, charter schools must contend with the societal forces that they attempt to resist even in their founding—that is, the existence of a counterhegemonic space is rife with efforts to counter the dominant messages and pressures that threaten to undermine students’ opportunities. In other words, charter schools intended to elevate and enlarge the educational possibilities of Black males still wrestle with the propensity to (re)center Whiteness even as it attempts to liberate Black males. The ways in which this all-Black male charter school threatened not only the dominant societal ideologies but also the teachers’ own ideologies, identities, and sensibilities, and in essence, reinforced meritocracy, is concerning and warrants careful consideration in policy and practice. Building schools on the tenuous implicit assumption that school culture can, and will, automatically shift the deep-seated ideologies held by teachers seems too risky.

Because teachers act as institutional agents and gatekeepers (Allen, 2015), understanding their ideologies and practices with Black male students offers insight into how teachers can serve as change agents. Without interrogating and changing negative thinking about Black males, opportunities to enhance their schooling experiences and support their development and achievement will continue to be lacking. Another implication of this research is the recognition that meritocracy, as an intersectional ideology, can manifest in various forms. Thus, teacher education programs focused on diversity and culturally responsive practices can be strengthened by engaging meritocracy as a multi- rather than single-axis (race) ideology. That is, simply talking about race but ignoring gender, masculinity, and sexism is likely to leave the racism that manifests within these gendered ideologies intact (e.g., Rogers & Way, 2016). Moreover, these ideologies are not distal and abstract but relational. Teachers’ use of meritocracy seemed to foster relational distance, which is contrary to what we know Black boys (and all students) need to thrive (Brooms, 2017; Du Bois, 1935; Dumas & Nelson, 2016). What we need, then, is more efforts on cultivating ideologies that foster the type of relational connectedness (Way et al., 2018) that is necessary for sociopolitical transformation within and beyond the classroom.

Footnotes

Funding for this article was provided by dissertation fellowships awarded to Leoandra Onnie Rogers by the Spencer Foundation and the Ford Foundation. We would like to thank Caleb Dawson, the research assistant who contributed to this analysis, and all of the students and staff at Black Male Charter School.

Leoandra Onnie Rogers is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and School of Education and Social Policy (by courtesy) at Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208, USA; e-mail: onnie.rogers@northwestern.edu . A developmental psychologist, Rogers directs the D.I.C.E. lab (Development of Identities in Cultural Environments) and uses qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to investigate racism and structural inequality through the study of identity, socioemotional, and academic development among racially/ethnically diverse children and adolescents.

Derrick R. Brooms is faculty in Sociology and Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati and is a youth worker as well. His research and activism focus on educational equity, race and racism, diversity and inequality, and identity. His education research primarily centers on Black men and boys’ pathways to and through college as well as Black and Latino male students’ engagement on campus, peer relationships, and identity development.

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