TPC-Journal-V4-Issue1

69 The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 1 Research Based on the findings, future research might consider the impact that mentoring, religion and spirituality, cultural belonging, and resiliency have on African-American male racial identity development and African- American males’ ability to cope with racial experiences. Potential research questions could include the follow- ing: How effective is mentoring in helping African-American males to cope with issues related to racial identity development? How do religion and spirituality assist African-American males in coping with issues related to racial identity development? Is resiliency a learned behavior for African-American males? Investigations in these areas have the potential to yield useful findings. Limitations of the Study Caution should be exercised when generalizing the study’s findings to all African-American males. First, the study included only seven African-American males. While these seven participants garnered a rich amount of data to support the study, the qualitative nature of the study made generalizing this information across an entire group of people difficult. Quantitatively exploring the same research questions could provide more generaliz- able data. Second, the majority of the participants were educated, middle-class African-American males. A diverse group of African-American males was not considered in this study; a more diverse participant sample could enhance future research on this topic. Conclusion Throughout the study, participants clearly articulated that they did not think the process of feeling invisible would soon dissipate. Therefore, all participants encouraged learning how to cope with invisibility. Counsel- ors can encourage African-American males to cope with invisibility by advocating resiliency, promoting self- awareness and identity development, affirming African-American identity both individually and collectively, fostering African-American male mentorships, teaching African-American males how to negotiate race, and encouraging historical and cultural knowledge and understanding. At the same time, African-American males cannot be taught to cope or change their cognition, behavior, or emotions without counselors advocating and working to change individual, systemic and institutional barriers that lead to feelings of invisibility. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The author reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript. References Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman. Corey, G. (2001). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole. Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cross, W. E., Jr. (1991). Shades of black: Diversity in African-American identity . Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Cross, W. E., Jr. (2003). Encountering nigrescence. In J. G. Ponterotto, J. M. Casas, L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural counseling (2nd ed., pp. 30–44). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cross, W. E., & Vandiver, B. J. (2003). Nigrescence theory and measurement: Introducing the Cross Racial Identity Scale