Black Male Teacher-Coaches’ Utilization of Black Counterpublics: The Black Family,Liberatory Fantasy,and Resisting the Ontological Limitation of Blackness
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online January, 2025
Black Male Teacher-Coaches’ Utilization of Black Counterpublics: The Black Family,Liberatory Fantasy,and Resisting the Ontological Limitation of Blackness
Drawing from a conceptual framework grounded in Black critical theories, this qualitative case study explored the youth knowledge that two Black Male social studies teacher-coaches serving in urban Catholic high schools acquired through Black counterpublics to reconceptualize the ontological limitation of Black existence. Findings demonstrated that it was within civic spaces generated within the Black family and community that participants acquired the socio-cultural knowledge to see through antiBlack forms of White projection.
AuW.BrownA. L.CalderónD. (2016). Reclaiming the multicultural roots of US curriculum: Communities of color and official knowledge in education. Teachers College Press.
2.
BeamonK. K. (2010). Are sports overemphasized in the socialization process of African American males? A qualitative analysis of former collegiate athletes’ perception of sport socialization. Journal of Black Studies, 41(2), 281-300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934709340873
3.
BoutteG. S.JohnsonG. L. (2021). Community and family involvement in urban schools. In Handbook of urban education (pp. 399-417). Routledge.
4.
BristolT. J. (2018). To be alone or in a group: An exploration into how the school-based experiences differ for black male teachers across one urban school district. Urban Education, 53(3), 334-354. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085917697200
5.
BrownA. (2012). The occupational socialization of novice, core content area teachers/athletic coaches (Doctoral dissertation, University of Alabama Libraries).
6.
BrownA. L. (2009). “Brothers gonna work it out:” Understanding the pedagogic performance of African American male teachers working with African American male students. The Urban Review, 41(5), 416-435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-008-0116-8
7.
BrownA. L.BrownK. D. (2015). The more things change, the more they stay the same: Excavating race and the enduring racisms in US curriculum. Teachers College Record, 117(14), 103-130. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811511701405
8.
BrownA. L.DonnorJ. K. (2013). Toward a new narrative on black males, education, and public policy. In The education of black males in a ‘post-racial’ world (pp. 25-40). Routledge.
9.
BrownA. L.ThomasD. J.III (2020). A critical essay on black male teacher recruitment discourse. Peabody Journal of Education, 95(5), 456-471. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2020.1826120
10.
BrownK. D. (2021). The limits of justice-informed research and teaching in the presence of antiblackness and black suffering: Surplus of transformation or (Un) just traumatic returns?Qualitative Inquiry, 27(10). https://doi.org/10.1177/10778004211026903
11.
BrownV. (2020). Tacky‘s Revolt. Harvard University Press.
12.
BuseyC. L.Dowie-ChinT. (2021). The making of global black anti-citizen/citizenship: Situating BlackCrit in global citizenship research and theory. Theory & Research in Social Education, 49(2), 153-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2020.1869632
13.
BuseyC. L.WalkerI. (2017). A dream and a bus: Black critical patriotism in elementary social studies standards. Theory & Research in Social Education, 45(4), 456-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2017.1320251
14.
ChandlerP. T. (2015). Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives (Ed.). IAP.
15.
CurryT. J. (2017). The man-not: Race, class, genre, and the dilemmas of black manhood. Temple University Press.
16.
DawsonM. C. (1994). A black counterpublic?: Economic earthquakes, racial agenda (s), and black politics. Public Culture, 7(1), 195-223. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-7-1-195
17.
EdwardsH. (1973). Sociology of Sport. Dorsey Press. Print.
18.
FanonF. (2008). Black skin, white masks. Grove press.
19.
FraserN. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text, (25/26), 56-80. https://doi.org/10.2307/466240
20.
GatesH. L.Jr (2021). The Black church: This is our story, this is our song. Penguin.
21.
GivensJ. R. (2021). Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching. Harvard University Press.
22.
GordonL. (1995). Bad faith and antiblack racism / Lewis R. Gordon. Humanities Press.
GrantC. A.BrownK. D.BrownA. L. (2015). Black intellectual thought in education: the missing traditions of Anna Julia Cooper, Carter G. Woodson, and Alain Leroy Locke. Routledge.
25.
GraueM. E. (1998). Interpretation in context. In GraueM. E.WalshD. J. (Eds.), Studying children in context: Theories, methods, and ethics (pp. 158-200). Sage Publications.
26.
HabermasJ.BurgerT.LawrenceF. (1962). The Structural Transformation of the Private Sphere.
27.
HendersonE. B. (1939). In HendersonE. B. (Ed.), The Negro in sports. The Associated publishers, inc.
28.
HowardT. C.MilnerH. R. (2021). Teacher preparation for urban schools. In Handbook of urban education (pp. 195-211). Routledge.
29.
JeynesW. H. (2007). The relationship between parental involvement and urban secondary school student academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Urban Education, 42(1), 82-110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085906293818
30.
KnowlesR. T.HawkmanA. M.NielsenS. R. (2019). The social studies teacher-coach: A quantitative analysis comparing coaches and non-coaches across how/what they teach. The Journal of Social Studies Research, 44(1), 117-125.
31.
LynnM. (2006). Education for the community: Exploring the culturally relevant practices of black male teachers. Teachers College Record, 108(12), 2497-2522. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00792.x
32.
MartinM. (2004). Brown gold: Milestones of African American children‘s picture books, 1845–2002. Routledge.
33.
MerriamS. B.TisdellE. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. John Wiley & Sons.
34.
MilnerH. R.IV (2007). Race, culture, and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. Educational Researcher, 36(7), 388-400. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X07309471
35.
Milton-WilliamsT.BryanN. (2021). Respecting a cultural continuum of Black male pedagogy: Exploring the life history of a black male middle school teacher. Urban Education, 56(1), 32-60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916677346
36.
MorrisR. C. (1980). The Freedman: Vols. 1–6, No. 3 (all Located). The Freedman’s Torchlight, Vol. 1, No. 1 (all Located) (Vol. 3). AMS Press.
37.
OgbuJ. U. (2003). Black American students in an affluent suburb: A study of academic disengagement. Routledge.
38.
PabonA. J. M. (2017). In hindsight and now again: Black male teachers’ recollections on the suffering of black male youth in US public schools. Race Ethnicity and Education, 20(6), 766-780. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2016.1195359
39.
RichardsonJ. B. (2012). Beyond the playing field: Coaches as social capital for inner-city adolescent African-American males. Journal of African American Studies, 16(2), 171-194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-012-9210-9
40.
RobinsonC. C. (2019). (Re) theorizing civic engagement: Foundations for Black Americans civic engagement theory. Sociology Compass, 13(9), e12728. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12728
41.
SalinasC.CastroA. J. (2010). Disrupting the official curriculum: Cultural biography and the curriculum decision making of Latino preservice teachers.Theory & Research in Social Education, 38(3), 428-463.
42.
StacyM. (2016). The historical origins of social studies teacher as athletic coach (Doctoral dissertation, Saint Louis University).
43.
StakeR. E. (2005). Qualitative case studies. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 443-466). Sage.
44.
ThomasD. J.III (2022). “If I can help somebody”: The civic-oriented thought and practices of Black male teacher-coaches. Theory & Research in Social Education, 50(3), 464493.
45.
ThomasD. J.IIIJohnsonM.BrownA. (2022). (Un) natural saviors and motivators: Analyzing the pathological scripting of black male teachers in Hollywood films. Educational Studies, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2022.2096454
46.
ThomasD. J.IIIJohnsonM. W.ClarkL.HarrisonL.Jr (2020). When the mirage fades: Black boys encountering antiblackness in a predominantly white Catholic high school. Race Ethnicity and Education, 25(7), 958-977. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2020.1798390
47.
TuckE. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409-428.
48.
WalkerD.GarnetH. H. (1969). Walker‘s appeal, in four articles [by] David Walker. An address to the slaves of the United States of America [by] Henry Highland Garnet. Arno Press.
49.
WalkerE. V. S. (1993). Interpersonal caring in the “good” segregated schooling of African-American children: Evidence from the case of Caswell county training school. The Urban Review, 25(1), 63-77. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01108046
50.
WatkinsW. H. (2001). The White architects of Black education: Ideology and power in America, 1865-1954. Teachers College Press.
51.
WilliamsH. A. (2009). Self-taught: African American education in slavery and freedom. Univ of North Carolina Press.
52.
WynterS. (1995). 1492: A new world view. Race, discourse, and the origin of the Americas: A new world view, 5-57.
53.
YancyG. (2016). Black bodies, White gazes: The continuing significance of race in America. Rowman & Littlefield.