Using attribution theory to understand social and academic motivation in African American youth

Summary
The author begins with a brief description about how the need for understanding African American youth in relationship to social and academic motivation. She goes in to discussing her experience in the school system and how despite efforts, the motivation of students remains low. The article suggests that along with the lack of competency, there is a lack of self-esteem and motivation.
The article provides three biases in relationship to the author being an attribution theorist. Graham (1997) suggests that determinants of behavior are suggests to be attributed to causal attributions and cognition. The second bias is that attribution theory is based on common sense. The third bias is with the methodology being explained on a conceptual level. The method to gather information is based upon self-reports.
With these points in mind, the article demonstrates how causal attribution address "why" question (Graham 1997). The article suggests that the attribution content is ...