Customer Reviews

Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity (Law, Meaning, and Violence)

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This is an excellent book and anyone interested in the future of not only black children but all children in the public school system must read it. Ferguson reintroduces us to a world many of us have long left behind and almost forgotten-elementary school. But more importantly she gives us a new perspective on the plight of young black men. Looking specifically at how the public school system constructs and imagines young black boys as troublemakers, Ferguson reveals how well intentioned educators contribute and reinforce negative and racist stereotypes about black men. Fegerson, however, is at her best when she demonstrates how young black boys through daily resistance (understood by teachers as making trouble) attempt to challenge a system that devalues their ways of knowing and expressing themselves. Read this book and give it to to a teacher, a mother, a father, a grandparent, anyone who is interested it making sure that all children get a quality education.

Bad Boys by Ann Arnette Ferguson was an amazing book. I appreciated the ways that the theory that I have been reading flowed out of it. The book reminded me of the experiences that I have had teaching, in particular the school I taught at last year. Last year I taught at a school which was attended by predominately African American students. Many of the children?s experiences that Ferguson described were extremely familiar to me. I thought that she did an excellent job of illustrating the ways that cultural and social reproduction is espoused in schools.
The descriptions of the forms of discipline within schools and the ways in which teachers are expected to regulate discipline were very familiar to me. In fact this book addressed the very reasons that it was hard for me to be a teacher within our current education system. The job description of ?normalizer? did not fit my personality. The pressure that I felt from the principal of my school was very much in line with the following quote from page 43.
One of the systemic pressures making for more oppressive, punitive relations for African American children is the fear that white middle-class families will increasingly pull their children out of the public school and send them to private schools. Pressure is felt by the student specialist and ?Jail Keeper? to contain, suppress, and conceal damaging behavior that could contribute to the school?s reputation as a hostile environment.
This pressure in my school was not limited to the people who had the specific job description of disciplinarian (which there were three of, not including the principal), it was put onto every teacher within the school. From an outside perspective everything had to have the appearance of running smoothly, even if that meant that children were not learning in the most effective manner.
The discussion of student?s resistance was interesting and slightly hilarious to me (in an ironic way). Some of the descriptions reminded me of students in my classroom and things that happened both in my classroom and in my school. Ferguson spoke of ?the rewards that children might actually gain from getting in trouble? (92) and reputations. In my second grade classroom I had a student named Diandre who was significantly below grade level standards in all academic subjects. In fact he wrote his first and last name backwards. Diandre was like Horace in the book who had a reputation that preceeded him. Students talked about the things he did, as well as teachers. Diandre had learned before he entered my classroom that if he ?acted out? he didn?t have to do his school work. My goal was to help him. However, other students understood my behavior in a way that I gave Diandre more attention because he was?bad?. As a result one student in particular started ?acting out?. When I sat down to talk to her I came to understand that she was doing what she was doing so that she could get my attention.
Overall I felt that the book was powerful and motivating. I also think that this book is an important piece of work in that it gives these African American male students an outlet to speak about their experience that they would not have had access to. I appreciated what Ferguson said at the end of the book on page 234,
My hesitation to propose solutions comes from a conviction that minor inputs, temporary interventions, individual prescriptions into schools are vastly inadequate to remedy an institution that is fundamentally flawed and whose goal for urban black children seems to be the creation of ?a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society?. I stand convinced that a restructuring of the entire educational system is what is urgently required.

This book gives an excellent account of the ways in which our society uses our education system to reproduce our children to fit the molds assigned to them. It specifically speaks of the experience of Afrian American male students and the systemic things that cause this. This book will either reinforce what one knows about this experience or open ones eyes to what is going on in our schools for African American students. I recommend this book to everyone!

I was excited to begin reading this book and to learn how the school system unproportionately suspended and disciplined African American males. I was not expecting to learn how the author related the concept of masculinity and discipline into cause and effect paradigm. Even though this class and other sociological classes have taught me to think for myself, ask questions, and expand on concepts presented to me, I am in agreement with the theories and evidence that the author, Ann Arnett Ferguson, presents in her book.
The book begins with an introduction of the community that Rosa Parks Elementary School belongs to. Ferguson is conducting her research here for her doctorate. She has many forms of observing and gathering data needed for her thesis. Sometimes she is a "fly on the wall", a quiet observer. Other times Ferguson is more involved in participant groups, tutoring, and one-on-one interviews. She gathers the most information and insights through her interviews with the children that attend the school and their families. She credits the interview sessions as a valuable way to let the children ask her questions, gain her trust, and for her to develop a deeper understanding of her own strengths and weaknesses and those of her interviewees.
After observing the pupils of the school in the hallways, after school tutoring sessions, and inside the classroom, Ferguson makes an important discovery that becomes the foundation of her research. Her breakthrough came when she stumbled upon two small rooms in the school. These rooms provided discipline, punishment, and seclusion for students who were not following the classroom or school rules. The first room, used for minor infractions, was known throughout the population of the students as "The Punishing Room". The other room was reserved as a place for students who receiving in-school or after-school suspension, anywhere from one to three days. This space was called "The Jailhouse". Files with children's names on it were stored in these rooms to document that more frequent visitor's deviant behavior. While observing the caliber of students in these two rooms, it does not take long for Ferguson to see two important details: the students who are often in trouble are usually African American and male. Teachers that were interviewed notice this discrepancy as well but cannot offer any well substantiated reasons why this occurs. Over the course of her three years of research at Rosa Parks Elementary School, Ferguson comes up with evidence to explain this phenomenon.
Ferguson argues that rather than simply internalizing the negative labels bestowed on them by teachers and school personnel, the African American boys look critically at schooling as they dispute and evaluate the meaning and motivation behind the labels that have been attached to them. In a school were students are judged by their class, race, and gender, many negative labels and stereotypes are presented to students. It is up to the individual if they want to internalize these beliefs or prove the stereotypes wrong. A major conflict that lies within the male gender is that they feel compelled to exert and portray their masculinity. Their "reputations" center around whether they are "hard" or "soft", and this is very important to their self esteem and self worth. "[...] kids recoup a sense of self as competent and worthy under extremely discouraging work conditions. Sadly, they do this by getting in trouble" (Ferguson, 22). The author continues by arguing that sex as well as race are powerful markers of difference, and can be used as explanations as to why children act they way they do. Each race and gender category has different and unique expectations on how children should act and be disciplined. The expectations from family, friends, and school personnel commonly conflict and cause confusion and deviant behavior on the part of the children.
Ferguson's arguments are coherent and well-researched opinions on why school discipline minority male children in a stricter form than most of the student body. I especially agree with the author's ascertain that teachers can be held directly responsible for perpetuating negative predictions about a student's future. On page 227 Ferguson strengthens this point by saying, "[...] school personnel made predictive decisions about a child's future based on whole ensemble of negative assumptions about African American males and their life-chances". The beginning of the book cites examples of white and black teachers referring negatively to a student's chance of staying out of jail. Ferguson states that most boys she interviewed did not see themselves this way. Rather, they portrayed themselves in a positive light. This is one point that I disagree with. Ferguson states that she does not give much merit to the labeling theory. I hold the belief that when teachers voice the grim options of students, they perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy that harms that student's self esteem and contributes to their "need" to act out in school.
At the end of the book in the chapter labeled "Dreams", Ann Ferguson states that the inclusion of Black English would benefit the students who come from families where this language is spoken. She argues that this would lessen the hostile environment and feelings of disattachment that many African Americans face. Ferguson believes that this would increase the valuable social linguistic environment of the school and provide validation for black students, especially males. I am not sure I agree with this plan. I can see the value of the learning Ebonics and promoting it in the school system, but I also believe that learning proper English is more valuable for students, because it helps them to get jobs and succeed more in the future.
In conclusion, Ferguson's book is a valuable tool in discerning the unequal disciplinary action that plagues most schools. Understanding the mindset and background of male African American students will benefit teachers, school personnel, and more importantly the students' chances for success.

Two chapters from this book were required reading in a doctoral class I'm taking. Not only were they very helpful in constructing a more complete understanding of the dominant discourse around Black male adolescents, the entire book was fascinating, and important, reading!

The scarcity of this topic shows what an aversion society has to dealing with the number of issues within black America. The silence is deafening.

Those few blacks who make it in a white world are far too likely to relish their success, and not look back at their black brethren they left behind. Helping others has come to mean "the giving of fish, not the teaching how to fish."

The cure, especially if statistics are accurate and black children suffer alone in one parent households, is for blacks to step up and begin to teach, providing black role models for black children, and for all other races. If brilliant minds are a terrible thing to waste, there could be no finer example than the number of blacks incarcerated today.

Blacks need to practice what they preach, and like white America has had to do since the founding of the nation, take the long but high road to excellence by teaching their own to excel through education and family values.

I have one major point of contention with this author. What I will be referencing is found in her field notes on ODD and chapter seven. I believe that Ferguson is arguing that psychologists are not fairly diagnosing African American students, and labeling them with disorders like ODD without taking into account the external circumstances. She points out that African-American males are disproportionately in special education. First, she says that D'Andre is a part of a growing number of adolescents diagnosed with a personality disorder. She says "the APA goes to pains to underscore the origins of the disorder as within the individual and not the result of external circumstances." She also says that "diagnosticians are instructed to discount the social environment and reject any claims on the part of the individual that external forces have contributed to the problem." She then goes to to say that we need to look at the unreasonable circumstances that led to D'Andre's actions, unreasonable circumstances she feels the psychologists ignore. The reason I bring up this as a major point of contention is because she has all her information incorrect in this section. Often when I am confronted with psychology information in my education classes I asked one of my friends for clarification of the matter. I believe she is a highly qualified person to comment on anything psychology related. I talked to her about the author's claims about ODD and she was amazed at the backwardness of the information.

First, the author claimed that D'Andre was a part of growing number of adolescents diagnosed with a personality disorder. My friend said that is is impossible to label anyone under 18 years old with a personality disorder and that any psychologist who would do so would lose their license. Perhaps the author misspoke and meant to say that D'Andre is a part of a growing number of adolescents with behavioral disorders. Second, these are quotes from the DSM, "judgments about personality functioning must take into account the individual, cultural, ethnic and social backgrounds in providing any diagnosis." The last quote that I feel goes against what Ferguson suggests is, "Anti-Social P.D. appears to be associated with low socio-economic status and urban settings. Concerns have been raised that diagnosis may at times be misapplied to individuals in settings which seemingly anti-social behaviors may be a part of protective survival strategies. In assessing anti-social traits, it is helpful for the clinician to consider social and economic context in which behaviors occur." I bring this point up because the author characterizes psychologists as part of the problem, but the actual writing suggests something else. She indites the APA in a conspiracy to help place labels of personality disorders and ODD on African-American students. She also very blatantly twists quotes from the DSM and APA writings. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that perhaps the school psychologist at Rosa Parks school was doing what she claimed, but she applied that to all of the psychological field.

Her inclusion of the ODD section and her comments suggest that she is spinning information to fit her preconceived hypothesis and also makes me suspect of other conclusions she draws. By how big of a deal my friend is making it suggests to me even further the inappropriateness of Ferguson's comments. I do admit though that this is a small portion of the book but I felt the attention to this detail needed to be made.

There were good points in the book, but I highly suspect some of her conclusions.

Bad Boys, a social science book, is about how African American males are perceived in the school system by school faculty. In this book told by Ann Arnett Ferguson, she follows some eleven and twelve year old boys who are labeled as "unsalvageable", "troublemakers", or "schoolboys." Boys that were labeled "unsalvageable" meant that there is no hope for them and that they would probably make it into the court system at a young age and be lucky to make it to high school. The "troublemakers" were identified as those who got into trouble. The "schoolboys" were those who were labeled as doing well. This book shows how African American boys were looked upon in the school systems.
This book has many good and many bad points in it. The fact that it is written kind of like her own journal was something that I saw as helpful. It made it an easy read. Interviewing the parents and children also made it something easy to read. The interviews were what I though made it the most interesting. It was fun to see what the parents were saying to their kids and also what the kids thought.
The interviewing that she did was good in some ways and in other ways I think she could have improved the book by doing a little more interviewing. What I mean is that when she did interview the children she seemed to do well. However in my opinion I think that if she would have done a little more interviewing with the teachers and the parents then it would have helped her research. I know that this book is about the African American students, however if she would have let us know more of the opinions of the parents and or teachers then I think this book would have improved. When she talks about the teachers in this book she is always talking about how they sent the kids to the office or how they let this kid get away with something but not another one. Most of the time the kids that were labeled the "troublemakers" did not get much leeway on messing around like some of the other kids did. I did like how they interviewed some of the parents. I also believe that if she would have interviewed some of the white kids to see what they thought and how they viewed the African Americans then it would have been a little more interesting.
The interviews in the part "The Real World" made the story come to life. I think that the interview that she did with the parents made us as the readers understand what their home life was like and how their parents were raising them. The interview with Terrence's parents gives us an idea of how home life is in this neighborhood. Terrence's parents want him to succeed in life. They want him to know that everything he does reflects who and how he acts as a person. Terrence's parents want him to know that even the way he dresses reflects on how people are going to look at him and view him. This interview lets us know that the parents really do want their kids to succeed and don't want to see them failing or in trouble.
One thing that I though should have been different were her little field notes. Many of the times they could have been incorporated into the chapters. I had no clue why she had to make them as extra side notes. In some cases in the book it would have made more sense to put them in when she was talking about that subject. Also on the side notes sometimes they seemed to drag on a little too long. For example, in the mothering field note I think that she could have cut out a bunch of that. I know that she made it feel like a conversation but I felt like much of the conversation was repetitive. I think to make things easier in this situation she could have made it shorter by summarizing what the mother was saying.
One other thing that needs to be addressed is the fact that this book was the fact that it looked like Ann was looking for the kids to be troublemakers. She did not go into this book with an open mind. I think she went in with a closed mind and a preconceived notion that African American males are troublemakers. You can see in the way that she writes this book that she already believes that African American children get treated different then other races.
All in all this was a decent book. There are a couple of thinks that could have been done to improve it. If the interviews were a little more diverse and she would have went at going to do her fieldwork with an open mind then she could have produced a better book. Don't get me wrong though the way it was written like a journal and the interviews with the parents did make it a good book. There however is always room for improvement.

Being in the education field, I had very high expectations for the book, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity by Anne Ferguson. My expectations were met with great success. I went at this book with a very critical standpoint looking to argue as much as I could and to find faults in the writing. I fell short on many accounts. To take such a broad topic as to why African American males had a higher rate of being labeled as troublemakers and research it was a great feat. Ferguson does a wonderful job of backing up all of her observations and arguments with specific events that she witnessed throughout the duration of her study. She goes on to give even greater credibility to her arguments by listing amazing footnotes with many other studies and books that back up her statements.
The main reoccurring topics throughout the book were the way that African American males' actions were very quick to be adultificated and different attempts at normalizing various actions. The boys were split up by administration as "Troublemakers" and "Schoolboys". The "Troublemakers" were the ones that faculty members would say were going nowhere accept to jail. These are the students that Ferguson set out to understand. The book does a wonderful job of taking each chapter as a separate argument. Ferguson uses the initial chapter to tell what point it is that she is attempting to convey, what her reasons were to look at the topic, a detailed writing of what the exact message is and leaving no loose ends. She then follows up any forms of doubt or argumentation by using field notes to give exact events and conversations that prove her argument.
For example, in chapter five titled The Real World, Ferguson begins by discussing how African Americans quite often get in trouble for actions that they learn from how they live in certain neighborhoods or home settings. While I started out thinking this chapter was going to be searching for an excuse for African Americans and not realistic, I was wrong. Ferguson described occasions where children lived in poor homes to the extent that the punishment for selling candy in school was worth the very little money they made. The one story in particular, a little boy who wanted to get his mom a birthday cake and made the money to do so by selling his lunch, touched me. However, due to this boy being a "Troublemaker", he was punished.
In the chapter Getting in Trouble a subcategory titled Schoolwork was ready to argue in the teachers favor when Ferguson validated everything I had questioned about her argument by listing not just one but several events that she had witnessed that I had no rebuttal for. For example, a young white boy is allowed to sit on the couch when he is done with his work, when the African American boy goes to do the same, he is reprimanded for breaking the rule of not sitting on the couch during reading time. The African American boy argues and is then in more trouble then when he first started. The event goes on and the teacher continues that she is unbiased by race. This among many other examples knocked down my argument.
Perhaps the best thing about Ferguson's study results, is that she goes from both the perspective of the institution and system as well as the way the young men see it as well. Through very interactive and detailed interviews, tutoring sessions, home visits, and many other resources, Ferguson hits the whole agenda by not just studying the African American male, but breaking it down to analyze males in general, African Americans in general, and finally configuring it all to reach a conclusion on African American males.
The way that Ferguson gives all the theories behind each topic and is unbiased about them is a strong point. In chapter three, I found that her detailed description of both the Radical Schooling Theory, Foucault's Theory of Disciplinary Power, and Individualized Instruction prior to the actual content of the chapter was very helpful in creating an opinion and then both signifying it or altering it. Also, the way in which she warms you up to the material by starting out with a chapter on the setting, the students and the administration was very helpful. It makes the book very easy to follow and refer back to.
I feel that Ferguson did an excellent job of deciphering a problem that is very touchy and difficult to study. The only part I was unhappy about was the lack of detail in the closing chapter where Ferguson gave little to no idea as to how she would change the problem or what she feels should be done. Other then that, I would recommend this book to everyone for the fact that racism is still here even though most people deny it. Specifically, anyone in the education field should study the results of Ferguson's research.

if I could give this a zero stars I would. I gave myself a lot of time to get this book before school started and it never came. I have bought a lot of products from Amazon and I have received everything but this book from this person. I had to reorder it from amazon book store and it came two days later as promised. I would never buy from this person again.

Incredible, painful, informative and affirming - are the gamut of emotions this book will wring from you. If you are in education, this will remind you of the calling to make a difference. If you are in education and you work with people who have lost their spark or become victims of the failing system, this book will help them see themselves and hopefully, turn around.
This book will help you call yourself to action, to battle against the inequalities of a system that allows children to fail or believes that some children don't deserve to learn.