straddling boundaries: , culture, and school identity · straddling boundaries:, culture, and...

Straddling BoundariesIdentity Culture and School

Prudence L CarterHarvard University

This article presents the results of an investigation of the following questions How do low-

income African American and Latino youths negotiate the boundaries between school and

peer group contexts Do variable forms of negotiation exist If so what are they and how do

they manifest In addressing these questions the author posits two arguments that directly

challenge the ldquoacting whiterdquo thesis The first is that black and Latino studentsrsquo academic cul-

tural psychological and social experiences are heterogeneous This article examines three

groups of low-income African American and Latino students who differ in how they believe

group members should behave culturallymdashthe cultural mainstreamers the cultural straddlers

and the noncompliant believers Second this article returns to the sociological signification of

four dimensions of the phenomenon of (resistance to) acting white and highlights the varied

responses of the three groups to the social boundaries that collective identities engender and

that status hierarchies in schools produce Straddlers appear to traverse the boundaries

between their ethnic peer groups and school environments best The analyses are based on a

combination of survey and qualitative data that were collected from a series of in-depth indi-

vidual and group interviews with an interethnic mixed-gender sample of 68 low-income

African American and Latino youths aged 13ndash20

Sociology of Education 2006 Vol 79 (October) 304ndash328 304

Race ethnicity culture and identity Wecan almost guarantee that these foursocial factors play a role in the academic

well-being of all studentsmdashcomplexly so Yetverifiable explanations for why and how theymatter continue to elude social scienceresearchers and educators For most if not all ofus our socialization as racial and ethnic beingsbegins early in life and much of this socializa-tion occurs during the compulsory years ofschooling from preschool to high school andeven further during the collegiate years andbeyond Racial and ethnic identities emerge inthe contexts of macrostructural cultural andindividual-level forces they are neither static

nor one dimensional and their meanings asexpressed in schools neighborhoods peergroups and families vary across time spaceand region (Dolby 2001 McCarthy 1993 Yon2000) But perhaps more critically what is rel-evant in the field of educational research is howethnic and racial identity and the concomitantcultural behaviors matter to educational out-comes This question has been most pressingwhen researchers have examined the signifi-cantly lower levels of educational achievementof racial and ethnic minority students such asAfrican Americans and various ethnic groupsthat are categorized under the panethnic labelldquoLatinordquo (Kao and Thompson 2003)

Delivered by Ingenta to UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

Straddling Boundaries 305

From academic texts to newspaper arti-cles scholars and writers have contendedwith identity-based and cultural explanationsfor the observed achievement gap amongAfrican American Latino and white students(Datnow and Cooper 1997 Ford and Harris1992 Jencks and Phillips 1998 Lewin 2000)One of the most popular cultural explana-tions that has been offered is the resistance-to-acting-white thesis With the 1986 publi-cation of their often-cited and well-receivedarticle Fordham and Ogbu (1986) definedthe contours of a continuous debateSpecifically they discussed how AfricanAmerican students residing in an impover-ished neighborhood in Washington DCcame to define achievement-oriented behav-iors and attitudes as acting white and weretherefore resistant to studying hard and get-ting good grades Fordham and Ogbu con-cluded that many African American studentshave come to perceive high academicachievement as the territory of white stu-dents since whites are believed to be the pri-mary beneficiaries of opportunity in US soci-ety Hence African American students theyargued perceive academic excellence as aform of whiteness

The acting-white thesis exemplifies a cer-tain component of Ogbursquos cultural-ecologicaltheory one of the most dominant theoreticalframeworks in the race culture and achieve-ment literature explaining why ldquoinvoluntaryrdquoor native minority students perform less wellin school than do ldquovoluntaryrdquo or immigrantminority students Briefly Ogbu (1978 19881991 see also Fordham and Ogbu 1986Ogbu and Simons 1998) posited that thedescendents of persons who were involuntar-ily brought to the United States via slaveryconquest or colonization react negatively tocontinual experiences with subjugationracism and discrimination And as a form ofcollective resistance these descendants rejectbehaviors that are considered to be theprovince of the dominant white middle classConsequently they develop a cultural identi-ty that departs from that of middle-classwhites which these students view as threat-ening to their minority identity and groupsolidarity (Ogbu 199116 20045)1

The prevalent narratives about native

minoritiesrsquo school achievement generallytend to differ from those of some immigrantminority youths who are more often charac-terized as assimilative and willing to subscribeto the cultural codes of academic success(Gibson 1988 Ogbu and Simons 1998Waters 1999 Zhou and Bankston 1998)Some researchers however have been care-ful to explode the ldquomodel minorityrdquo mythand to note the diversity in educational expe-riences and ethnic orientations within immi-grant minority groups (Lee 1996) For exam-ple segmented assimilation theorists haveargued that depending on contextual andsocial factors immigrant minority youths canpursue a mobility trajectory by emulatingmiddle-class white society (acculturation)availing themselves of resources in a produc-tive ethnic enclave or undermining theirattainment by adopting the adversarial stanceof a downwardly mobile native minority cul-ture (Portes and Zhou 1993) Nonethelessthe spectrum of cultural orientation and iden-tity as it pertains to school achievement isseemingly much wider and more diverse forimmigrant students than for native minoritystudents

When researchers apply binary markers toethnic and racial minority studentsmdashforexample native minority versus immigrantminority oppositional minority versus modelminority acting black versus acting whitemdashtheir explanations frequently obscure the het-erogeneous cultural and educational experi-ences of students within various ethnoracialgroups While psychologists have conceptual-ized and observed multiple dimensions in theidentities of African Americans (Phinney andDevich-Navarro 1997 Sellers et al 1998)many sociological studies have tended tomask the diversity in academic experiencesand cultural approaches especially whenthey did not analyze the behavioral variationswithin these groups

This article reports on an investigation of thefollowing questions (1) How do low-incomeAfrican American and Latino youths negotiatethe boundaries between school and peer-group contexts (2) Do variable forms of nego-tiation exist (3) If so what are they and howdo they manifest In addressing these ques-tions I also posit two arguments that directly


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

306 Carter

challenge the acting-white thesis First blackand Latino studentsrsquo academic cultural psy-chological and social experiences are heteroge-neous2 That is multiple frames of ethnoracialidentity and cultural orientation exist amongAfrican American and Latino students that sup-plant either purely assimilative or assimilativeversus oppositional stances in society Relyingon a multidimensional perspective of racialidentity I show how three groups of black andLatino students in a similar economic positiondiffer in their interpretations of how race andculture affect their day-to-day academic andpersonal lives These students differ in theirracial and ethnic ideology and in their culturalorientations Here ideology concerns the indi-vidualsrsquo beliefs opinions and attitudes abouthow they feel group members should actwhich would include studentsrsquo perspectivesabout what it means to act white or act blackor ldquoact Spanishrdquomdashthe phrase invoked by Latinostudents in this study (Sellers et al 1997)3

Some students may filter most of their inter-actions with whites and others outside theirgroup through the lens of their racial and eth-nic identities while others may be less apt toinvoke race and ethnicity and to view experi-ences through other social identities (OrsquoConnor1999) In an article published after his deathOgbu (200428) conceded a similar pointwhen he discussed five conceptual categoriesof black Americans and claimed that ldquoonly oneof the five categories among both adultsand students is explicitly opposed to adoptingwhite attitudes behaviors and speechrdquo hereferred to this group as the resisters4 This arti-cle in comparison presents actual empiricalevidence of the coexistence of students whoshare the same social-class backgrounds butwho maintain different racial and ethnic ideolo-gies and school behaviors

Second this article returns to the sociologi-cal signification of phenomena such as (resis-tance to) acting white and highlights how stu-dent agents respond to the social boundariesthat collective identities engender and that sta-tus hierarchies in schools produce Generallystudies using qualitative methods have focusedmore on either confirming or disconfirmingthat acting white pertains to academic achieve-ment or on providing a list that enumerates theconceptrsquos various meanings (Bergin and Cooks

2002 Horvat and Lewis 2003 Neal-Barnett2001 OrsquoConnor 1997 Tyson Darity andCastellino 2005) As a result black and Latinostudentsrsquo practices have been detached fromtheir structural political and cultural signifi-cances or rather the interracial and intraracialgroup dynamics that are played out for stu-dents inside the school and within peer groupsThe analyses presented here interrogate thesociological meaning behind four specificdimensions of (resistance to) acting white (1)language and speech codes (2) racial and eth-nic in-groupout-group signifiers centered oncultural style via dress music interaction andtastes (3) the meanings of group solidaritysymbolized by the racial composition of stu-dentsrsquo friendship and social networks at schooland (4) interracial dynamics about the superi-ority of whites and the subordinance of racialand ethnic minority groups The findings high-light the complexity of the (resistance to) act-ing-white phenomenon and shift the focusaway from an overly simplistic equivalence ofthis phenomenon with the rejection of acade-mic excellence

Finally the findings indicate that the stu-dents who strike the best academic and socialbalance are those whom I refer to as ldquocultur-al straddlersrdquo Straddlers understand the func-tions of both dominant and nondominantcultural capital (Carter 2003) and value andembrace skills to participate in multiple cul-tural environments including mainstreamsociety their school environments and theirrespective ethnoracial communities Whilestraddlers share cultural practices and expres-sions with other members of their socialgroups they traverse the boundaries acrossgroups and environments more successfullyThe straddler concept illuminates anotherplace on the spectrum of identity and cultur-al presentations for African American andother ethnic minority youths that splinters theacculturativeoppositional binary divide

SOCIAL BOUNDARIES IDEOLOGIES AND IDENTITY

Scholars and researchers continue to writeabout acting white on the basis of meanings


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


in the literature that are regarded as accept-able by the research community (etic)whether or not these meanings actually cap-ture and explore the constructed accountsdescriptions and interpretations of black andLatino youths themselves (emic) Some havelinked resistance to acting white to black andLatino studentsrsquo teasing their coethnic peersfor being smart (Fordham and Ogbu 1986McWhorter 2001) others have conflated act-ing white with low popularity among same-race peers when black and Latino studentsmaintain high grade point averages (GPAsCook and Ludwig 1998 Farkas Lleras andMaczuga 2002 Fryer and Torrelli 2005) andothers have associated it with racializing cer-tain cultural forms such as tastes in dress andmusic and linguistic codes (Bergin and Cooks2002 Neal-Barnett 2001) Meanwhile in con-tinuing to use narrow measures of the conceptlarge-scale survey analyses produce contrast-ing mixed or ambiguous results about theexistence of oppositional culture and the act-ing-white effect as causes of black and Latinostudentsrsquo relatively lower achievement thanAsian and white studentsrsquo (Ainsworth-Darnelland Downey 1998 Farkas et al 2002 Fryerand Torelli 2005 Massey et al 2003)

Given the nature of US racial history itshould come as no surprise that behaviorspertaining to acting white are examples ofboundary making and the maintenance ofparticular ethnospecific styles and tastes Animportant area of sociological researchboundary making constitutes the productionand maintenance of cultural identities amongmembers of a racial group (Lamont 2000Lamont and Molnaacuter 2002) Social psycholo-gists working on group categorization andidentification have examined the in-groupout-group boundaries that individualsdraw to differentiate themselves from eachother by drawing on criteria for communityand a sense of shared belonging within theparticular subgroup (Jenkins 1996 Tajfel1982) Social groups develop both tangibleand symbolic social boundaries and thesesocial boundaries as Barth (1969) describedentail criteria for determining membershipand ways of signaling membership and exclu-sion On the one hand social boundaries mayserve positive functions for racial and ethnic

students since these students use differentcultural resources instrumentally to gainacceptance as ldquoauthenticrdquo (or real) membersof a social group to foster social solidarity orto provide themselves with alternative meansto judge their self-worth and to maintain highself-esteem (Crocker and Major 1989) Onthe other hand social boundaries as theyinteract with specific school practices maycorrespond to either how welcomed orincluded students feel in their schools Forexample some black and Latino studentsmay believe their teachersrsquo evaluations ofthem are based on the degree to which theyembrace particular dominant or ldquowhiterdquo cul-tural codes that these students perceive asldquootherrdquo and not ldquothemrdquo

The schoolrsquos cultural environment canengender an assimilationist ideology whichpresupposes that the proper ends in educa-tion will have been achieved when minoritygroups can no longer be differentiated fromthe white majority in terms of education eco-nomic status or access to social institutionsand their benefits and when nonwhite stu-dents act speak and behave as much as pos-sible like the white middle class (Rist 1977Sager and Schofield 1984) In the meantimemany black Latino and other nonwhite stu-dents may not view their cultural codes asincongruent with academic achievement orsee whites as the social group to emulate fully(Deyhle 1995) On the surface this last pointappears to converge with Ogbursquos thesis aboutan oppositional cultural identity among selectracial and ethnic minority groups it differssubstantively however since I argue thatblacks Latinos and other subordinatedgroups can both believe and engage in edu-cation fully and still critique the norms ofassimilation that exist in most schools (cfGurin and Epps 1975)

Nonetheless many black and Latino stu-dents also differ in how they either critique orapproach the norms of conformity pertainingto certain cultural codes Having developed amultidimensional model of racial identity(MMRI) Sellers et al (1998) argued thatmembers of any group will vary in theirbeliefsmdashor ideologymdashabout how other groupmembers should act or behave when it comesto race and culture5 In a systematic analysis


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

308 Carter

of interviews with 68 low-income AfricanAmerican and Latino youths who were inmiddle school high school or college or haddropped out of school and who lived in NewYork I found significant variation in the ideo-logical dimension of the studentsrsquo racial andethnic identities as they discussed their racialand ethnic statuses in society and the cultur-al differences among students at schoolAlthough I found that all the youths main-tained self-concepts in which their racial orethnic identity was a central componentthree types of ideological profiles emerged Irefer to these types as the cultural main-streamers the noncompliant believers andthe cultural straddlers The descriptions ofthese ideal types capture the differences inthe sociocultural and ideological approachesdiscussed by others who have considered thephenomena of assimilation opposition andresistance and some form of accommodationwithout assimilation (Darder 1991 Dawson2001 Gibson 1988 Mehan Hubbard andVillanueva 1994) Each group differs in howits members approach and handle ldquowhiterdquocultural economic and political dominance

Cultural mainstreamers emphasize both thesimilarities between racial and ethnic minori-ty groups and whites and the incorporationof the former into the opportunity structureThe students in my study were characterizedas cultural mainstreamers if they generallyexpected group members to act according totraditional assimilationist values which callfor minority groups to accommodate to andultimately be absorbed into Americanschools workplaces and communities(Gordon 1964) Cultural mainstreamersaccept the ideology that members of a non-dominant group should be culturally sociallyeconomically and politically assimilated yetthey can be racially and ethnically aware

In contrast noncompliant believers sub-scribe to a dominant achievement ideologyand are even aware of the cultural norms pre-scribed for academic social and economicsuccess However they favor their own cul-tural presentations (for example ldquoblackrdquo orldquoPuerto Ricanrdquo) and exert little effort to adaptto the cultural prescriptions of the school andwhite society In short while they believe inthe worth of education they are not neces-

sarily high achievers Generally their schoolperformances range from average to lowIdeologically the noncompliant believers arecritical of the systemic inequalities that theyperceive the school to uphold yet the termnoncompliant does not necessarily signifyeither an antischool mentality or distaste forhigh achievement which most oppositionalculture frameworks suggest Culturally thenoncompliant believers choose to embracetheir own class and ethnospecific stylestastes and codes and opt not to conform tothe mainstream (marked as ldquowhiterdquo) andmiddle-class ways of being

The cultural straddlers bridge the gapbetween the cultural mainstreamers and thenoncompliant believers They are obviouslystrategic navigators ranging from studentswho ldquoplay the gamerdquo and embrace the cul-tural codes of both school and home com-munity to those who vocally criticize theschoolsrsquo ideology while still achieving wellacademically The straddler concept corre-sponds to a degree with the bicultural per-spective that social psychologists in theUnited States have described (LaFramboiseColeman and Gerton 1993 Phinney andDevich-Navarro 1997)mdashthat is viewing one-self as both an ethnic or racial minority andan American In fact Phinney and Devich-Navarro presented a multidimensional (versuslinear) view of biculturalism and found evi-dence that African and Mexican Americanstudents vary in the extent to which theyidentify with their ethnic and national her-itages Some are ldquoblended biculturalsrdquo andidentify with a combination of both culturesothers are ldquoalternating biculturalsrdquo and moveback and forth between their two culturalworlds and still others are ldquoseparaterdquo in theiridentity and are embedded primarily withintheir ethnoracial culture

The focus on the straddlers in this article isless on the psychological (ie identity) andmore on the behavioral differences amongthe three groups that I discuss however Theresults presented here are more about howthey negotiate their specific ethnic peer cul-tures school environments inscribed withwhite middle-class cultural codes and main-stream US society that is tacitly understoodto be controlled by middle-class whites I


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


describe them as straddlers instead of bicul-tural because they like most of us participatein myriad cultural environmentsmdashfamily peergroups ethnic community neighborhoodsschool interracial settings the workplaceand even ideological domains6mdashthat requiredifferent types of cultural competencies andcurrencies

Adolescent cultural straddlers simultane-ously sustain a strong racial or ethnic identityand achieve academically by effectively man-aging their academic success among theirpeers (cf Horvat and Lewis 2003) Some cul-tural straddlers may resemble Gibsonrsquos (1988)Punjabi Indian students who viewed theacquisition of skills in the majority-group lan-guage and culture as ldquoadditiverdquo and thusavoided rejecting their own identity and cul-ture instead embracing a form of bicultural-ism that led to their successful participation inboth cultures Although the cultural strad-dlers I interviewed sought successful partici-pation in multiple cultural environmentsunlike Gibsonrsquos students they did not avoidequating certain behaviors with acting whiteOther cultural straddlers resemble the partici-pants in Akomrsquos (2003) study who were highachievers and critical of systemic inequalitiesin schools and society although the youths inmy study did not necessarily maintain racialand ethnic ideologies that were linked to aspecific political cultural and religious orga-nization like the Nation of Islam

In what follows I present an analysis ofthese three types of students who vary intheir racial and ethnic ideologies school per-formances and aspirations and show howthey express and deal differently with the act-ing-white phenomenon First I presentresults that examine the studentsrsquo education-al attitudes and self-reported school perfor-mances These results confirm prior findingsthat overall African American and Latino stu-dents embrace dominant or mainstreambeliefs about the value of education UsingMickelsonrsquos (1990) attitude-achievementparadox scale it also shows that the diver-gence in black and Latino studentsrsquoldquoabstractrdquo (or normative) and ldquoconcreterdquo (orcognitive) educational beliefs is further associ-ated with whether a student is a culturalmainstreamer a cultural straddler or a non-

compliant believer Second I show how thesethree groups differentially discuss and treatthe avoidance-of-acting-white phenomenonand reveal that this social dynamic has little todo with the studentsrsquo equating academicexcellence with whiteness and more to dowith the studentsrsquo views about group dynam-ics and social boundaries among the races atschool

METHODS

This studyrsquos findings draw extensively on amixed-methods approach both survey andinterview data collected from a sample of 68low-income native-born African Americanand Latino male and female youths rangingin age from 13 to 20 The 26 Latinos (38 per-cent of the 68 participants) were primarilyfirst- and second-generation Puerto Rican andDominican youths while the ancestral roots ofthe 42 African Americans (62 percent of theparticipants) stretched mainly from the Southto New York Slightly more than half the par-ticipants (56) were female and 69 wereyounger than age 18 The participants alongwith other members of their families wereparticipants in a larger quasi-experimentallongitudinal and separately funded study of317 low-income African American and Latinofamilies from different neighborhoods inYonkers New York I contacted and sampledall the youths who had participated in thelarger study and who lived in one of two largelow-income housing complexes that werelocated in two different areas of the citymdashonea high-minority and high-poverty area andthe other a predominantly white and middle-income area7 All the participantsrsquo familieswere poor and qualified for government-sub-sidized housing At least 90 percent of themwere receiving Aid to Families with DependentChildren from 1994 to 1998 Over half lived inhomes with an annual household income ofless than $10000 and 71 percent lived in sin-gle female-headed households

Yonkers New York located north of NewYork City is the largest city in mostly suburbanWestchester County (population 189000 in1990) Racially diverse and highly segregatedYonkers has a public school system that faced


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

310 Carter

a major challenge in 1980 The USDepartment of Justice the federal Office forCivil Rights and the National Association forthe Advancement of Colored People accusedcity officials and the Board of Education ofintentionally maintaining racially segregatedschools In May 1986 Judge Leonard Sand ofthe federal appeals court ordered the schooldistrict found guilty as charged to develop aplan that would ameliorate the problem ofschool segregation The plan that the YonkersBoard of Education created sought to bringabout voluntary school desegregation throughchoice centered on magnet schools and aseries of studentsrsquo voluntary transfers to otherschools School officials instructed blackHispanic and white students to board schoolbuses and crisscross the city to attend newlycreated magnet schools In this sample 72percent of the participants attended one of thepublic magnet middle or high schools in therestructured Yonkers school district Fifteenpercent of the participants had alreadyobtained either a high school diploma or ageneral equivalency diploma (GED) 8 percenthad some college experience and 13 per-cent were high school dropouts (see Table 1)

More than 80 percent of those who livedin the housing developments and whom Icontacted responded affirmatively and partic-ipated in the study I interviewed these youthsover a 10-month period from November

1997 to August 1998 On average the indi-vidual interviews lasted about 90 minutes andconsisted of two parts a survey comprised ofwidely used and reliable measures and asemistructured open-ended interview proto-col The survey included measures of atti-tudes and beliefs about the connectionsamong education perceptions of discrimina-tion life outcomes and career mobility Iused Mickelsonrsquos (1990) ldquoabstractrdquo and ldquocon-creterdquo educational attitude measures to ascer-tain differences in views toward educationand the opportunity structure The abstracteducational attitude scale measures adher-ence to the principle of schooling as a vehiclefor success and economic mobility for youngHispanic and black people It consists of sevenitems with such questions as ldquoYoung Black[Hispanic] people like me have a chance ofmaking it if we do well in schoolrdquo andldquoEducation really pays off in the future foryoung Black [Hispanic] people like merdquo Thisscalersquos scores range from a low of 1 (very pes-simistic) to a high of 5 (very optimistic) indi-cating agreement with the dominant achieve-ment ideology8

The concrete educational attitude scale isrooted in studentsrsquo beliefs about their familymembersrsquo experiences and when educationalcredentials may not have been fairly reward-ed by the opportunity structure Scale scoresrange from a low of 1 (very strong pessimism)

Table 1 School Enrollment Performance and Aspirations (N = 68)

Parameter Percentage

Enrolled in School 72

Obtained a High School Diploma or GED 15

Had Some College Experience 8

Dropped Out of High School no GED 13

Earned Mainly B or Higher Gradesa 49

Enrolled in AcademicCollege Preparatory Coursesa 31

Enrolled in Special Education Classesa 16

Aspired to Attend College andor Graduate School 84

Aspired to Hold ProfessionalManagerial Jobsb 60

a Based only on those who were currently enrolled in middle and high school (N = 49)b Based on the 1980 National Opinion Research Council occupational codes


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


to a high of 5 (very strong optimism) Thestatements to which the students respondedincluded ldquoMy parents face barriers to job suc-cess despite their belief in a good educa-tionrdquo ldquoPeople in my family have not beentreated fairly at work no matter how mucheducation they possessrdquo ldquoPeople like me arenot paid or promoted based on educationrdquoand ldquoStudying in school rarely pays off laterwith good jobsrdquo9 On this 5-item scale eachstatement would yield an agreement score of1 to 2 (strong pessimism) a mixed-viewsscore of 3 to 4 and a disagreement score of4 to 5 (very strong optimism) While the smallsample precluded any sophisticated statisticaltechniques the analyses I used were sufficientto discern any meaningful patterns and totake the reader beyond either an anecdotal orindividual case-study approach

In the semistructured open-ended inter-views I inquired about the participantsrsquobeliefs about opportunity educational andcareer aspirations school performance delin-quent behaviors job attainment genderroles and ldquoappropriaterdquo ethnic or culturalbehavior among their peers and family (egspeech dress demeanor and actions) andracial ideology Data gathered from three sin-gle-sex group interviews which averagedabout two hours with the same participantswere used to complement and triangulate thedata gathered in the individual interviews andsurveys Similarly these semistructured groupinterviews explored the meaning behindbeliefs attitudes and actions that deal withracial and ethnic identity as well as the par-ticipantsrsquo beliefs about the opportunity struc-ture race relations and means to success andachievement in this society This approachallowed opinions and beliefs to ldquovolleyrdquo backand forth through the group All the individ-ual and group interviews were tape-recordedtranscribed verbatim and coded

To ascertain the participantsrsquo racial or eth-nic ideology I asked each one the followingquestions (1) ldquoIn your family are thereexpectations related to your [racial or ethnic]background to how you should act (2)What about among your friends (3) How doyou feel about these rules What are yourfeelings about the ways yoursquore ldquosupposedrdquo tobehave as a [member of racial or ethnic

group]rdquo (4) What are your feelings abouthow yoursquore ldquosupposedrdquo to behave as a(racialethnic identity) (5) How much say orpower do you think black [Spanish or Latino]people have in American life and politics (6)Why do you say that and (7) For you per-sonally do you think that your chances in lifedepend more on what happens to black[Spanish or Latino] people as a group or doesit depend more on what you yourself do

Each student was coded as a cultural main-streamer a cultural straddler or a noncompli-ant believer on the basis of how he or sheresponded to these questions specificallyhow the student felt in-group membersshould behave regarding language dressfriendships political attitudes and so forthAlthough they may have commented on andrecognized the degree of social inequality inUS society those who maintained an assim-ilationist perspective on how to incorporatethemselves in school and beyond were codedas cultural mainstreamers 5 of the 68 stu-dents fell into this category Those who open-ly criticized systemic inequalities anddescribed how they strategically movedbetween the mainstream worlds of schooland work and their peers drawing on multiplecultural codes were characterized as culturalstraddlers 21 students met these criteriaFinally those who criticized systemic inequal-ities and made explicit comments aboutmaintaining their own specific ethnoracial orcultural styles and lambasted other same-raceor co-ethnic peers for choosing to emulatewhites were coded as noncompliant believ-ers 38 students fell into this category

In terms of academic achievement I divid-ed the students into two categories on thebasis of their self-reported GPAs Of the 49 stu-dents who were still in secondary school(either junior high school or high school)approximately 20 percent were categorized ashigh achieving these students had achievedat least one standard deviation above the GPAof the entire sample The remaining studentswere categorized as ldquolowerrdquo achievers I uselower instead of low to capture the idea thatthis group performed less well than the highachievers but not at the expense of charac-terizing the average students (included in thisgroup) as low achievers


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter

Using a phenomenological inquiry thatallowed the students to reveal how theyldquomake senserdquo of the world given present andpast social experiences (McCracken 1988Patton 1990) I decided early in the researchto take a more inductive approach and toallow the meanings behind resistance to act-ing white to be revealed In the process Ilearned that this concept did not play a cen-tral role in the common everyday interac-tions of a significant percentage of the partic-ipants While half the youths made explicitreferences to the idea others did not invokethe notion but rather negotiated how theycould actively demonstrate their ldquoblacknessrdquoand ldquoSpanishnessrdquo At times the term actingwhite arose spontaneously For example dur-ing an all-female group interview oneteenager labeled her younger sister as actingwhite in front of me because of how shetalked In that exchange between Joyelle hersister Janora and me there was an assump-tion that since I was of their ethnic back-ground I would understand naturally howJanora ldquotalked whiterdquo by simply listening toher speak10

In other instances discussions of (resis-tance to) acting white arose in response tocertain questions about how the partici-pants felt they ldquohad to behaverdquo accordingto their peers Finally in some instances theparticipants hesitated to speak explicitlyabout race and ethnicity although theyimplied these meanings and waited for meto probe These youths mentioned that theydid not want to appear to be too ldquoracialrdquo[sic] a phrase they used to describe theirconcern about appearing too race con-scious Therefore in some interviews when-ever I believed that the participants werehinting at ideas that were pertinent to thesenotions I asked directly about ldquoactingracialethnicrdquo or ldquoacting whiterdquo often tothe studentsrsquo relief In the data that follow Ipresent my questions and probes as well ascomments about gesticulations and voiceinflections which are critical to understand-ing many of the meanings and rationalesthat these students provided

FINDINGS

Beliefs About Education andAchievement

As in prior studies (Ainsworth-Darnell andDowney 1998 Cook and Ludwig 1997Solorzano 1992) the findings confirm thatthis group of low-income black and Latinoyouths maintained high aspirations and sub-scribed to the dominant ideology about thevalue of education Using Mickelsonrsquos 7-itemscale of abstract educational attitudes (ordominant achievement ideology) rangingfrom a low of 1 (very strong pessimism) to ahigh of 5 (very strong optimism) I found amean linear scale score of 43 which supportsthe conclusion that the participants main-tained the belief that education is critical tosocial mobility That is 97 percent of the stu-dents agreed that high achievement in schoolpays off in the future for young black andHispanic youths and 94 percent believed thateducation is a practical means to successFurthermore being poor and AfricanAmerican or Latino did not limit the possibili-ties of their career choices although theiractual breadth and knowledge of careerchoices were limited Although they hailedfrom families with extremely limited means84 percent of these youths wanted to attendcollege or a higher level of school and 60percent of them aspired to hold professionaland managerial jobs with physician lawyerand businessperson the top three career pref-erences (see Table 1)

How did the students compare across thethree racial ideological groups Table 2 showsno significant statistical differences amongthe three groups in their normative beliefsabout education In general all the studentsupheld the normative belief that education isa means to social and economic mobilityHowever the cultural mainstreamers and cul-tural straddlers were significantly more opti-mistic than were the noncompliant believersabout the actual impact of education giventheir social circumstancesmdashnamely that oncethey were educated discrimination wouldnot impede their full economic attainmentAs Table 2 reveals in terms of concrete atti-tudes the cultural mainstreamers and strad-


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


dlers had average scores of 336 and 310respectively and as I predicted the noncom-pliant believers were the most pessimisticwith a score of 276 In addition the culturalstraddlers had the smallest gap between theirviews about educationrsquos ideals and their viewsabout how education influences access toopportunity given onersquos race ethnicity andclass-background In other words their con-crete and abstract attitudes deviated on aver-age by fewer points than did those of the cul-tural mainstreamers and the noncompliantbelievers which implies that the culturalstraddlersrsquo beliefs converged more in terms oftheir perceptions of the ideal and real effectsof education

Furthermore these concrete-attitudescores correspond significantly to the meanGPAs provided by the students who were inmiddle or high school at the time of the inter-views Table 2 shows that the cultural main-streamers had GPAs of about 90 (out of a pos-sible 100) while the cultural straddlers hadGPAs of 80 and the noncompliant believershad GPAs of 73

In addition the majority of the participantsaspired to attend college all 5 cultural main-streamers 21 out of 25 cultural straddlersand 31 out of 38 noncompliant believersAspirations are not equivalent to expecta-tions however Aspirations signify what a stu-dent dreams of or envisions given ideal con-ditions whereas expectations take intoaccount a studentrsquos realitymdashhis or her actualmaterial familial andor academic circum-stancesmdashwhich may or may not support thestudentrsquos aspirations Thus it is not uncom-mon for the proportion of students whoexpect to attend college to be lower than theproportion of those who aspire to attendWhereas all 5 cultural mainstreamers andthree-quarters of the cultural straddlers (18 of25) expected to attend college less than halfthe noncompliant believers (17 of 38) did

So what does all this mean As inMickelsonrsquos (1990) study I found a positiveassociation between the studentsrsquo concreteattitudes and their GPAs In addition the stu-dentsrsquo scores on the concrete scale supportthe finding that racial and ethnic minoritystudents do not fully subscribe to the myththat schooling and education are the great

equalizers Despite their rankings all threegroups had mixed feelings about the benefitsof education especially for people from racialand ethnic minorities It should come as nosurprise that these students doubted thateducational systems and job markets work forthem In fact their responses resonate withresearchersrsquo findings that even middle- andupper-middle-class African Americans inspite of their economic successes maintaincritical political views of the opportunitystructure in US society because of experi-ences with racial discrimination and prejudice(Collins 1989 Feagin 1991 Hochschild1995) But their critical views do not deterthem from their desire for upward mobility

Similarly the mixed concrete views of thecultural mainstreamers and the cultural strad-dlers in the study did not deter them fromdoing well in school or from intending to goto college Although these students acknowl-edged the necessity of academic achievementfor occupational success many displayed ahealthy disrespect for the romantic tenets ofachievement ideology That is while themantra that education and effort lead to suc-cess was the acceptable belief they alsounderstood that it does not hold equally truefor all social groups More than two-thirds (69percent) of the students believed that despitethe value of education their families facedmany obstacles to job success

The literature on the attitude-achievementparadox suggests that black students aremore likely to maintain significant differencesin concrete attitudes and educational prac-tices than are whites This analysis of low-income black and Latino students revealed amore specific pattern linked to racial and eth-nic ideology concrete attitudes and achieve-ment In addition it shows that even high-achieving African American and Latino stu-dents may maintain somewhat mixed or pes-simistic views of the real effects of educationYet if the cultural mainstreamers and the cul-tural straddlers are more inclined to attaineducational success then the noncompliantbelievers become the critical academic casesAnd the question remains How are racialethnic and cultural meanings associated withtheir attitudes and behaviors In the next sec-tion I show that although the cultural main-


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

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oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

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by

Rac

ialI

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log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

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ng

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ryst

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)

Mea

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ore

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ers

(n=

25)

417

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ixed

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=38

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00)

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her

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ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


streamers the cultural straddlers and thenoncompliant believers shared some culturalunderstandings of the meanings of actingwhite their responses and acceptance of cer-tain cultural practices differed

The Sociology of (Resistance to)Acting White

In the analyses I counted 51 explicit refer-ences to the phenomenon of (resistance to)acting white across 37 interviews Either thesereferences arose spontaneously or the stu-dents explained in detail when I probed aftertheir implicit references to it Generally allthree groups agreed on what acting whitemeant but they differed in how theyresponded to or embraced these behaviorsFour main dimensions of acting whiteemerged (1) collective and individual signi-fiers in language and speech codes (2) racialand ethnic in-groupout-group signifiers cen-tered on cultural style via dress music inter-action and tastes (3) the meanings of groupsolidarity symbolized by the racial composi-tion of studentsrsquo friendship and social net-works at school and (4) interracial powerdynamics of superiority and subordination

The most frequent reference to actingwhite pertained to language and speechstyles Peers teased co-ethnic or same-racepeers for how they spoke if they perceived thelatter as emulating whites rather than speak-ing black slang a commonly shared commu-nication style among these urban minorityyouths (Labov 1972 Morgan 2002) bothblack and Latino Fourteen-year-old Samuraia noncompliant believer demonstrated forme just what talking white meant

Samurai Yeah Like I might be talking on thephone and he might be like lsquoOh you see thenew Jordans out Oh they is butters they isphatrsquo A white person ainrsquot gonna say thatlsquoFine [He mimics what he perceives as lsquowhitetalkrsquo] Did you see the new Charles BarkleyrsquosTheyrsquore nice I really like them My mothersays that shersquos gonna buy them for me onWednesdayrsquo Itrsquos like that Itrsquos not the properEnglish that they use itrsquos just theyrsquore nothip to everything It goes all back to the rapand the neighborhood that you inrsquo Itrsquos likethat So [theyrsquore] not used to being all aroundlsquoOh thatrsquos phatrsquo Like different words come

out like every year that person every week dif-ferent words come out

Prudence Does acting white and acting blackgo beyond language Is there anything elsethat makes a person act black or white otherthan how they speak

Samurai No

Prudence So itrsquos not about any other kind ofbehavior What you want to do in life

Samurai No definitely not what you want todo in life

Samurai a noncompliant believer who didnot link whiteness to achievement and aspira-tions chose to speak what he dubbed asldquoblack talkrdquo From my interactions with himit was clear however that he was aware ofthe distinctions between how he spoke andthe principles of Standard English as was evi-dent by the sudden change of subject-verbagreement in his elaboration of these differ-ences When either a same-race or co-ethnicpeer avoided using an established local lexi-con which according to Samurai couldinclude a compilation of easily made-up andvariable words and phrases that defied thegrammatical structures of Standard Englishand spoke only in Standard English in a cer-tain style that the students associated witheither whites or white youth culture theywere acting white Samurai referred to peerslike 15-year-old Adrienne a cultural main-streamer who revealed that her schoolmatesrsquocalled her ldquowhite girlrdquo

Adrienne Yep like some boys in school expectme to speak Ebonics or whatever so they callme a ldquowhite girlrdquo They like lsquoCome herewhite girlrsquo cause of the way I talk I tell themIrsquom not a thug I go to English class this is theway I talk This is my grammar Irsquom not goingto sit here and make myself look stupid talkingabout some ldquoWhat up yorsquordquo Thatrsquos notEnglish So you do get picked on if you speaka certain way or you act a certain way I knowsome of the boys say ldquowhite girlrdquo just becauseof the way I talk And I donrsquot see how you candistinguish between a black person and awhite person talking because of the way theytalk Theyrsquore just talking A black person has tospeak stupid in order for you to know thattheyrsquore black


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter

Adrienne told me that she had a toughtime among her peers because she rejectedmany of their speech codes and other cultur-al styles Refusing to uphold some of herpeersrsquo prescriptions of blackness she relegat-ed some of her schoolmatesrsquo speech to igno-rance and stupidity Adrienne also believedthat the use of Standard English was an indi-cator of intelligence unlike Ebonics or blackyouth slang which she spoke about in adesultory tone When I invited Adrienne to agroup interview with other neighborhoodgirls in the study a few days later shedeclined because she did not get along withthem Later the other girls told me that theybelieved Adrienne behaved like an outsideracting as if she ldquowere different and betterthan [they]rdquo This instance illuminates the in-groupout-group dynamics that the studentsperpetuated through the construction of styl-istic boundaries It also highlights how stu-dents used these ethnospecific culturalresources to signify a peerrsquos authenticity as aracial group member in good standing(Carter 2003)

Recognizing the delicate balances ofpower identity and the signifiers of ldquoauthen-ticrdquo group membership some studentsswitched between speech codes in differentsocial contexts Having recently entered theworkforce Moesha Latimore a 19-year-oldrecent high school graduate like Adriennethought that speaking Standard English sig-naled intelligence But unlike Adrienne whowas a cultural mainstreamer Moesha was acultural straddler and she contested anystereotypical associations of black vernacularwith ignorance

See I know people who can act ignorant asanything but they are also smart and theycan also talk in an intelligent way Itrsquos just thatwhen you talk with your friends you talk in acertain way or when yoursquore at work or wher-ever yoursquore at you have to act intelligentldquoWersquore [African Americans] not ignorantthere are just certain ways that we talk to eachother It might not seem right but that doesnrsquotmean wersquore dumbrdquo

Moesha had accepted the idea that to betaken seriously academically and professional-ly she needed to speak Standard English Atthe same time she valued the speech codes

that she shared with black friends and familymembers which for her fostered communityand group cohesion Thus she chose to drawon her familiarity with black speech codes tosignify her racial authenticitymdashcurrency thatallowed her comfortably to invoke the collec-tive ldquowerdquo in her characterization of theAfrican American community

Dress styles and tastes another site of ado-lescent ldquocoolnessrdquo (Danesi 1994) and ethno-racial and cultural boundary making charac-terize the second most frequent reference toacting white (mentioned 31 percent of thetime) Having forged a distinction amongtheir white peers other racial and ethnicgroups and themselves these studentsdressed in a variety of clothing fashions or lis-tened to different genres of music in additionto creating their own speech codes to pre-serve their sense of cultural uniquenessAgain I found that if a student crossed theracial or ethnic peer grouprsquos dress boundarythen he or she like Rosaria an 18-year-oldDominican American cultural mainstreamerwas teased for acting white

Rosaria Like I like to dress preppy with thekhakis the crisp shirt and a scarf around myneck The kids in my class are all like lsquoYoudress so preppy Why are you so preppyrsquo

Prudence How do they want you to dress

Rosaria I guess like they do

Prudence Whatrsquos that the hip-hop style

Rosaria Yeah with the baggy pants and stuff

Prudence How do they want you to talk

Rosaria Thatrsquos another thing Like they sayyou talk you talk cause I speak intelli-gently they want to say that I talk white Ispeak intelligently Itrsquos not Spanish itrsquos notblack itrsquos not white No one has claim on whocan talk intelligently My friend is always say-ing that to me

Prudence Well who are the kids who tend tohave tastes in clothes and music more likeyou

Rosaria Thatrsquos a hard question that I donrsquotwant to answer It makes me uncomfortable

Prudence Why Because it makes you


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


Rosaria seem like I really am whiteBecause it would fit right in with what myfriend wants to say I just like these things andI donrsquot think that my friend is right

Rosariarsquos last comments proved to be apoignant moment as I gathered from hertone and demeanor that she wanted toanswer the question about which studentstended to have tastes in clothes and musiclike hers Yet she felt a need to preface hercomments about why the question wouldmake her feel uncomfortable because shefeared how others and I would perceivethem A self-conscious Rosaria felt that heranswer might confirm her Dominican andblack friendsrsquo beliefs about her acting whiteAlthough she liked to dress preppy and lis-tened to pop singer Michael Bolton she feltstrongly that she had the liberty as aDominican American to maintain these tastesas much as some of her co-ethnic friends val-ued hip-hop music and clothing stylesStudents like Rosaria who held an ascribedminority identity but who did not conform totheir co-ethnic peersrsquo cultural styles threat-ened the already-tenuous reins that theirDominican and black peers held over thisyouthful domain of status and identityConsequently Rosaria risked being chargedthat she acted white

Yet Rosaria wanted to avoid being per-ceived as less ethnic than her peers Thus shechallenged the racial and ethnic dress codejust as Adrienne challenged the coding of theusage of Standard English Speaking StandardEnglish and dressing in a preppy style had tobe devoid of any racial and ethnic proprietor-ship That way if either Adrienne or Rosariachose to embrace Standard English not eth-nic youth slang or even certain styles ofdress in their minds they would still be blackand Latina (or ldquoSpanishrdquo) respectively Thisstrategy resembles the ldquoracelessnessrdquodescribed by Fordhamrsquos (1988) intervieweeswho tended to disassociate themselves fromtheir ethnic group However unlikeFordhamrsquos interviewees Adrienne and Rosariaidentified strongly as African American andDominican respectively and asserted theirpride in their heritages as was evident in theirldquovery proudrdquo responses to the survey ques-tions about their racial and ethnic heritages

While cultural mainstreamers like Rosariaconfronted the boundaries of alleged ldquoblackrdquoldquoSpanishrdquo and ldquowhiterdquo11cultural practicesthrough their peersrsquo evaluations of speechand dress styles the noncompliant believersperceived that they faced the evaluations ofteachers the cultural gatekeepers of schoolwho policed the boundaries of either appro-priate or respectable dress One student whodid not share Rosariarsquos more preppy and stan-dard tastes explicitly discussed his thoughtsabout how a teacher perceived him as a drugdealer because of his hip-hoprdquo or ldquoblackrdquodress style

Alberto Toward the end of the year [theteacher] asked me [s]o he would charac-terize me because the watch and the clothingthat I wore once He was like that he knewwhat I did And I asked him what that wasAnd he was like that [he] knew and what-ever it is that I do leads nowhere in lifemdashthatall it does is just catch me a death He didnrsquotactually say it but he just gave hints in whathe was getting at

Prudence So he thought that you were a drugdealer

Alberto Yeah

Prudence How did you feel about that

Alberto Of course you get insulted

Prudence Did you say something back tohim

Alberto No I paid no mind to him But deepdown inside you feel insulted him saying thatwhen you actually work hard and try to suc-ceed And you try to show something for itthat they stereotype you as thinking or what-ever he got He got it as just being anotherdrug dealer and not even thinking that heworked for it or that he worked hard for it

Alberto aged 17 was a noncompliantbeliever yet the product of a Dominican fam-ily with two high-achieving sisters one ofwhom was a college graduate and the otherAlma (whom I introduce later) was enrolledin a local college and aspired to attendSyracuse University Yet he grappled with theidea that his teacher perceived him as a par-ticipant in illegal activities Alberto dressedlike a typical urban youth with a taste for hip-


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter

hop music and its attendant dress styles longgold chains baggy pants and a baseball capcocked to the side In comparison John a 13-year-old African American cultural straddler ahigh achiever and a popular school athletesaid that he felt the pressure to negotiate hispeersrsquo expectations about his dress his friend-ships and his schooling As a cultural strad-dler John had found a way to maintain hispopularity by keeping up with the styles of hisblack peers in addition to hanging out withstudents at school who were perceived to benerdy and not particularly sociable12

John You know being who I am [my school-mates] expect me to wear name-brand stuff hang with such and such people like youknow they say like they donrsquot want you tohang with the low-profile people

Prudence Who are the low-profile people

John The kids that usually do all their school-work and they donrsquot really go anywhere afterschool you know they just go home and dotheir homework and stay in the house

In this section I have described the twomost common references to acting white orto acting black or Spanish that the partici-pants used These findings confirm whatother researchers have documented (Berginand Cooks 2002 Neal-Barnett 2001) name-ly that students explicitly discuss the idea of(resistance to) acting white in terms of lin-guistic and dress styles The findings alsoshow that the application of this idea tran-scends a studentrsquos achievement levelmdashthat iswhether the student is a high achiever or alow achiever In addition the findings high-light the social significance of the processes of(resistance to) acting white how studentscreate in-groupout-group stylistic bound-aries to maintain ethnospecific identitiesStudentsrsquo respect for the value of education isnot at stake however Rather what is at stakeis how students use the symbols and mean-ings they attach to different racial ethnicand cultural identities as measures of inclu-sion and exclusion In the next sectionextrapolating from the studentsrsquo comments Idiscuss how the institutional practice of track-ing fueled the dynamics of inclusion exclu-sion and boundary making as the students

evaluated the racial and ethnic makeup oftheir peersrsquo social networks at schoolConsequently students in high tracks whohad primarily white friends were viewed asacting white

Peer Ties and the Implications ofTracking

A third set of findings reveal how the studentsused acting white to describe co-ethnicswhose primary social interaction at schoolwas with whites Twelve percent of the refer-ences to acting white referred to primarysocial interactions with whites Moreoverstrong primary peer ties with white studentsin school are likely to allow more exposure tocultural attributes described as acting whiteand thus suggest reasons why minority highachievers could be more likely described asacting white

In multiracial schools few AfricanAmerican and Latino students are placed inhigher ability-grouped classes (Hallinan andSorensen 1983 Oakes 1985) If white stu-dents occupy the top of the educationalachievement hierarchy in racially integratedschools then numerous African American andLatino students may perceive that section asthe ldquowhiterdquo niche and may even want toavoid it As a result the token few who aregiven the opportunity to enroll in these class-es may have the reservations that 13-year-oldJeremy one of the cultural straddlers hadJeremy dreaded entering the InternationalBaccalaureate (IB) Program which includedadvanced courses that may be eligible for col-lege credit because his mostly black friendswould be attending the ldquoregularrdquo highschool Although he protested his motherinsisted that he attend the school with the IBprogram the following year

In their predominantly white high-trackclassrooms the highest achievers are morelikely to have contact with the styles andbehaviors that were perceived as white (dressstyles musical tastes linguistic forms andtypes of social interaction) since studentstend to share and transmit various culturalattributes through their associations with oneanother Alma a college sophomore atManhattan College contrasted her and her


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


brother Albertorsquos school experiences Almawas both a high achiever and a cultural strad-dler while Alberto was an average highschool student and a noncompliant believerAlma explained ldquoI think that it [the differ-ence] had to do with what classes most ofmy classes in high school were honors classesand there was a different crowd there thanwith those kids who were in more compre-hensive classesrdquo

Alma and the other high achievers in thestudy were significantly more likely to men-tion that whites were part of their social net-work A much higher proportion of the highachievers (55 percent) than of the lowerachievers (19 percent) responded that theirclasses were comprised of either ldquoalmost allrdquoor ldquovery manyrdquo white students The lowerachievers were more than twice as likely asthe high achievers to report that the majorityof the students in their classes were black andLatino (see Figure 1) Moreover the highachievers mentioned more whites as friendsthan did the lower achievers probablybecause of the composition of their class-rooms and the ties they made within them Acultural straddler who had both Dominicanand white friends Alma admitted that shehad to negotiate between them in terms oftheir expectations of her self-presentation

Alma I think that my Hispanic friends alwayswant me to speak Spanish and like be proudMy white friends if they find out that IrsquomHispanic they go ldquoOh yoursquore Hispanic Youdonrsquot act like itrdquo And Irsquom like ldquoOh howshould we actrdquo

Prudence What do they say

Alma They give me the same stereotypes likeldquoDo you know how to dancerdquo Irsquom like but doall Dominicans [know how to dance]

Alma and several of the other high achiev-ers in the study told me that they generallywere either the only or one of a few studentsof color in their classes And although Almaadmitted that she maintained friendshipswith non-Hispanic white and Dominican stu-dents who were not in her classes if she hadmaintained friendships with mainly white stu-dents she would likely be characterized asacting white13 Eighteen-year-old Maxwell a

noncompliant believer would agree Whilediscussing racial and ethnic relations inschools with me Maxwell was apt to sanctionpeers who refused to hang with their same-race or co-ethnic peers in school

Prudence Now do any black students try tobehave like the white students

Maxwell Umhmm [affirmative] There aresome ldquowhite boysrdquo They donrsquot want to bewith no black kids They rather hang withsome Indians or white boys or Puerto Ricanskids like that

Without hesitation Maxwell explicitlylabeled peers who chose not to interact pri-marily with other black youths as ldquowhiteboysrdquo when I questioned him about blackstudents who emulated whites Prior researchhas shown that epithets such as ldquowhite-washedrdquo have been used to express disap-proval of members who appear to haverejected an affiliation with their respectiveracial or ethnic communities (Benjamin 1991Landry 1987 Neckerman Marchena andPowell 1998) Showing his allegiance tosame-race friendships Maxwell was also criti-cal of his black classmates who chose tosocialize primarily with other racial or ethnicgroups indicating that he thought it wasessential for his black peers to maintain anassociation with other black youths

Smart Status and ldquoLooking Downrdquo

The last set of findings appear to articulatefurther Maxwellrsquos beliefs about racial loyaltyand affiliation and reveal how students linkedother aspects of blacksrsquo and Latinosrsquo compar-atively lower status than whites in a raciallypolarized society with meanings of actingwhite Approximately 1 in 10 of the studentsrsquoevocations of the acting-white label dealtwith their beliefs and perceptions of when theboundaries of ethnic solidarity were beingtransgressed specifically when they felt thatco-ethnics acted in ways that either disre-spected or denigrated other members of theirethnic or racial group Some studentsbelieved that when co-ethnic or same-racepeers touted their smartness at the expenseof another or put on ldquoairsrdquo then those stu-dents believed that there were better than


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter

other students In these moments putting onairs or acting in a superior manner reeked ofthe same dynamics of racial dominance thatthese students encountered and conse-quently they were likely to describe studentswho behaved this way as acting white Ifound that the noncompliant believers werethe most sensitive to these dynamics AsMonique a 13-year-old noncompliant believ-er said ldquoPeople donrsquot really care [if you aresmart]rdquo For Monique being smart was val-ued If students teased smart students inschool however according to 16-year-oldRaul Juarez another noncompliant believerthey did so because they felt that the smartstudents ldquowere conceited that they didnrsquotwant to do nothing for nobodyrdquo

Some students also expressed disapprovalwhen they perceived that peers transgressedthe boundaries of ethnic solidarity specifical-

ly when co-ethnics acted in a way that deni-grated other members of the group Theyreferred to such actions as ldquowhiterdquo and ver-bally sanctioned others who behaved thisway As I delved into her school historyVincenzia a noncompliant believer and 20-year old single mother admitted to being ahigh school bully and described some conflictwith a schoolmate whom she perceived asacting white She explicitly discussed her dis-approval

Prudence Were there any Hispanic and blackkids who behaved like the white kids inschool

Vincenzia It was one Puerto Rican girl

Prudence Did you pick on her too

Vincenzia Yeah Cause if she Puerto Ricanwhy she trying to act white

Figure 1 Studentsrsquo Reports of Classroom RacialEthnic Composition

Note These data are based on perceptual questions that asked students to report on whether certainracial or ethnic groups comprised either ldquoalmost allrdquo or ldquovery manyrdquo of their classmates The reader willnote that for the low achievers the percentages do not sum to 100 which indicates some overlap in theirperceptions of black and Latino students in the classroom By chance the percentages total 100 for thehigh achievers The main intent of this figure is to show the contrasting differences in reports (which mostlikely correspond to the actual percentages) between the two achievement groups


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


Prudence What would she do

Vincenzia She would act real conceited thesame way they was acting She used to look atyou like you was lower than her and I used tohate that She did that shit to me one timeThatrsquos one of the girls I fought with [Shelaughed]

Vincenzia expressed her disapproval notonly verbally but physically by fightingalthough her comments suggested otherinterpersonal issues with her schoolmate If aco-ethnic lost this respect and loyalty thenother students were likely to believe that heor she had simply emulated the behaviors ofthose they perceived as being associated withthe subjugation of racial and ethnic minori-tiesmdashwhites In those moments to accuseanother co-ethnic of acting white was meantas a stinging reminder of how he or she hasembraced the behaviors of those who in theopinion of 14-year-old Avery another non-compliant believer ldquothink they [are] smarteror better than us [racial minorities]rdquo

A cultural straddler 15-year-old Valeriewho was one of the highest achievers in thestudy and who was enrolled in the gifted pro-gram navigated between the cultural politicsof race and her peers at school differently Onthe one hand Valerie shared similar ideasabout the meanings of acting white as theother participants across all three groups Onthe other hand in responding to the issue ofputting on airs Valerie attempted to distin-guish between behaving naturally andauthentically and merely ldquoactingrdquo instrumen-tally to achieve a popular or higher statusldquoThere are a lot of [black] people who have alot of white friends who see nothing wrongwith it If you donrsquot try to act like what you arenot if this is the way that you naturally arethen there is no problem with it But if you arejust acting then it is no goodrdquo In the mean-time Valerie refused to embrace any behav-iors that would denigrate her race ldquoDonrsquot donothing that would degrade you and donrsquotdo anything that would make people thinkless of your race even when they already thinkless of itrdquo Valerie moved back and forthbetween the cultural worlds of her mostlywhite classmates in the gifted program andher mostly black friends all of whom were

enrolled elsewhere in less rigorous high schoolcourses more fluidly Unlike some of the cul-tural mainstreamers in the study however shenever alluded to any instances of beingdescribed as acting white She did not dismissher co-ethnic peersrsquo cultural forms nor didshe brand them as ignorant unlike Adriennethe cultural mainstreamer introduced earlierLike John Valerie negotiated between herpeers and her work ldquoI hang out with them[her friends] I talk to them and conversate[sic] If I didnrsquot like [what they were doing] orI thought that it was a bad idea I would tellthem lsquoNo Irsquoll see you later Thatrsquos all rightAnd they understandrdquo

Within marginalized communities distanc-ing oneself from the racial group has histori-cally played itself out along class linesMiddle-class African Americansmdasha group thathas burgeoned since the advent of the civilrights eramdashhave been chided for distancingthemselves from their lower-income co-eth-nics (Benjamin 1991 Landry 1987) Somewriters have suggested that in poor urbanschools and neighborhoods this social andeconomic mobility has come to be defined asinconsistent with an ldquoauthenticrdquo black identi-ty (Fordham 1988) However as the analysesof the findings of this within-class study haveshown the issue of distancing is not just aclass phenomenon ldquoGroupnessrdquo for thesestudents who had inherited a legacy of sub-ordinate social and economic statuses alsoengendered strands of ldquofictive kinshiprdquo (seeFordham 1988) Peers who dared to dese-crate these fictive kinship lines by lookingdown on co-ethnic peers who did notembrace or have the dominant cultural mark-ers of academic success competence andstrong aptitude were equated with the racialgroup in US society that has historicallyappeared to wield power in inequitable waysIn other words they were acting white

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The dimensions of acting white discussed inthis article have some connection to how thisselect group of low-income black and Latinostudents approached school and one anotherThe findings presented here offer four key


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter

insights The first insight is that black andLatino students who share similar socioeco-nomic backgrounds vary in their approachesto the (resistance to) acting white phenome-non The results suggest that defining theavoidance of acting white as an antischoolstance and as a central feature of specificminority cultures masks the diversity of ideo-logical and cultural perspectives within thesegroups

Those who appeared to traverse best thesocial boundaries between their ethnic peercultures and their school environments werethe cultural straddlersmdashstudents who demon-strated multiple cultural competences anddeployed varied cultural tools and resourcesto strike a more effective balance among thevarious cultural spheres in which they partici-pated Rather than succumb to the accultura-tiveoppositional culture divide straddlersnavigated between dominant and nondomi-nant communities choosing to be intercul-tural (for a review of this concept seeSussman 2000) and accepting and seekingfacility with multiple cultural repertoires Yetas other researchers have shown the contin-uum of culture and identity is not necessarilylinear or bipolar Phinney and Devich-Navarro(1997) for example offered a more complexmultidimensional understanding of identitysuggesting that variation exists even amongthose who have bicultural identities That isbiculturalism is not just a fixed midway pointon the identity spectrum between sole identi-fication with onersquos ethnic culture or with thelarger society Some students can move backand forth among different cultural environ-ments strategically alternating and turningcultural codes on and off while others appearto be more ldquoblendedrdquo and identify with theirmultiple social identities simultaneously

The second insight is that students whoare labeled as acting white vary in achieve-ment levels ranging from low achievers tohigh achievers Of the four participants whodeclared they had been labeled as actingwhite two were either average- or lower-achieving students and the other two werehigh achievers Overall the black and Latinoparticipants subscribed to the dominantachievement ideology which supports thefindings of other studies that black youths

have more optimistic attitudes than do whitestudents (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey1998 Portes and Wilson 1976 Solorzano1992) Contrary to the view that black andLatino students perceive high achievement asacting white and thus reject schooling thefindings suggest that resistance to actingwhite is mainly about the assertion of partic-ularistic cultural styles that are not perceivedto be incongruous with achievement andmobility

The third insight is that studentsrsquo con-tention with acting white has broader socio-logical meanings than the ones that are gen-erally ascribed to it in the literature on thesociology of education For those in thisstudy resistance to acting white connotesmore than anything else their refusal toadhere to the cultural default setting in USsociety that is seen as normative or ldquonatur-alrdquomdashwhite American middle-class tastes forspeech and interaction codes dress and phys-ical appearance music and other art formsMoreover the label ldquoacting whiterdquo also signi-fies group membersrsquo proclivity to associatemainly with students from outside theirascribed racial or ethnic group Some of thesebehaviors included these membersrsquo exclusiveassociation with whites The participants alsochallenged co-racial or ethnic members whobehaved in ways that suggested they wereldquolooking down uponrdquo another member orthinking that they were betterrdquo That is act-ing white signified a refusal to adhere tosocial actions that purportedly derogate thesestudentsrsquo own racial and ethnic groups

The final insight is related to the questionof what connection these descriptive mean-ings have to schooling and inequality Thedata indicate that high-achieving minoritystudents may be more likely to be exposed tostyles that are deemed white They suggestthat if a correlation between high achieve-ment and accusations of acting white existsit may be mediated by studentsrsquo placementsin school and these placementsrsquo influences onthe racial and ethnic composition of studentsrsquofriendship networks (Moody 2002) Forinstance Tyson et al (2005) found that whenblack students are disproportionately under-represented in high-track classes peers out-side these classes are more likely to accuse


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


their co-ethnic peers of acting white butwhen black students are proportionately rep-resented across the tracks in schools evi-dence of accusations of acting white to high-achieving students is not found Using theAdolescent Health data economists haveshown that the popularity of black studentswith GPAs of 35 or higher (out of 40) in all-black high schools does not decrease amongco-ethnic peers as it does among the sameachievers in predominantly white schools(Fryer and Torelli 2005) These studies havealso confirmed that resistance to acting whiteis not really a core ethno-racial feature butrather an indication of something about raceand group dynamics among black Latinoand white students in different school con-texts Racially integrated schools may struc-ture peer associations in the classroomthrough ability grouping or tracking thatplaces high-achieving African American andLatino students mainly in contact with whitestudents This type of grouping likely facili-tates the idea that some students of color dis-associate themselves from others since theymay maintain peer ties with other racial orethnic groups and thus tastes and preferencesthat are different from those that are used tomark in-group membership In short peersmay perceive their classmates who are situat-ed in white-dominant settings where differentcultural styles and tastes prevail as actingwhite

Since the results of this study are based ona small sample of low-income students moreresearch is needed before generalizations canbe made Further research could show howthe results may vary if the study included amixed-class sample of black and Latino youthsAlthough reports have shown that middle-class minority youths invoke the notion of act-ing white (Belluck 1999 Kaufman 1996)these youths may either emphasize differentsocial factors or have significantly greateraccess to resources that would help themmore effectively negotiate their cultural stylesTo facilitate a more fine-tuned understandingof how race ethnicity and class determinethese meaning systems about acting blackSpanish white or even other racial and ethnicgroups larger studies could also include morevariation by race ethnicity and region Such

studies could highlight the extent to whichthese meaning systems both converge anddiverge between classes and across racialeth-nic group classification in diffrent parts of thecountry Some findings from this study sug-gest that some white youths are described asacting black or acting Spanish How do thesewhite youths negotiate their school peer andhome spaces both similarly and differentlyfrom their African American and Latino peersDo they categorize themselves as such (cfPerry 2002)

This article aims to encourage researchersto reconceptualize how resistance to actingwhite is argued to be associated with acade-mic and mobility outcomes for black andLatino youths The prevalent articulation ofresistance to acting white in various bodies ofsocial science literature is a value system thatdeters the social economic and politicalprogress of many poor African Americans andLatinos Such a view implies that to embraceacting white means to be success orientedwhile to resist acting white signifies a rejec-tion of achievement-oriented behaviors As isevident from the findings presented herethat claim cannot be made unequivocallyNonetheless several of the cultural styles andpreferences that have been described as act-ing white may underwrite dominant forms ofcultural capital such as the use of StandardEnglish and styles of dress Studies haveshown that the impact of certain cultural toolkits extends beyond the school and is con-nected to mobility in the workplace(Kirschenman and Neckerman 1991 Mossand Tilly 1996) Thus success in both schooland the labor market may depend on thedegree to which these youths can primarilyembrace some of the styles that they label asacting white especially in relation to lan-guage and interactions with whites

Invariably it is a matter of individualchoice whether to listen to soft rock dress inhip-hop style speak Standard English ormaintain certain peer associations We knowthat different studentsrsquo abilities to deploy anduse certain cultural styles can determine howthey become classified when social bound-aries exist among groupsmdashthat is an ldquousrdquoversus ldquothemrdquo phenomenon Yet when privi-leged and socially powerful groups define


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter

and circumscribe what is appropriate for suc-cess and achievement the choices that somestudents in this study made especially thenoncompliant believers will have unintendedconsequences For socially marginalized stu-dents success in and attachment to schoolhave ldquonever been simply a matter of learningand competently performing technical skillsrather and more fundamentally [they have]been a matter of learning how to decode thesystemrdquo (Stanton-Salazar 199713) The sys-tem encompasses the schoolrsquos cultural envi-ronment which engenders an allocation ofresources including prestige social standingand evaluations that are based on the degreeto which students possess dominant culturalcapital (Bourdieu 1977 Farkas et al 1990Lareau 2003 Lewis 2003) Rather than takean either-or approach cultural straddlerscompared to noncompliant believers and cul-tural mainstreamers broker the boundariesamong multiple cultural environmentsinstead of choosing one set of cultural codesover another One implication is that schoolsthat implement practices that promote inter-culturalism may yield better academic andsocial results among their minority studentsthan those that do not The challenge will beto create school societies in which educatorsparents and students value and work toincorporate effective methods for developingcultural expansion among all the principlestakeholders

NOTES

1 Classic works in the field meanwhilehave revealed that the oppositional culturephenomenon is not a specific ethnoracialone since white poor and working-class boyshave been found to have attitudes that arecontrary to those of the mainstream and lowacademic achievement (Gans 1962 MacLeod1995 Willis 1981)

2 Throughout the text I use black andAfrican American interchangeably Racialterms comprise numerous ethnic groupshowever All the black students in this studywith the exception of one are AfricanAmerican The youths of Hispanic heritage inthe study varied in their racial identification as

black white or no race at all I use the termLatino to refer to the group of students whoseparents immigrated to the United States fromcountries in Central and Latin America andthe Spanish Caribbean

3 In the academic literature the termsHispanic and Latino are generally used to referto all people in the United States whoseancestry is predominantly from one or moreSpanish-speaking countries However theDominican and Puerto Rican American partic-ipants in my study referred to their ethnicgroups under the rubric Spanishmdashreferring tothe one obvious commonality they share lan-guage

4 Ogbursquos four other categories of blacksincluded the assimilationists the accom-modators without assimilation the ambiva-lents and the encapsulated

5 The other three components of Sellerset alrsquos MMRI include racial centralitysalience and regard Racial centrality con-cerns the extent to which people definethemselves with regard to racemdashthat is thedegree to which they make their racial identi-ty a principal part of who they are Saliencerefers to the extent to which onersquos race is arelevant part of onersquos self-concept it is usual-ly concerned with a particular event or situa-tion and the degree to which one is inclinedto define oneself in terms of race in that socialsituation Regard refers to a personrsquos evalua-tive judgment of his or her race the extent towhich he or she feels positively about it

6 See the discussion by Meyerson andScully (1995) who introduced the concept oftempered radicalsmdashindividuals who identifywith and are committed to their organiza-tions and to a cause community or ideologythat is fundamentally different from and pos-sibly at odds with the dominant culture oftheir organization

7 Although the original study from whichI selected my participants examined neigh-borhood differences in the attainment of low-income families a comparison of theseyouths by neighborhoods is not my intenthere

8 The estimated reliability coefficient(Cronbachrsquos alpha) was 71 for the abstract ornormative attitudes scale

9 I constructed a scale from four items of


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


Mickelsonrsquos six-item concrete educationalattitude scale that yielded the highest reliabil-ity statistic or Cronbachrsquos alpha which was amodest 43 The two items that I excludedwere ldquoAll I need to do for my future is readwrite and make changerdquo and ldquoWhen myteachers give us homework my friends neverthink of doing itrdquo While the latter item con-tributes to the validity of the scale I do notmention it here because it taps into anothersocial dimension of studentsrsquo academic reali-ties that on the surface has less to do withtheir concrete attitudes about race and edu-cation

10 Pseudonyms are used throughout thearticle to protect the youthsrsquo privacy andidentity

11 The black and Latino students also dif-ferentiated between their ethnospecific cul-tural styles for example Fernanda a high-school graduate and Puerto Rican culturalstraddler told me that her friend chided herfor dressing too ldquoblackrdquo and not in ldquoSpanish

12 Generally I found that almost all theparticipants were more likely to describe cer-tain high-achieving students as either ldquolow-profilerdquo or nerdy rather than as acting whitewhen they believed that these peers focusedon their academic achievement at theexpense of not having a social life (Kinney1993) Also they were primarily ridiculed foreither having low levels of social skills beingunpopular or not dressing in the faddishclothing styles

13 According to the participants the con-verse was possible too White students couldemulate black and Spanish cultural styles andpractices that were more prevalent in aminority-dominant high school During myinterviews and field observations it was notuncommon to hear students talk about whitepeers who tried to act black or Spanish

REFERENCES

Ainsworth-Darnell James W and Douglas BDowney 1998 ldquoAssessing the OppositionalCulture Explanation for RacialEthnicDifferences in School Performancerdquo AmericanSociological Review 63536ndash53

Akom A A 2003 ldquoReexamining Resistance as

Oppositional Behavior The Nation of Islamand the Creation of Black AchievementIdeologyrdquo Sociology of Education 76305ndash25

Barth Fredrik 1969 ldquoEthnic Groups andBoundaries The Social Organization ofCulture Differencerdquo Long Grove IL WavelandPress

Belluck Pam 1999 July 4 ldquoReason Is Sought forLag by Blacks in School Effortrdquo New YorkTimes pp A1 A12

Benjamin Lois 1991 The Black Elite ChicagoNelson-Hall

Bergin David A and Helen C Cooks 2002 ldquoHighSchool Students of Color Talk AboutAccusations of ldquoActing Whitersquordquo Urban Review34113ndash34

Bourdieu Pierre 1977 ldquoCultural Reproductionand Social Reproductionrdquo Pp 487ndash511 inPower and Ideology in Education edited byJerome Karabel and A H Halsey New YorkOxford University Press

Carter Prudence 2003 ldquordquoBlackrdquo Cultural CapitalStatus Positioning and Schooling Conflicts forLow-Income African American Youthrdquo SocialProblems 50136ndash55

Collins Sharon M 1989 ldquoThe Marginalization ofBlack Executivesrdquo Social Problems 36317ndash31

Cook Phillip and Jens Ludwig 1997 ldquoWeighingthe lsquorsquoBurden of lsquoActing Whitersquorsquorsquo Are ThereRace Differences in Attitudes TowardEducationrdquo Journal of Policy Analysis andManagement 16256ndash78

mdash- 1998 ldquoThe Burden of lsquoActing Whitersquo Do BlackAdolescents Disparage Academic Achieve-mentrdquo Pp 375ndash400 in The Black-White TestScore Gap edited by Christopher Jencks andMeredith Phillips Washington DC BrookingsInstitution Press

Crocker Jennifer and Brenda Major 1989 ldquoSocialStigma and Self-Esteem The Self-ProtectiveProperties of Stigmardquo Psychological Review96608ndash30

Danesi Marcel 1994 Cool The Signs and Meaningsof Adolescence Toronto University of TorontoPress

Darder Antonia 1991 Culture and Power in theClassroom A Critical Foundation for BiculturalEducation New York Bergin amp Garvey

Datnow Amanda and Robert Cooper 1997 ldquoPeerNetworks of African American Students inIndependent Schools Affirming AcademicSuccess and Racial Identityrdquo Journal of NegroEducation 6656ndash72

Dawson Michael 2001 Black Visions The Roots ofContemporary African-American Political Ideolo-gies Chicago University of Chicago Press

Deyhle Donna 1995 ldquoNavajo Youth and Anglo


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter

Racism Cultural Integrity and ResistancerdquoHarvard Educational Review 65403ndash44

Dolby Nadine 2001 Constructing Race YouthIdentity and Popular Culture in South AfricaAlbany State University of New York Press

Farkas George Robert P Grobe Daniel Sheehanand Yuan Shuan 1990 ldquoCultural Resources andSchool Success Gender Ethnicity and PovertyGroups Within An Urban School DistrictrdquoAmerican Sociological Review 55127ndash42

Farkas George Christy Lleras and Steve Maczuga2002 ldquoDoes Oppositional Culture Exist inMinority and Poverty Peer Groupsrdquo AmericanSociological Review 67148ndash55

Feagin Joe 1991 ldquoThe Continuing Significance ofRacerdquo American Sociological Review 56101ndash16

Ford Donna Y and J John Harris 1992 ldquoTheAmerican Achievement Ideology andAchievement Differentials Among Preadoles-cent Gifted and Nongifted African AmericanMales and Femalesrdquo Journal of NegroEducation 6145ndash64

Fordham Signithia 1988 ldquoRacelessness as aFactor in Black Studentsrsquo School SuccessPragmatic Strategy or Pyrrhic VictoryrdquoHarvard Educational Review 5854ndash84

Fordham Signithia and John Ogbu 1986 ldquoBlackStudentsrsquo School Success Coping with thelsquoBurden of Acting Whitersquordquo Urban Review18176ndash206

Fryer Roland and Paul Torrelli 2005 ldquoAnEmpirical Analysis of ldquoActing WhiterdquordquoUnpublished manuscript Harvard UniversityCambridge MA

Gans Herbert J 1962 The Urban Villagers Groupand Class in the Life of Italian-Americans NewYork Free Press

Gibson Margaret 1988 Accommodation WithoutAssimilation Sikh Immigrants in an AmericanHigh School Ithaca NY Cornell UniversityPress

Gordon Milton 1964 Assimilation in American LifeThe Role of Race Religion and National OriginsNew York Oxford University Press

Gurin Patricia and Edgar Epps 1975 BlackConsciousness Identity and Achievement NewYork John Wiley amp Sons

Hallinan Maureen T and Aage B Sorensen 1983ldquoThe Formation and Stability of InstructionalGroupsrdquo American Sociological Review 48838ndash51

Hochschild Jennifer L 1995 Facing Up to theAmerican Dream Race Class and the Soul ofthe Nation Princeton NJ Princeton UniversityPress

Horvat Erin and Kristine Lewis 2003 ldquoReassessing

the ldquoBurden of lsquoActing Whitersquordquo The Importanceof Peer Groups in Managing AcademicSuccessrdquo Sociology of Education 76265ndash80

Jencks Christopher and Meredith Phillips 1998The Black-White Test Score Gap WashingtonDC Brookings Institution Press

Jenkins Richard 1996 Social Identity LondonRoutledge

Kao Grace and Jennifer S Thompson 2003ldquoRacial and Ethnic Stratification in EducationalAchievement and Attainmentrdquo Annual Reviewof Sociology 29417ndash42

Kaufman Jonathan 1996 August 28 ldquoThe InnerCity Is a Magnet for Suburban Black TeensrdquoWall Street Journal p B1

Kinney David 1993 ldquoFrom Nerds to Normals TheRecovery of Identity among Adolescents fromMiddle School to High Schoolrdquo Sociology ofEducation 6621ndash40

Kirschenman Joleen and Kathryn M Neckerman1991 ldquolsquoWersquod Love to Hire Them Butrsquo TheMeaning of Race for Employersrdquo Pp 203ndash34in The Urban Underclass edited by ChristopherJencks and Paul E Peterson Washington DCBrookings Institution

Labov William 1972 Language in the Inner CityStudies in Black English VernacularPhiladelphia University of Pennsylvania Press

LaFramboise Teresa Hardin L K Coleman andJennifer Gerton 1993 ldquoPsychological Impactof Biculturalism Evidence and TheoryrdquoPsychological Bulletin 114395ndash412

Lamont Micheacutele 2000 The Dignity of WorkingMen Morality and the Boundaries of RaceClass and Immigration Cambridge MA andNew York Harvard University Press and RussellSage Foundation

Lamont Micheacutele and Viraacuteg Molnaacuter 2002 ldquoTheStudy of Boundaries in the Social SciencesrdquoAnnual Review of Sociology 28167ndash95

Landry Bart 1987 The New Black Middle ClassBerkeley University of California Press

Lareau Annette 2003 Unequal Childhoods ClassRace and Family Life Berkeley University ofCalifornia Press

Lee Stacey 1996 Unraveling the ldquoModel MinorityrdquoStereotype Listening to Asian American YouthNew York Teachers College Press

Lewin Tamar 2000 June 24 ldquoGrowing UpGrowing Apart Fast Friends Try to Resist thePressure to Divide by Racerdquo New York Times

Lewis Amanda E 2003 Race in the SchoolyardReproducing the Color Line in School NewBrunswick NJ Rutgers University Press

MacLeod Jay 1995 Ainrsquot No Makinrsquo It Aspirationsand Attainment in a Low-income NeighborhoodBoulder CO Westview Press


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


Massey Douglas Camille Charles Garvey F Lundyand Mary Fischer 2003 The Source of theRiver The Social Origins of Freshmen atAmericarsquos Selective Colleges and UniversitiesPrinceton NJ Princeton University Press

McCarthy Cameron 1993 Race Identity andRepresentation in Education New YorkRoutledge

McCracken Grant 1988 The Long InterviewNewbury Park CA Sage

McWhorter John 2001 Losing the Race Self-Sabotage in Black America New York HarperPerennial

Mehan Hugh Lea Hubbard and Irene Villanueva1994 ldquoForming Academic IdentitiesAccommodation without Assimilation amongInvoluntary Minoritiesrdquo Anthropology ampEducation Quarterly 2591ndash117

Meyerson Debra and Maureen Scully 1995ldquoTempered Radicalism and the Politics ofAmbivalence and Changerdquo OrganizationalScience 6585ndash600

Mickelson Roslyn 1990 ldquoThe Attitude-Achievement Paradox Among BlackAdolescentsrdquo Sociology of Education 6344-61

Moody James 2002 ldquoRace School Integrationand Friendship in Americardquo American Journalof Sociology 107679ndash701

Morgan Marcyliena 2002 Language Discourseand Power in African American CultureCambridge England Cambridge UniversityPress

Moss Philip and Chris Tilly 1996 ldquolsquoSoftrsquo Skills andRace An Investigation of Black MenrsquosEmployment Problemsrdquo Work andOccupations 23252ndash76

Neal-Barnett Angela 2001 ldquoBeing Black NewThoughts on the Old Phenomenon of ActingWhiterdquo In Forging Links African AmericanChildren Clinical Perspectives edited by AngelaNeal-Barnett Josefina M Contreras andKathryn A Kerns Westport CT Praeger

Neckerman Kathryn Elaine Marchena and CarlenPowell 1998 ldquoOppositional Culture and theDilemmas of Speaking Standard EnglishUnpublished manuscript ColumbiaUniversity New York

Oakes Jeannie 1985 Keeping Track How SchoolsStructure Inequality New Haven CT YaleUniversity Press

OrsquoConnor Carla 1997 ldquoDispositions Toward(Collective) Struggle and EducationalResilience in the Inner City A Case Analysis ofSix African-American High School StudentsrdquoAmerican Educational Research Journal34593ndash629

mdash- 1999 ldquoRace Class and Gender in America

Narratives of Opportunity Among Low-Income African American Youthsrdquo Sociology ofEducation 72137ndash57

Ogbu John U 1978 Minority Education and CasteNew York Academic Press

mdash- 1988 ldquoClass Stratification Racial Stratificationand Schoolingrdquo Pp 163-82 in Class Race andGender in American Education edited by LoisWeis Albany State University of New York Press

mdash- 1991 ldquoImmigrant and Involuntary Minoritiesin Comparative Perspectiverdquo Pp 3ndash33 inMinority Status and Schooling A ComparativeStudy of Immigrant and Involuntary Minoritiesedited by John U Ogbu and Margaret AGibson New York Garland

mdash- 2004 ldquoCollective Identity and the Burden ofldquoActing Whiterdquo in Black History Communityand Educationrdquo Urban Review 361ndash35

Ogbu John U and Herbert D Simons 1998ldquoVoluntary and Involuntary Minorities ACultural-Ecological Theory of SchoolPerformance with Some Implications forEducationrdquo Anthropology and EducationQuarterly 29155ndash88

Patton Michael Q 1990 Qualitative Evaluation andResearch Methods Newbury Park CA Sage

Perry Pamela 2002 Shades of White White Kidsand Racial Identities in High Schools DurhamNC Duke University Press

Phinney Jean and Mona Devich-Navarro 1997ldquoVariations in Bicultural Identification AmongAfrican American and Mexican AmericanAdolescentsrdquo Journal of Research onAdolescence 73ndash32

Portes Alejandro and Kenneth L Wilson 1976ldquoBlack-White Differences in EducationalAttainmentrdquo American Sociological Review41414ndash31

Portes Alejandro and Min Zhou 1993 ldquoThe NewSecond Generation Segmented Assimilationand Its Variantsrdquo Annals of the AmericanPolitical and Social Sciences 53074ndash96

Rist Ray 1977 The Urban School Factory forFailure A Study of Education in AmericanSociety Cambridge MA MIT Press

Sager H Andrew and Janet W Schofield 1984ldquoIntegrating the Desegregated SchoolProblems and Possibilitiesrdquo Advances inMotivation and Achievement 1203ndash41

Sellers Robert M Stephanie Rowley Tabbye MChavous Nicole J Shelton and Mia Smith1997 ldquoMultidimensional Inventory of BlackIdentity A Preliminary Investigation ofReliability and Construct Validityrdquo Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 73805ndash15

Sellers Robert M Mia A Smith J Nicole SheltonStephanie A J Rowley and Tabbye M


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

Chavous 1998 ldquoMultidimensional Model ofRacial Identity A Reconceptualization ofAfrican American Racial Identityrdquo Personalityand Social Psychology Review 218ndash39

Solorzano Daniel 1992 ldquoAn Exploratory Analysisof the Effects of Race Class and Gender onStudent and Parent Mobility AspirationsrdquoJournal of Negro Education 6130ndash44

Stanton-Salazar Ricardo D 1997 ldquoA Social CapitalFramework for Understanding theSocialization of Racial Minority Children andYouthsrdquo Harvard Educational Review 671ndash40

Sussman Nan 2000 ldquoThe Dynamic Nature ofCultural Identity Throughout CulturalTransitions Why Is Home Not So SweetrdquoPersonality and Social Psychology Review4355ndash73

Tajfel Henri 1982 Social Identity and IntergroupRelations Cambridge England CambridgeUniversity Press

Tyson Karolyn William Darity and DominiCastellino 2005 ldquoItrsquos Not lsquoa Black ThingrsquoUnderstanding the Burden of Acting Whiteand Other Dilemmas of High AchievementrdquoAmerican Sociological Review 70582ndash605

Waters Mary C 1999 Black Identities West IndianImmigrant Dreams and American Realities NewYork and Cambridge MA Russell SageFoundation and Harvard University Press

Willis Paul 1981 Learning to Labor How WorkingClass Kids Get Working Class Jobs New YorkColumbia University Press

Yon Daniel 2000 Elusive Culture Schooling Raceand Identity in Global Times Albany StateUniversity of New York Press

Zhou Min and Carl L Bankston 1998 GrowingUp American How Vietnamese Children Adaptto Life in the United States New York RussellSage Foundation

Prudence L Carter PhD is Associate Professor Department of Sociology Harvard University Hermain fields of interest are education culture and identity race class and gender She is currentlyconducting a comparative international study of ethnicity culture and group dynamics in SouthAfrican and US schools She is the author of Keepinrsquo It Real School Success Beyond Black andWhite (Oxford University Press 2005)

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (SBR-9801981) andthe Spencer Foundation Thanks to Sheldon Danziger Mary Corcoran and the Ford FoundationProgram on Poverty the Underclass and Social Policy for office and resource support during this arti-clersquos conception For comments and suggestions on various versions of this article I thank JamesAinsworth-Darnell Tony Brown Darrick Hamilton Lori Hill Reena Karani James S Jackson JenniferLee Roslyn Mickelson Amanda Lewis and Karolyn Tyson Earlier versions of this article were pre-sented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association SeattleWashington and at the Malcolm Wiener Inequality and Social Policy Seminar JFK School ofGovernment Harvard University Address correspondence to Prudence L Carter Department ofSociology Harvard University 33 Kirkland Street 504 William James Hall Cambridge MA 02138e-mail plcarterwjhharvardedu

328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925


From academic texts to newspaper arti-cles scholars and writers have contendedwith identity-based and cultural explanationsfor the observed achievement gap amongAfrican American Latino and white students(Datnow and Cooper 1997 Ford and Harris1992 Jencks and Phillips 1998 Lewin 2000)One of the most popular cultural explana-tions that has been offered is the resistance-to-acting-white thesis With the 1986 publi-cation of their often-cited and well-receivedarticle Fordham and Ogbu (1986) definedthe contours of a continuous debateSpecifically they discussed how AfricanAmerican students residing in an impover-ished neighborhood in Washington DCcame to define achievement-oriented behav-iors and attitudes as acting white and weretherefore resistant to studying hard and get-ting good grades Fordham and Ogbu con-cluded that many African American studentshave come to perceive high academicachievement as the territory of white stu-dents since whites are believed to be the pri-mary beneficiaries of opportunity in US soci-ety Hence African American students theyargued perceive academic excellence as aform of whiteness

The acting-white thesis exemplifies a cer-tain component of Ogbursquos cultural-ecologicaltheory one of the most dominant theoreticalframeworks in the race culture and achieve-ment literature explaining why ldquoinvoluntaryrdquoor native minority students perform less wellin school than do ldquovoluntaryrdquo or immigrantminority students Briefly Ogbu (1978 19881991 see also Fordham and Ogbu 1986Ogbu and Simons 1998) posited that thedescendents of persons who were involuntar-ily brought to the United States via slaveryconquest or colonization react negatively tocontinual experiences with subjugationracism and discrimination And as a form ofcollective resistance these descendants rejectbehaviors that are considered to be theprovince of the dominant white middle classConsequently they develop a cultural identi-ty that departs from that of middle-classwhites which these students view as threat-ening to their minority identity and groupsolidarity (Ogbu 199116 20045)1

The prevalent narratives about native

minoritiesrsquo school achievement generallytend to differ from those of some immigrantminority youths who are more often charac-terized as assimilative and willing to subscribeto the cultural codes of academic success(Gibson 1988 Ogbu and Simons 1998Waters 1999 Zhou and Bankston 1998)Some researchers however have been care-ful to explode the ldquomodel minorityrdquo mythand to note the diversity in educational expe-riences and ethnic orientations within immi-grant minority groups (Lee 1996) For exam-ple segmented assimilation theorists haveargued that depending on contextual andsocial factors immigrant minority youths canpursue a mobility trajectory by emulatingmiddle-class white society (acculturation)availing themselves of resources in a produc-tive ethnic enclave or undermining theirattainment by adopting the adversarial stanceof a downwardly mobile native minority cul-ture (Portes and Zhou 1993) Nonethelessthe spectrum of cultural orientation and iden-tity as it pertains to school achievement isseemingly much wider and more diverse forimmigrant students than for native minoritystudents

When researchers apply binary markers toethnic and racial minority studentsmdashforexample native minority versus immigrantminority oppositional minority versus modelminority acting black versus acting whitemdashtheir explanations frequently obscure the het-erogeneous cultural and educational experi-ences of students within various ethnoracialgroups While psychologists have conceptual-ized and observed multiple dimensions in theidentities of African Americans (Phinney andDevich-Navarro 1997 Sellers et al 1998)many sociological studies have tended tomask the diversity in academic experiencesand cultural approaches especially whenthey did not analyze the behavioral variationswithin these groups

This article reports on an investigation of thefollowing questions (1) How do low-incomeAfrican American and Latino youths negotiatethe boundaries between school and peer-group contexts (2) Do variable forms of nego-tiation exist (3) If so what are they and howdo they manifest In addressing these ques-tions I also posit two arguments that directly


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

306 Carter









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

308 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925






METHODS




Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

310 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

306 Carter









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

308 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925






METHODS




Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

310 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

308 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925






METHODS




Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

310 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

308 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925






METHODS




Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

310 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925






METHODS




Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

310 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

310 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

312 Carter



FINDINGS





Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

lMai

nstr

eam

ers

(n=

5)4

63O

ptim

istic

336

Mix

ed90

b10

010

0

Cul

tura

lStr

addl

ers

(n=

25)

417

Op

timis

tic3

10M

ixed

8084

89

Non

com

plia

nt(n

=38

)4

33O

ptim

istic

276

cM

ixed

7382

55d

aG

PAs

are

base

don

lyon

the

num

ber

ofth

ose

inse

cond

ary

scho

olat

the

time

ofth

ein

terv

iew

sb

Sign

ifica

ntm

ean

diffe

renc

esam

ong

allt

hree

grou

ps

(p=

00)

c

Mar

gina

llysi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

psmdash

plt

10

dSi

gnifi

cant

mea

ngr

oup

diffe

renc

esbe

twee

nth

eno

ncom

plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925










Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

2M

ean

Ab

stra

ctan

dC

oncr

ete

Educ

atio

nal

Att

itud

esan

dG

PAs

by

Rac

ialI

deo

log

ical

Ori

enta

tion

(1=

very

stro

ng

pes

sim

ism

to5

=ve

ryst

ron

gop

tim

ism

)

Mea

nM

ean

Perc

enta

gePe

rcen

tage

Abs

trac

tC

oncr

ete

Asp

iring

Exp

ecte

dA

ttitu

deO

vera

llA

ttitu

deO

vera

llM

ean

toA

tten

dto

Att

end

Gro

upSc

ore

Ass

essm

ent

Scor

eA

sses

smen

tG

PAa

Col

lege

Col

lege

Cul

tura

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Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

314 CarterTa

ble

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plia

ntbe

lieve

rsan

dth

eot

her

two

grou

ps


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925









Samurai No






Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

316 Carter


















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Alberto Yeah







Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

318 Carter












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

320 Carter











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925











Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

322 Carter








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925








Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

324 Carter


NOTES












Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925







REFERENCES




















Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

326 Carter



































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

































Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925













328 Carter


Tue 13 Mar 2007 164925

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