Antecedent Influences: Factors that Guide African American Men to the Field of Education

Over the last four decades black men have become increasingly underrepresented in all aspects of the teaching profession. Identifying the factors that influence African American men to enter or avoid the education field can help increase the recruitment of black men into the field of education. The dearth of black men in our classrooms can be reduced by collecting data as to the reasons that influence their decisions about the education field. This qualitative study examined the experiences and perspectives of African American men serving as classroom teachers to identify common factors that may influence African Americans, in general, to enter the teaching field. The study also sought to identify barriers that African American men had to overcome in order to enter the teaching profession. This study was designed to collect participant experiences and perspectives through in-depth one-to-one interviews, through analysis of the interview responses to identify factors that influenced the participants to enter education and may help to address the issue of so few black men in America\u27s classrooms. This dissertation study was guided by three main research questions: (1) What life experiences influence African American men to enter the teaching profession? (2) What educational experiences influence African American men to enter the teaching profession? (3) Once in the profession, what are the lived experiences of African American male teachers? The interview protocol developed for this study was intended to draw in-depth responses from study participants. The field of education has and continues to draw among the fewest African American male graduates when compared with other professional fields; this is indicative of a challenge which requires greater investigation and study. The very nature of this study and the study population based on teachers who are African American men means race was an inescapable aspect of the research, requiring an approach that respects the racial, gender and cultural nature of such a study. The primary conceptual framework for this study was the Culturally Sensitive Research Framework. Though our country\u27s student demographics increasingly represent a pluralistic, multicultural and multiracial society, the demographics of America\u27s teachers reflects little change. It has proven difficult to recruit more teachers of color into our schools, especially African American men. Qualitative one-to-one interviews enabled this study to ascertain the factors which impact the decisions of African American men who enter teaching careers, provide additional information on the subject and help to address the issue of low rates of black men teaching in America\u27s classrooms