Emancipatory education versus school-based prevention in African American communities

Schools have become strategic settings for the work of community psychologists. In a review of 177 primary prevention programs for children and adolescents, Durlak and Wells (1997) found that 129 (72.9%) were based in schools. The literature in community psychology describes many school-based prevention programs targeting problems such as substance abuse, school "maladjustment," delinquency, and violence (e.g. C. A. Mason, A. M. Cauce, L. Robinson & G. W. Harper, 1999). A large number of these programs are based in schools in African American communities and include social-cognitive, decision making, affective education, and other skills-building modules along with direct instruction. In this paper, it is argued that ideas from emancipatory education (e.g. Freire, 1998) and African-centered education (e.g. H. Madhubuti & S. Madhubuti, 1994; M. J. Shujaa, 1995) should guide school-based interventions in communities of people of African descent. There is an extensive and distinguished history of emancipatory schools and school-based programs in African American communities. Included in this history are the freedom schools during reconstruction, the SNCC Freedom Schools, the Liberation Schools of the Black Panther Party, the Malcolm X Academy in Detroit, Sankofa Shule in Lansing, the Institute for Positive Education/New Concept Development Center in Chicago, the Benjamin E. Mays Institute in Hartford, and the schools affiliated with the Council of Independent Black Institutions (CIBI) to name just a few. This paper will first provide a brief, critical review of the role of schools and social oppression. Second, primary prevention programs in communities of people of African descent will be examined, questioning some of the dominant methods and assumptions. Next, underlying assumptions about relationships between African identity, educational success, and healthy outcomes for young people will be addressed. This will be followed by a discussion of African-centered emancipatory education, focusing specifically on the role of students as agents of social change and the importance of critical reflection on African cultural resources. The Benjamin E. Mays Institute will be presented as an example of how ideas from an African-centered emancipatory approach to education have been incorporated within a school serving a community of people of African descent in Hartford, Connecticut.