Five criteria were employed in selecting my original participants. They must be (1)
African American male high school seniors; (2) in the top 10 percent of their graduating
class as determined by grade point average; (3) non-mobile (i.e., they attended
the same high school for all four years of high school study); (4) not a participant
in magnet programming; and (5) attending a non-affluent school and living in a
non-affluent home. African American males were selected because their academic
success, when compared to other groups in Bayside and, indeed, throughout
the United States, is abysmal. I vividly recall the complex interplay between ideas
of masculinity and academic achievement from my own schooling experiences.
By selecting young men such as Baldwin, Lonnie, and Ronald, I hope to inform
the efforts of educational stakeholders on behalf of such young men through
the perspectives and experiences of these exceptional, high-achieving students
themselves.