Minority Status, Oppositional Culture, & Schooling (review)

Efforts to define, understand, and address the academic achievement gap between White and African American students have, over the past 50 years, been tireless and have involved many researchers. Still, this achievement gap exists.

Foundational and distinctive research toward understanding the achievement gap from an ethnocentric perspective, first conducted by John Ogbu about 30 years ago, has generated considerable discussion about the pros and cons of his methods and the validity of his results. Ogbu’s work on this book was interrupted by his death. Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, a colleague whom he had earlier mentored, completed the book from his notes, occasionally writing some original text but doing so in his voice. As part of this 30-year conversation, which is still in progress, Ogbu included articles by those whose research does not confirm his results and invited other chapters from those who both agreed and disagreed with him.

Ogbu approached his research as an anthropologist, becoming part of the communities he researched for years at a time to gain the trust of his research subjects. From this mode of research, Ogbu developed the Cultural-Ecological Model (CEM). Ogbu’s ethnocentric theory is based on his understanding of the influence of collective identity and cultural frame of reference on the academic achievement of African American students. Ogbu determined that the home and social culture of African American students is alternative and oppositional to classroom culture.

He distinguished between voluntary and involuntary immigrants, determining that involuntary immigrants such as African Americans have experienced significantly more systemic oppression. As involuntary immigrants, African American students have formed an oppositional culture in response to historical and systemic oppression and, as a result, do not believe that educational credentials will give them the same access to opportunity that these credentials give their White peers. According to Ogbu’s research, to participate in the educational system is to forego one’s African American culture, to “act White” (p. 52). Ogbu also believes that discrimination in the classroom contributes to African American students’ low academic achievement.

The six parts of this book consider Ogbu’s work from a different perspective. The first section has six chapters, all authored by Ogbu, specifically for this volume. They outline Ogbu’s research and the Cultural-Ecological Model that resulted. Chapter 1 details Ogbu’s understanding of oppositional culture, how it develops, and its implications for African American student behavior in the classroom. Ogbu presents the CEM theory as consisting of two concepts: (a) the White system/ school and society, and (b) minority community forces (p. 11). Ogbu also discusses the work of Signithia Fordham, with whom he collaborated on a 1986 article in The Urban Review, as there is some overlap in their research.

In Chapter 2, Ogbu describes his concept of collective identity. Chapter 3 describes and defends his qualitative ethnographic research methods as appropriate to the questions he was trying to answer and the behaviors he was trying to understand. Ogbu then delves into the issue of peer pressure and African American students’ response to it. Although he does not consider “acting White” central to his theory, Ogbu spends considerable time discussing the concept and describing what behaviors and attitudes comprise “acting White” (e.g., hanging around White students and speaking Standard English).

Part 2 reviews the concept of collective identity, a key feature of Ogbu’s model. It also reports research by others that either supports or identifies problems with Ogbu’s model. Many of these additional researchers have tried to use quantitative methods on aspects of Ogbu’s qualitative research to determine if the results are replicated. Methodology lies at the heart of much of the academic debate about Ogbu’s work: Are his results generalizable?

The variety of research represented is impressive. David A. Bergin and Helen C. Cooks report interviews of 38 students who had strong ethnic identity and also strong academic achievement, thus questioning Ogbu’s theory that African American students reject academic...