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Alternative Schooling and Black Students: Opportunities, Challenges, and Limitations

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Alternative Schooling and Student Engagement

Abstract

Given the troubling dropout rates, levels of disengagement, and academic achievement of Black students in Ontario’s Greater Toronto Area, James and Samaroo use the Africentric Alternative School (AAS) in Toronto to explore: What must be done differently (cultural, social, and educational adjustments) if alternative schools are to be responsive to the needs, issues, and concerns of Black students and parents? The chapter includes a brief overview of alternative schooling and the schooling of Black students in Ontario, and concludes with a discussion, framed by critical race theory, on the implications of alternative schooling for Black students. The authors highlight: opportunities to foster a positive Black identity, institutional challenges faced by the AAS, limitations of Africentricity, and the influence of a neoliberal ethos of color blindness.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. York University, Toronto, Canada

    Carl E. James & Julia A. Samaroo

Authors
  1. Carl E. James
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  2. Julia A. Samaroo
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Nina Bascia

  2. York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Esther Sokolov Fine

  3. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Malcolm Levin

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James, C.E., Samaroo, J.A. (2017). Alternative Schooling and Black Students: Opportunities, Challenges, and Limitations. In: Bascia, N., Fine, E., Levin, M. (eds) Alternative Schooling and Student Engagement. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54259-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54259-1_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54258-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54259-1

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