Afrocentric education and the prosocial behavior of African American children
Abstract
This study investigated the relationship between exposure to an Afrocentric education (e.g., a cooperative classroom climate, exposure to African American history/values and inclusion of family/community values) and prosocial behavior. It was predicted that children who were exposed to Afrocentric values in elementary school would be more prosocial than children who were not exposed to an Afrocentric education in elementary school; and that the factors comprising Afrocentric education would account for significantly more of the variance in prosocial behavior than any individual factor. The subjects were 184 African American 5th and 6 th grade students from a suburban school district with a population of approximately 70% African American children. Afrocentric education was measured by the Afrocentric Classroom Scale (ACS), and the 5 scales of the Classroom Life Inventory (CLI). Prosocial behavior was measured by the Social Skills Rating Scale (SSRS) and the Teacher Rating of Social Behavior and Emphatic Response (TRSBER). Multiple regression analyses were computed and the results showed a positive relationship between Afrocentric education and student self-ratings prosocial behavior. Further, it shows that the classroom climate factor was able to independently predict prosocial behavior. A hierarchical regression illustrated that the relationship between classroom climate and prosocial behavior is a positive one and that the interaction between membership in an Afrocentric class and the CLI increases the significance of this relationship according to students' self-ratings.
Subject Area
Educational psychology|Elementary education|Ethnic studies|Black studies|African American Studies
Recommended Citation
Pilgrim, Chanda Lynne, "Afrocentric education and the prosocial behavior of African American children" (2006). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI3210276.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI3210276
