Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Workshop

Why do students who belong to racial minority groups—particularly black students—fall short in school performance? This book provides a comprehensive and critical examination of black identity and its implications for black academic achievement and intellectualism.

• Uses African American identity as the framework to understand academic achievement and to expose the biases of "deficit thinking" that presumes that under-achievement among black students is related to deficiencies in motivation, intelligence, culture, or socialization

• Presents information and viewpoints informed by empirical research in a manner that is accessible to general readers and non-specialists

• Uses personal anecdotes and examples from popular culture to connect with readers and better illustrate the validity of the author's strengths-based approach rather than the conventional deficit-based approach

• Challenges the idea that black students are inherently anti-intellectual and do not value school as much as their non-black peers