academic experiences of African American males in an urban midwest foster care system, The

Journal of Social Studies Research, Fall 2001 by Tate, Steven C

In the present study, data indicate that the primary subjects of this study, African American males in foster care, are not being served by culturally competent instructors or child welfare workers. Proficiency test results seem to support the literature from similar studies which shows foster children lapsing academically. African American male foster children in this study scored below the comparison groups in 54 of 60 comparisons made of the Ohio Proficiency Test The primary exception was in writing (see table 1) where African American males in foster care achieved higher means than African American males on the fourth and sixth grade writing tests and a higher mean than males on the sixth grade writing test. On the fourth grade writing test, the mean score for African American males in foster care was 4.2, exceeding the mean score of 4.1 for African American males. On the sixth grade writing test, African American males in foster care achieved means equal to or higher than all four-comparison groups. The mean of 5.0 that African American males in foster care achieved equaled the means of all students and African Americans and exceeded the mean of 4.7 achieved by males and African American males. These differences were not significant.

In the remaining comparisons of the proficiency test for writing, the mean scores of African American males in foster care were lower than other groups. On the fourth grade writing test, the mean scores of males (4.3), African American students (4.4), and all students (4.5) were non-significantly higher than the mean of 4.2 achieved by African American males in foster care. On the ninth grade writing test, African American males in foster care achieved a mean score of 4.8, which was lower, although nonsignificantly, than the mean of African American males (5.1). It was, however, significantly lower than the means of African Americans (5.3) and all students (5.4) at the .01 level and significantly below the mean of males (5.2) at the .05 level.

(Table 1 goes about here).

On the reading proficiency test, African American males in foster care achieved lower scores than the comparison groups at each grade level (see table 2). On the fourth grade reading test, the mean of 198.8 achieved by African American males in foster care was not significantly less than the mean of 208.9 achieved by all students, the mean of 206.4 achieved by males, the mean of 205.5 achieved by African Americans, and the mean of 202.4 achieved by African American males. On the sixth grade reading test, African American males in foster care achieved a mean of 177.4. That was significantly below the means of three It was also less, but not significantly, than the mean of 187.2 achieved by African American males. A similar pattern was found for the ninth grade proficiency test for reading where African American males in foster care achieved a mean significantly lower than all four comparison groups. The means of males (204.7), African Americans (204.8), and all students (208.0) were all significantly higher C12