It's Not “a Black Thing”: Understanding the Burden of Acting White and Other Dilemmas of High Achievement

Abstract

For two decades the acting white hypothesis-the premise that black students are driven toward low school performance because of racialized peer pressure-has served as an explanation for the black-white achievement gap. Fordham and Ogbu proposed that black youths sabotage their own school careers by taking an oppositional stance toward academic achievement. Using interviews and existing data from eight North Carolina secondary public schools, this article shows that black adolescents are generally achievement oriented and that racialized peer pressure against high academic achievement is not prevalent in all schools. The analysis also shows important similarities in the experiences of black and white high-achieving students, indicating that dilemmas of high achievement are generalizable beyond a specific group. Typically, highachieving students, regardless of race, are to some degree stigmatized as "nerds" or "geeks. " The data suggest that school structures, rather than culture, may help explain when this stigma becomes racialized, producing a burden of acting white for black adolescents, and when it becomes class-based, producing a burden of "acting high and mighty" for low-income whites. Recognizing the similarities in these processes can help us refocus and refine understandings of the black-white achievement gap.

Are there differences in ethnic majority and minority adolescents’ friendships preferences and social influence with regard to their academic achievement?

“…Oppositional culture theory further predicts that these minority students not only adhere to this opposing culture themselves, but also enforce it among same-ethnic peers by rejecting those who follow the pro-school norm of the majority group. In fact, academically successful black students in the U.S. are considered to be "acting white" by some of their black peers (Downey 2008), and black students who perform well in school have been called "Oreos" because they are accused of trying to adopt school norms of the white majority (Tyson et al 2005). While oppositional culture theory was developed with regard to blacks in the U.S., we suggest that it may also be applicable to the situation of ethnic minority students in Germany.…”

“…Many U.S. studies found that ethnic minority students did not select high-performing friends (Tyson et al 2005;Fryer and Torelli 2010). However, many other studies found little evidence for an oppositional culture among ethnic minority students (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey 1998;A.…”

Immigrant Children's Educational Achievement in Western Countries: Origin, Destination, and Community Effects on Mathematical Performance

“…Often, in this regard, origin differences are attributed to cultural orientations toward educational performance, the influence of ethnic social capital, and the interaction between them (Fordham and Ogbu 1986;Fuligni 1997;Portes and Zhou 1993;Zhou andBankston 1994, 1998). Structural explanations are also noted, such as educational selectivity, the socioeconomic composition of schools, and structural opportunities for upward mobility (Feliciano 2005a;Sue and Okazaki 1990;Tyson, Darity, and Castellino 2005).…”

School xenophobia and interethnic relationships among secondary level pupils in Spain

“…Studies on "the burden of acting white" for Afro-American pupils or for white/ European pupils from poor backgrounds show that it represents a limitation that can be mitigated through school organisation, but it is often reinforced by a school context with unfavourable characteristics (Hallinan and Smith 1985;Hallinan and Williams 1989;Tyson and Darity 2005).…”

“…Despite the fact that there are numerous relevant studies on how ethnicity and specifically economic determinants influence the teaching-learning process (Alba, Sloan and Sperling 2011;Gillborn and Mirza 2000;Kingdon and Cassen 2010;Portes et al 2011;Stevens, Clycq, Timmerman and Van Houtte 2011;Tyson and Darity 2005), it is also important to analyse how xenophobic and rejectionist attitudes between peer-group members of different ethnic origin generate situations that can hinder the teaching-learning process. Racist attitudes start and can be learnt in the common spaces and places where socialisation first occurs; and this usually has knock on effects.…”