The Idea of Supplementary Education / Beatrice L. Bridglall and Edmund W. Gordon.

This document examines the importance of access to educational resources that are supplementary to what is available in school for all students. Supplementary education is the formal and informal learning and developmental enrichment opportunities provided for students outside of school and beyond the regular school day or year. While supplementary education significantly increases students' chances for academic success, many families do not know how or are not positioned to access it. Studies of high achieving students show that they tend to have combinations of strong home and school resources to support their intellectual and personal development. They tend to participate in a wide range of supplementary educational activities and come from families of middle to high socioeconomic status. High achieving students are actively engaged in school events and extracurricular activities and maintain positive links with adults and peers who continually advocate high expectations for achievement. It is important to reduce the dissonance between hegemonic and ethnic minority cultural identities as reflected in the "fear of acting white" and fear of stereotype confirmation. Targeted strategies include facilitating cooperative learning cadres among students, facilitating social environments that nurture academic achievement as instrumental to personal and political agency, and developing facility in using electronic and digital technology. (Contains 22 references.) (SM)

Pedagogical Inquiry and Praxis, n3 Mar 2002. ericd

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Microfiche. [Washington D.C.]: ERIC Clearinghouse microfiches : positive.