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NASP Dialogues: Effective Communication With Black Families and Students

Participants: Elizabeth A'Vant, Daphne Chandler, Scott Graves

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Additional Resources

Effective Communication With Black Families and Students (NASP handout)

NASP Cultural Competence

Confronting Inequity in Special Education, Part I: Understanding the Problem of Disproportionality (Communiqué article)

Confronting Inequity in Special Education, Part II: Promising Practices in Addressing Disproportionality (Communiqué article)

African American School Psychologists Online Community

For information about NASP's African American workgroup, please contact Elizabeth A'Vant, Multicultural Affairs Committee African American cochair.

Critical Reading List for Effective Communication With Black Families

From the Authors: Daphne R. Chandler, Elizabeth A. A’Vant, and Scott L. Graves

Akbar, N. (2003). Akbar papers in African psychology. Tallahassee, FL: Mind Productions and Associates, Inc.

Asante , M.K. (1998). The Afrocentric idea. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Fordham, S. (1993). “Those loud Black girls”: Black women, silence, and gender “passing” in the academy. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 24, 3-32.

Fordham, S. (1999). Dissin’ “the standard”: Ebonics as guerilla warfare at Capital High. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 30, 272-293.

Hughes, D. L., Johnson, D., Smith, E., Rodriguez, J., Stevenson, H. C., & Spicer, P. (2006). Parents’ ethnic/racial socialization practices: A review of research and directions for future study. Developmental Psychology, 42, 747-770.

Kunjufu, J. (2006). An African centered response to Ruby Payne’s poverty theory. IL: African American Images.

McAdoo, H. P. (2007). Black Families (4^th ed). Sage Publications.

McAdoo, H. P.  (2001). Black Children: Social, Educational, and Parental Environments. Sage Publications.

McLoyd, V., Hill, N., & Dodge, K. (2005). African American family life: Ecological and cultural diversity. New York, NY: Guilford.

Tatum, B.D. (1997). “Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” And other conversations about race. NY: Basic Books.

Walker Tileston, D., & Darling, S. (2008). Why culture counts: Teaching children of poverty. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

For additional information, readers may also be interested in the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research Program for Research on Black Americans (PRBA). Information can be retrieved from http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/prba/ . This program is the preeminent program for the study of Black life in America . They have numerous publications on Black family life (i.e. Family Life in Black America Sage Publications, 1997;  Mental Health in Black America Sage Publications, 1996; Life in Black America Sage Publications, 1991). In February 2001, the PRBA mounted a major national psychiatric epidemiologic investigation of mental disorders, The National Survey of American Life (NSAL). This study is the largest investigation of the mental health of African Americans and Caribbeans of African descent ever conducted. Data from the NSAL project permit for the first time the identification of differences between African Americans and blacks from the Caribbean.