Marginalization of the Black male: Insights from the development of the teaching profession

Errol Miller

ISBN 10: 9768125047 / ISBN 13: 9789768125040

Published by Canoe Press, 1994

Gently used with minimal wear on the corners and cover. A few pages may contain light highlighting or writing, but the text remains fully legible. Dust jacket may be missing, and supplemental materials like CDs or codes may not be included. May be ex-library with library markings. Ships promptly! Seller Inventory # DBV.9768125047.G

Synopsis:

This book is certainly among the first to define, describe and systematically document the phenomenon of male marginalization in society. This accounts for the fact that Miller is widely credited with having coined the phrase male marginalization although the term was used previously by a few other scholars in relation to specific observations from sociological research in the Caribbean. Marginalization of the Black Insights from the Development of the Teaching Profession is acknowledged as the ground-breaking study on this subject. It sparked masculinity studies in the Caribbean, one of the first regions in the world to do so. Both the First and Second Editions are out of print. Only electronic versions are now available of this Second Edition.

The First Edition documents how teaching in public elementary schools in Jamaica started as a multi-ethnic, slightly male biased occupation in the 1830s and quickly became a predominantly black male occupation in the second half of the nineteenth century. It explains this shift in terms of dynamic developments in post-emancipation Jamaican society and conflict between the ex-slaves and their allies on the one hand and the planter elite on the other hand. It then carefully describes the social, economic, and political factors that resulted in the shift of public elementary school teaching to become a black female biased occupation in the first half of the twentieth century as a result of deliberate policies of the Legislative Council of Jamaica at the end of the nineteenth century. Excerpts from the debates in the Legislative Council of Jamaica in the 1890s about these policies and the decisions made are cited.

This Second Edition retains the content of the First Edition but adds three new chapters. It also expands section of the First Edition dealing with developments in the twentieth century by providing empirical data which show that the patterns noted with respect to teacher education also became manifest with respect to both secondary and university education over the course of the twentieth century.

The three new chapters in the Second Edition do four things. First, they critique conventional explanations of the situation of Black men in Caribbean and America in terms of racism, slavery, lack of role models, African traditions, and capitalism, by showing these to be contextual and not causal explanations. Second, they highlight the deficiencies of existing social theory in addressing issues of race and gender through reduction to class conflict, or market forces, or by treating men and women as unitary categories. Third, they offer an alternate theoretical framework, through the theory of place, which can account for interactions among categories of race, class, gender and age. Fourth, while the study reported is focused on Black males in Jamaica, they show that the marginalization of some males in society is a universal phenomenon and occurs in societies, especially in periods of prolonged conflict between groups contending for power, resources, status and prevailing belief systems. In other words the general significance of the Jamaican case study goes beyond the particular instance of the gender of elementary school teachers, Jamaica and Black people.

Marginalization of the Black Insights from the Developments of the Teaching Profession is a study which addresses a local phenomenon but shows it to be of global significance and applicability and does so while constructively challenging conventional Western scholarship.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Marginalization of the Black male: Insights ...
Publisher: Canoe Press
Publication Date: 1994
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: good
Edition: 2nd Edition