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This review has been accessed times since June 13, 2005

Sampson, William A. (2004). Black and Brown: Race, Ethnicity and School Preparation. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.

Pp. 165
ISBN 1-57886-188-8

Reviewed by Delis Cuéllar
Arizona State University

June 13, 2005

Black and Brown: Race, Ethnicity, and School Preparation reports on the everyday parental school guidance of poor black and Hispanic American school children at various levels of academic success in a small city near Chicago. The book is written in lay language. One of the author’s aims is to reach anyone who is interested in the school preparation of African-American and Hispanic American students. The text would be particularly informative and pertinent to parents of poor Hispanic or African American students, teachers of low socio-economic-status minority students, researchers interested in school readiness and academic attainment, and educational policy makers.

Sampson succeeded at writing a book that can serve as a tool for a wide audience. The text can assist parents greatly by teaching them strategies on how to help their children to be better prepared for academic success. The text could be described as a “how-to” book that describes beneficial ways of parent-child educational everyday interactions that can positively affect the academic lives of poor black and Latino students. It can be of instrumental use for teachers, as it would permit them to comprehend important everyday family exchanges, and many outside-of -school circumstances that poor black and Hispanic students must face that relate to their academic success or failure. For researchers, this book is valuable in a variety of ways; theoretically, the text makes an argument for a change in the focus of the school preparation literature, from a “school focus” to a more family oriented one. In addition, for novices in qualitative research, the book elucidates the power of qualitative form of research by means of rich description and ultimately a consequential understanding of the lives of young, poor, black and Hispanic students. This book can serve as a guide to policy maker in order to understand the complexity of school preparation and the possible benefits on expanding academic readiness initiatives that will include parental education on how to help their children to be better prepared for school success on an everyday basis.

The book is divided into the following major sections; a short review of the literature about school success for African-American and Latino children, a chapter that describes the methodology of the study, four chapters that describe the findings of the visits to the homes of the students, a chapter that describes the need to study school related behavior at home and with the families and a concluding chapter.

In the chapter describing the literature regarding black and Hispanic students’ school achievement, Sampson reasons that the research focus should be shifted from looking for school-based solutions to exploring family based interactions. He points out that when trying to understand the achievement patterns of economically disadvantaged students it is important to look at their family’s educational support because parental academic involvement at home has shown to be pivotal in the academic success of black children (Sampson, 2002). He also states that schools are institutions for middle class minded individuals, and that something must be done to offset that fact in the lives of poor non-middle class families. This chapter also describes the households of children whose academic record is above average. The author says the following about such homes, “there is a lot of discipline, structure, talk, reading, support from parents, homework, chores, and involvement outside of the school and the home”.

Sampson recognizes that while it may be difficult to accomplish having an environment of the caliber of organization that is conducive of academic excellence in a home of poverty, he still sends a strong message that achieving such home structure can have considerable and meaningful payoffs in the lives of the students. Furthermore, the text seems to shift the responsibility back to the parents away from the school system as it concerns children’s education.

The second chapter dealt with the methods and the sample of the study. The data collection was a combination of observations at the student’s homes and interviews with one of the student’s parents. The sample was seventeen families from a small town near Chicago. A total of twenty-two students were observed for the first time and five students were revisited after having participated in a study about four years prior. The student’s school grade varied from late in elementary school to the middle of high school, with most students being middle school students.

The following four chapters discussed the findings of the interviews and observations. The students were categorized as average, above average, and below average. The author categorized average as obtaining mostly grades of C. Three of the twenty-two students were above average, twelve were considered average and seven were considered below average. Following are short descriptions of the parental school guidance and home structure observed in typical average, below average and above average student homes.

Average student home

The home of one of the average students of the study was described to not be an ordered environment where gratification was delayed or responsibility was taught. In one of the visits the student played video games the entire time while his family watched the television. The father asked him if he had finished his homework, and the student replied, “Si, papi” [Yes, daddy] although a look to the observer suggested that he had not finished his work, however, the student’s father asked no follow up questions.

Below average student home

The home of a below average student was described as “welcoming and sweet” and “nice and warm”. On the other hand, on one of the visit the observer never saw the below average student doing homework. A situation at a different below average student home was described to be the following, “when a baby cried, no adult would come to the baby; rather the baby had to go to the kitchen to the adult. There was no discussion of school or schoolwork, and Adam did no homework or chores at all.”

Above average student home

In one of the visits at an above average student home, upon arrival the mother asked her daughter if she had completed her homework. At that time the student began to do her homework with the help of her uncle. The student devoted a total of an hour to her homework.

Following the chapter that describes the findings of the study the author affirmed the need to study families more closely to attempt to understand school success/failure among poor black and Hispanic students. Sampson explains that he is not suggesting to ignore school dynamics but rather to begin to focus on home dynamics. An important family finding that affected parental involvement in his study was that the majority of the Latino parents could not speak English and some of them did not understand what the grades on the report cards sent home meant.

In addition to looking at the homes of average, above and below average students, in the last chapter the author revisited students who participated in earlier research (Sampson, 2002). He concluded that students who were high achievers back then continued to be now. The practices of the parents seem to be static as the parents who maintained a highly structured home conducive of high academic achievement continued to do so through the years and the parents who did not maintain a structured home the first time the research was conducted continued to not offer that type of academic support.

The description of the three different home settings, and the follow up research with the second group of students supports the idea that there are different family interactions and levels of parental academic guidance at varying levels of academic achievement. The rich information presented in the book provides a warrant to the assertion that the more parental educational guidance, structure, and discipline received at home by the students can translate to student’s academic improvements. A limitation of the findings is of course not being able to generalize them to a population beyond the study’s sample. It is hoped that Sampson’s book generates more interest in studying the effects of parental structure, and everyday educational guidance on the academic achievement of poor Hispanic and black students. Overall, Sampson’s book is a great tool for parents, teachers, researchers, and policy makers.

Reference

Sampson, W. A. (2002). Black Student Achievement: How much do family and school really matter? Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

About the reviewer

Delis Cuéllar
Arizona State University

Delis Cuéllar is a doctoral student at Arizona State University, College of Education, in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program. Her research interests are Hispanic education and the perceptions of educational attainability of ethnic minorities. Delis received a bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley in psychology.

Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.

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