I posted this in the News and Politics board... But I thought I would post it here too...
Intersting huh?
Black Students Not Culturally Biased Against Academic Achievement, Duke University Researcher Says
DURHAM, N.C., Oct. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- Contrary to popular
belief, most black students do not carry a cultural bias against high achievement into the classroom.
Instead, new research shows that an anti-achievement attitude
develops over time and is most likely to occur in schools where blacks are grossly underrepresented in the most challenging courses, said Duke University public policy professor William "Sandy" Darity Jr.
"Oppositional attitudes are not 'learned in the black community,'
as some have suggested, but are instead constructed in schools under certain conditions," Darity said.
Darity is research professor of public policy studies, African-American studies and economics at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute
of Public Policy. He also has an appointment in economics at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The findings counter a commonly held belief, voiced in recent
months by such prominent black Americans as politician Barack Obama and entertainer Bill Cosby, that black students are culturally predisposed to limit their scholastic success and worry that excelling will prompt peers to accuse them of "acting white," Darity said.
Darity's conclusions are based on research conducted in North
Carolina from 2000 to 2001 with Karolyn Tyson, sociology professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, and Domini Castellino, a research scientist and psychologist with Duke's Center for Child and Family Policy.
Race-related pressure to avoid or disparage academic challenges
did not exist at the elementary grades, the research showed. Rather, researchers found that adolescents in North Carolina harbor a general sentiment against high academic achievement, regardless of race. Researchers documented race-related oppositional attitudes at only one of 11 schools where they interviewed students.
"Our explanation for this finding centers on the extent to which
'rich' white students were overrepresented in rigorous courses and programs, a situation that breeds animosity and resentment among the many toward the privileged few," Darity said.
The research suggests that animosity toward high-achieving
students - regardless of race - grows over time and develops from a general concern among elementary-age students about arrogance to a more focused concern among adolescents about academic inequities between status groups.
"Outsiders who are able to cross the achievement boundary, which is often established during the primary grades through gifted programs, are sometimes seen by others as interlopers, intruding on a world not meant for people like them," the study reports.
The research project, titled "Breeding Animosity: The 'Burden of
Acting White' and Other Problems of Status Group Hierarchies on
Schools," looked at North Carolina course enrollment data, along with results of interviews with 125 students in elementary, middle and high schools, to identify factors related to low minority enrollment in gifted programs, honors classes and Advanced Placement classes.
Interviewers asked students a standard set of questions about
their grades, academic placement, course selections and attitudes toward school, learning and achievement, as well as other aspects of the school experience. Teachers, administrators and counselors also were interviewed. The research report is under review for publication and is available online at
http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/people/f...ty/SAN04-03.pdf
Hmmmmm interesting...
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