Constructing an authentic self: The challenges and promise of African-centered pedagogy

Abstract African‐centered pedagogy aims to cultivate a positive and productive culturally based identity for Black children, and African‐centered schools endeavor to supply that cultural base, placing the history, culture, and life experiences of individuals of African descent at the center of everything that they do. Our study examines the historical contexts in which African‐centered education has emerged and the justification for racially separate schooling. The article’s major contribution is its examination of whether African‐centered schools prepare Black children to participate in a democratic society and whether the construction of an essentialist racial identity might compromise their mission and success. We conclude that African‐centered schools provide many of the same strengths found in other forms of community‐based education but that they must continue to wrestle with essentialist notions of Black identity on which its discourse is built.