A Genre-Literature Review Investigation: Improving Black & Brown Men Recruitment and Retention Rates in the Grow Your Own Program and College of Education Partners

Abstract

Researchers for several years have investigated effective ways to increase the recruitment and retention rates of minority educators, specifically black-and-brown men. Without question, schools need this teaching population, particularly in urban public-school settings. Scholars assert that minority learners’ educational outcomes improve when they engage and interact with men of color (Burchinal, McCartney, Steinberg, Crosnoe, Friedman, McLoyd, & Pianta, 2011). Also, every student benefit from having more diversity in the classroom (Delpit, 2011; Foster, 2018). Researchers have indicated several effective ways to successfully recruit and transition these students from teaching programs into schoolhouses. Through qualitative and ethnographic data collection, scholars assert that effective intervention strategies and relational social and cultural connective approaches improve these teaching students’ chances of becoming effective classroom practitioners. The genre-literature review captures the importance of Grow Your Own and its partners, such as Northeastern Illinois, the University of Illinois at the Chicago Campus (UIC), and Chicago State University. The injection of responsive measures and approaches into their teaching programs will continue to advance men of color students’ pre-professional outcomes entering and succeeding in the teaching profession.