“Third Floor Respect”: A Black Masculinist Examination of Morehouse College’s Mathematics Learning Community

ABSTRACT

The disproportionate representation of Black men in mathematics has perplexed researchers for decades, and the undergraduate space has been championed as a lever to help remedy this issue. Thus, more research is needed that examines Black men’s experiences as mathematics majors. To advance knowledge in the field of higher education, this yearlong ethnographic study uses Black masculinity theory to examine Morehouse College’s mathematics learning community, which is comprised of 16 graduating seniors. I use demographic surveys, semi-structured interviews, and observations to investigate the experiences of these 16 mathematics majors. “Third floor respect” is a concept used to denote the mathematical prowess among Black male mathematics majors on the third/top floor of the academic building. Third floor respect is the central finding that ultimately described this mathematics learning community’s peer interactions and departmental attributes. Implications for practice and research are shared to advance asset-based empirical mathematics learning community scholarship, refute deficit narratives concerning Black men’s mathematical abilities, and broaden the participation of Black men in mathematics.

KEYWORDS:

• Black masculinity theory
• Black men
• HBCU
• mathematics learning community
• undergraduate education

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to the 16 participants who contributed to this study. I thank Duane Cooper and Erica Walker for their guidance as well as Derrick Brooms, Alison Hamilton, and Angela Pashia for their feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript. I appreciate the editorial staff and anonymous reviewers who provided suggestions that strengthened this manuscript. I acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER (Award No. 1553379) program. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. African American and Black are used interchangeably and refer to U.S.-based mathematics students. No participants self-identified as ethnic Black; that is, participants who were foreign-born as opposed to U.S.-born Blacks (Cox, 2015).

2. Morehouse College is hereafter referred to as Morehouse.

3. Traditional gender designations categorize higher education students as either women or men. This gender binary is exclusionary to gender non-conforming students, which could intensify their ostracism from mathematics learning communities. Similar arguments can be made for students from other vulnerable populations (e.g., differently abled, economically disadvantaged, etc.).

4. See Palmer and Wood’s  (2012) edited volume as it explores issues Black men face at HBCUs.

5. Favors (2019) extrapolates how HBCUs serve as places of shelter and refuge for Black students. His text is timely given that Black Lives Matter protests and Black college students’ safety from racially toxic campuses are the order of the day.