ERIC Number: ED185134
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1978-Oct-29
Pages: 6
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Psychology and the Black Experience.
Thomas, Charles W.
The Social Sciences have a conceptual framework that is outside of cultural pluralism and hence, beyond a respect for the dignity of all individuals. There is a continual need to balance the control function of science with its function as a potential agent of social change. However, the scientific method is a controlled inquiry based on a particular value orientation. As long as the value system of the social scientist generates concepts and models that abuse, deny or dehumanize, there is little hope for such scientists to voluntarily change the nature of their activities. Since all scientists carry their values with them into their research, black scholars must continue to search for a social reality where cultural and psychological bonds are expressed through blackness. Blackness is a manifestation of a specific form of behavior which enables Afro-Americans to enhance self-determined mastery over those political and social institutions which impair socially relevant behavior. (Author/RLV)
Descriptors: Black Culture, Blacks, Cultural Pluralism, Ethnocentrism, Identification (Psychology), Psychological Studies, Psychologists, Self Concept, Social Science Research
Not available separately; See UD 020 192
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A
Note: For related documents see UD 020 192-209 and ED 18l 100; Paper presented at the Southern Regional Education Board Conference (Atlanta, GA, October 29, 1978)