Stakes Is High: Trials, Lessons, and Triumphs in Young Black Men's Educational Journeys

Through detailed accounting of a select group of Black young men's experiences, with interviews that span over seven years, Derrick R. Brooms provides accounts of these young men's pathways from secondary school through college and the trials, lessons, and triumphs they experience along the way. As opposed to the same old stories about young Black men, Brooms offers new narratives that speak to Black boys' and young men's agency, aspirations, hope, and possibilities--even as they feel contested and constrained because they are Black and male, have to navigate challenging social conditions and life experiences, and as they anchor their educational desires within their families and communities. Critical to their journeys are the range of stakes that they face in public discourse and societal projections, in their home neighborhoods and schooling community, in educational environments, and in their health and well-being. Brooms expertly displays and argues that understanding the lives of Black boys and young men and their educational journeys must account for the sociocultural contexts of their lives.