ABSTRACT
The high prevalence of violence and other risk behaviors among African-American male adolescents has generated considerable interest in preventive approaches that target this population. Although programs like Rites of Passage and manhood training, often coupled with adult mentoring, have proliferated nationwide (Gabriel, et al., 1996; Ringwalt, et al., 1996; Warfield-Coppock, 1992), their efficacy in preventing high risk behaviors in African-American males has not been sufficiently explored. Such programs seek to develop in young males an understanding of and appreciation for their ethnic history, culture, and accomplishments, and to recreate for them the traditional manhood initiation rites of their African forebears. These programs are predicated on the assumption that the risk behaviors these youth manifest are in part a function of a multi-generational legacy of prejudice, discrimination, and denigration by a dominant White culture that at best has left these youth detached from, and at worse ashamed of, their ethnicity. Instilling in these youth a strong sense of ethnic pride and providing them with information pertaining to the achievements of their 132ethnic group, it is argued, will decrease the likelihood that they will behave in ways that are destructive to themselves and others.
