Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement (review)

Employing ethnographic traditions, Ogbu examined the academic experiences of Black American students in Shaker Heights, Ohio—an affluent suburb of Cleveland. The impetus for this research was an article in the high school newspaper that exposed the achievement gap between the Black and White students in the Shaker Heights school district. Accordingly, a group of concerned members in the Black community contacted Ogbu for guidance in addressing the achievement gap. This conversation led to an invitation to conduct a study on the school district. It is important to note that the study was jointly funded by the community and the school district.

Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb presents an interesting departure from traditional studies of the Black and White achievement gap. A trio of elements made this study uniquely different. First, the school district is considered to be one of the best in the nation. Second, Shaker Heights is an upper middle-class suburb with a median family income of $66,000. Third, Shaker Heights is a highly educated community with an estimated 61% of the residents over 25 years old holding at least a bachelor's degree. The presence of these three elements, which are traditionally used to explain the achievement gap, adds a perplexing dynamic to the research contained in this book.

The gap in academic achievement between Black and White students in Shaker Heights led to the fundamental question that guided this research: Why do Black students, who seemingly have the appropriate conditions of life that should lead to academic success, still perform far below their White counterparts? Interestingly, the academic performance of Blacks in Shaker Heights was above the state and national average for Black students.

The first chapter of this book describes the national context for the Black-White academic achievement gap. In addition, it includes a comparison of Blacks in Shaker Heights with other Blacks in the state and nation. Most importantly, in this chapter Ogbu acknowledges that the Black-White achievement gap was an important part of the fabric in Shaker Heights, and was often the topic of conversations within the community. Chapter 2 provides data on students' beliefs about what it took to make good grades. Ogbu discovered from student interviews that Black students considered Shaker Heights schools to be exceptionally good. In light on this finding, these students knew that they needed to work hard in order to do well in classes. In conversations with transfer students, they reported that the workload in Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) classes in their former schools was equivalent to the workload in the regular classes in Shaker Heights. Ogbu concludes from his analysis that Black students in the Shaker Heights' school district did not work as hard as they should to make better grades.

In chapter 3, Ogbu provides a discussion of the conventional explanations for the academic gap that he notes do not satisfactorily fit Shaker Heights. Previous explanations detailed in this chapter were: inadequate IQ, social status, racial segregation, teacher expectations, cultural differences and conflicts, and language-dialect differences and conflict.

Chapter 4 details race relations in Shaker Heights by chronicling the 1960s when White and Black residents organized the Community Association. The primary purpose was to prevent "White Flight" and to promote integrated housing, good race relations, and a good public school system with outstanding academic performance. Ogbu notes in this chapter that community members were afraid that the academic achievement gap was a potentially disruptive factor to racial harmony. Curiously, Blacks suggested that the self-image of harmonious race relations promoted a code of silence. Although there were racial problems in Shaker Heights, these problems were not for public discussion.

In a short chapter 5, Ogbu examines the beliefs of White Americans about Blacks' intellectual ability and how...