Dropping Out of Academics: Black Youth and the Sports Subculture in a Cross-National Perspective (From Dropouts from School: Issues, Dilemmas, and Solutions, P 79-93, 1989, Lois Weis, Eleanor Farrar, et al., eds. -- See NCJ-129690)

• NCJ Number: 129694
• Author(s): R P Solomon
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: California Correctional Peace Officers Assoc
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The trend of black working class students to drop out of the academic culture of the school and to adopt an alternative sport culture is examined in Canada, Britain, and the United States.

Abstract

Embracing a sports culture leads to poor academic progress, exclusion from other areas of school life, and negative influences on intergroup relations. This in-school academic disengagement often culminates in the final act of leaving. Without interventions these students are destined for an adult world of unskilled laborer unemployment. Intervention strategies designed to revise teachers perceptions of black students and black students construction of their own identities need to be creatively developed and implemented. The high profile afforded sports within the school community must be reduced; academic curriculum need to be presented as an attractive and rational alternative to sports; and the black community needs to highlight black role models in other fields of endeavor to improve the life opportunities of the working class blacks. 42 references