Academically Gifted African American Male College Students (review)

In this 2010 book, Fred Bonner clearly distinguishes himself as one of a small but important group of scholars studying the challenges and successes of gifted African American male undergraduates on our college and university campuses. The importance of this work is reflected in the statement by Kofi Lomotey in the foreword as he reflects that “limited research has been conducted on gifted and talented students in higher education and even less research has been done on African American male gifted and talented students in higher education” (p. vii). Although for a number of years other writers have contributed journal articles (e.g., Ford, 1992) or book chapters (e.g., Fries-Britt, 1997) about gifted African American males in college, this work is quite important in that it represents one of the few times an entire volume has been devoted to this topic. Bonner states in the introduction, “The overriding question of this book is to answer the following: What are the perceptions of academically gifted African American males attending historically Black colleges or universities and academically gifted African American males attending traditionally White institutions concerning their relationships with their respective institutions in cultivating their academic giftedness?” (p. xvii). He then proceeds to answer his question using the perceptions of two undergraduate students—one from each type of institution.

The major portion of this book is a detailed report on a qualitative study Bonner conducted for use in his dissertation, The Cultivation of Academic Giftedness in the Historically Black College and University and the Traditional White Institution: Case Studies Involving the Perceptions of Two Academically Gifted African Male Undergraduates, using two African American male colleges undergraduates. (He actually collected data from the two primary subjects and two friends of each of them, along with several teachers and administrators who knew the primary subjects.) In the introduction he adequately defends the use of data more than 10 years old by describing the lack of change in the conditions and relative numbers of gifted African American male undergraduates. He sets up this study nicely in the first 3 chapters. In chapter 1, he provides a brief history of giftedness in higher education and synopses of the research of pioneers who studied this phenomenon. Chapter 2 establishes the background that accounts for the dearth of gifted African American males identified as gifted in K-12 education as well as postsecondary education. In chapter 3, Bonner describes six factors he has found to be significant to the experiences of gifted African American males in postsecondary education: (a) relationships with faculty, (b) peer relationships, (c) family influence and support, (d) factors influencing college selection, (e) self-perception, and (f) institutional environment. These factors form the framework for his interviews of the subjects in his study.

Chapter 4 describes the study that produced the information contained in the next section of the book and the visits to the campuses where his two primary subjects were in school. Chapters 5 and 6 present the results of the analysis of the interview with Bonner’s subject and his friends, teachers, and administrators at the traditionally White institution; and chapters 7 and 8 offer a similar description of the results of the interview with the subject, friends, teachers, and administrators at the historically Black university. In chapter 9, subtitled “What I Learned From Their Experiences,” Bonner explains his conclusion about the support or lack thereof for gifted African American males on TWIs and HBCUs and the similarities and differences between the two institution types. He found four noteworthy differences in their relations with faculty, the influence and support from family, self-perception, and institutional environment. Using these conclusions, he devised two theories from this study:

Theory 1: The research-oriented approach to education used by Texas A&M University–Commerce supported Trey Williams’s academic giftedness in the institutional setting but did not thoroughly support his academic giftedness outside of the institutional setting. Theory 2: The liberal arts approach to education maintained...