Achievement Gap Research Proposal 20 pages

Achievement Gap
“Go into any inner-city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn.
They know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.”
Barack Obama, Keynote Address, Democratic National Convention, 2004
(Fryer, 2006, 1).
Literature Review Organization
The researcher’s engagement with the literature, according to Henry N. Kemoni (2008), PhD, Senior Lecturer at the School of Information Sciences, Moi University, Kenya, in the report, “Theoretical framework and literature review in graduate records management research,” factors into whether or not the literature review proves successful. In writing their literature review chapter, choosing an appropriate framework for the research often proves challenging. Literature Reviews (2007) notes that options for the meeting the challenge of fitting the right frame to the study include the following five strategies:
1. Chronological
2. Methodological
3. Thematic
5. By trend. (Literature Reviews, 2007)
To fill the purpose for this study’s literature review, the researcher chose to utilize the thematic strategy as the organizational method for the literature review’s body. Kemoni (20080 stresses: “The principle purpose of a literature review is to establish the academic and research areas that are of relevance to the subject of the research (Records management section, 5). The three themes relevant to the achievement gap, evolving from the literature which the researcher summarizes and synthesizes during this chapter include:
1. Achievement Challenges and Concerns
2. Causes Contributing to Achievement Gap
3. Overcoming Achievement Gap
As noted in this study’s introduction, this study focuses on causes contributing to the contemporary achievement gap, which according to research, significantly impacts the achievement gap between black and white students. The following definitions relating to race apply to this study:
Black: A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.
White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North
Africa, or the Middle East. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009,
Race/Ethnicity section, 3)
There are a number of factors to be researched concerning the achievement gap between African-American and Caucasian students. These factors include such things as resource allocation and how it affects those that receive less as compared to those that receive additional resources, how low teacher expectations can be effecting results from students who realize that the expectations are low (or high), academic stereotyping and the subliminal effects it is having on students, and last, but certainly not least, teacher quality or lack thereof. The educational environment in which the students find themselves is also perceived as an important factor in the level of success for many students.
There have been a number of studies conducted during the last several decades that present various reasons for the achievement gap between black and white students, and a large number of decisions have been made using the data as presented by those studies. In the past the common perception may have been that certain students, or groups of students may have been less likely to achieve success due to their membership in that group. Stereotyping to that degree might even be a harbinger for the lack of success. A 2007 study found that “stereotype threat effects occur when members of a stigmatized group perform poorly on a task because they fear confirming a negative stereotype that is associated with their ingroup” (Spencer