Assessing the Potential Impact of Educational Aid as a Form of Reparations for the African American Community in the United States: A Single Exploratory Case Study

Abstract

The primary aim of this qualitative single exploratory case study was to examine educational aid as a potential reparation that could address the economic and social inequalities that have been a burden to the African American community since the beginning of slavery. A Normative Theory of Reparations in Transitional Democracies served as the theoretical framework used to guide this study. The three concepts that make up this framework is recognition, reconciliation, and redistribution. When these three concepts are combined, reparations are said to be achieved (Verdeja 2006). In this study, reparations are defined as the act or process of making amends for a wrong (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). To better understand how reparations can most effectively benefit African Americans, an implementation and impact evaluation of reparation programs given to Native Americans was conducted. The researcher utilized two instruments to obtain data: a document analysis of the Bureau of Indian Education Higher Education Grant Program and a content analysis using individual semi-structured interviews of Native Americans from both federally and state-recognized tribes. This study revealed that even if educational aid was implemented as a form of reparation for the African American community, all the long-lasting effects of slavery and the Jim Crow era may not be resolved entirely. Although it would not solve every problem faced by the descendants of the enslaved, the findings suggested that educational aid can be a viable form of reparation if modernized correctly. The findings in this study revealed that the educational aid given to Native Americans could be very beneficial for the African American community if certain factors are improved upon. The main factors to be considered are the identification of who should receive reparations, defining what reparations are not, and developing a commission that consists of both government leaders and community leaders to govern and maintain these policies. These implications can be useful in closing the racial wealth gap between African Americans and White Americans