Investigating Identity and Resilience in Mathematically High-Achieving African American Youth

Ebony Omotola McGee

My study will investigate identity formation among high-achieving African American middle and high school students to determine those factors that lead to their resilience, or success in the field. The goal this research is to confound the conceptual model of resilience I first articulated in my dissertation, Race, Identity, and Resilience: Black College Students Negotiating Success in Mathematics and Engineering. In my dissertation, I analyzed the experiences of 23 high-achieving African American mathematics and engineering college students and discovered that students succeeded because they wanted to prove racial stereotypes about their lack of ability were wrong; and because they wanted to serve as role models for other African Americans. Resilience in my work is the ability to persevere in the face of obstacles and adversity. I discovered that middle school mathematics students were most driven by a desire to prove deficiency stereotypes wrong, whereas in high school students succeeded for more purposeful and self-defined reasons. My study will test the validity of both my findings and model for the study of resilience with a larger, younger, and more diverse sample of high-achieving African American middle and high school students in honors mathematics classes. I also plan to study their beliefs about college-level math classes and their perspectives on succeeding in contexts where there are few African Americans. My previous and proposed research attempts to move the field beyond explanations that normalize African American student failure and instead highlights those factors that account for student success, even in the face of significant life and school obstacles.

About Ebony Omotola McGee

Ebony McGee completed a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, with a concentration in Mathematics Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago under the direction of Dr. Danny Martin, Associate Professor and Department Chair. In her dissertation Race, Identity, and Resilience: Black College Students Negotiating Success in Mathematics and Engineering, she analyzed the life and educational experiences of twenty-three high-achieving Black mathematics and engineering college students. Her analysis of the students’ retrospective and in-the-moment accounts of their experiences revealed two primary, and interrelated, motivations that influenced their resilience in mathematics and engineering: (1) succeeding to disprove racial stereotypes, and (2) succeeding to serve as role models for other Black learners. Past support for Ebony’s dissertation included: the Spencer Foundation, the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Abraham Lincoln Fellowship Program, the African American Success Foundation, ASHE/Lumina Foundation, and Diversifying Faculty in Illinois Fellowships. She will begin her postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago in fall 2009 working with Dr. Margaret Beale-Spencer, Professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development. Her conceptual model of resilience is an extension of Dr. Spencer’s Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory model. Ebony’s research and teaching opportunities have allowed her to contribute to an emerging literature in mathematics and engineering education that is moving the field beyond explanations that normalize Black student failure. As a former electrical engineer and current mathematics education and educational psychology lecturer, she is concerned with how Blacks and other marginalized groups are being constructed and represented in these fields. Her teaching and research interests are: mathematics and engineering curriculum and instruction designed for urban students, identity development, developmental psychology (resiliency in particular) of high-achieving students, mixed methods, and counter-storytelling analysis. Ebony’s research in mathematics education was published in a book, co-authored with her dissertation advisor, Dr. Danny Martin, entitled Mathematics literacy for liberation: Knowledge construction in African American context. This chapter appears in B. Greer, S. Mukhophadhay, S. Nelson-Barber, & A. Powell (Eds.), Culturally responsive mathematics education. An article entitled, When it comes to the mathematical experiences of African Americans…Race Matters, will appear in the Negro Educational Review in early 2010. In 2009, she cofounded a non-for-profit organization called The MathTech Project. Their mission is to increase the number of academically high-achieving inner city students pursuing mathematics and technology careers, by acquiring skills in the under-represented fields of mathematics and technology. Additionally, Ebony also serves on the board of Athletes Committed to Education, a non-for-profit organization that offers unique outreach that blends educational initiatives and athletic programs to improve the lives of inner-city youth.