Stanley Gajda

Persistence & Involvement Reconsidered:: a Phenomenology of African American men Who Make Adifference Stanley Gajda

The purpose of this book is to facilitate a betterunderstanding of how socially responsible leadershipis experienced by African American men. Employing theinterpretive tradition of phenomenology, and buildingon college persistence, involvement, and leadershiptheories, the researcher asked undergraduates whatdoes making a difference mean and what is the result?Informants ascribed meanings to informal, individualencounters, but attributed outcomes to formal, groupaffiliations, and finally recommended formal,individual and community interventions. Furthermore,informants supported a non-positional, relationaloutlook on leadership and credited thoserelationships with persistence. For these men, makinga difference was structured by dialogue thatdeveloped a mindset to enable or enact positive rolemodeling and mentoring for other Black men. Thus,others are called to facilitate and further researchcross cultural relationships.