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Are black students really afraid of 'acting white'?
Algernon Austin | Posted May 2, 2008 12:12 AM
Twenty years ago, a study in a Washington D.C. high school claimed that black students did not achieve academically because of a fear of being perceived as "acting white." Contrary to that popular stereotype, much of the evidence suggests that black students value education more than whites.
Algernon Austin is director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute.
Nothing succeeds like stereotypes. Anti-black stereotypes are especially powerful. Take, for example, the now popular claim that black students don't value education. This claim has been repeated over and over again in spite of the fact that there is a mountain of evidence against it.
In 1986, in an Urban Review article, two scholars studying a Washington D.C. high school claimed that black students did not achieve academically because of a fear of being perceived as "acting white." People pounced so quickly on this idea that they failed to realize that the researchers did not actually present any black students who said they were afraid of being called "white."
Of the eight students discussed in the article, four indicated that they were worried about being called "brainiacs." The other four raised other issues. A fear of "acting white" was the researchers' highly debatable interpretation of what was going on, but it was not a direct quotation.
Many white students have been called "brainiac," "nerd," "geek," and similar names by other white students. It is unfortunate that students tease and bully each other. But this is not "a black thing." The real question therefore is whether academically-oriented teasing is more common among black students than among whites. There is no convincing evidence that this is the case. A 2003 study by the Girl Scout Research Institute, for example, found equal levels of concern about school-related teasing among black and white girls.
What about pro-school attitudes? Contrary to the popular stereotype, much of the evidence suggests that black students value education more than whites. The same year the Urban Review article was published, the Monitoring the Future survey found that 74 percent of black high school seniors believed that getting good grades was of "great" or "very great importance," but only 41 percent of white seniors felt as strongly. Half of black seniors reported that knowing a lot about intellectual matters was of "great" or "very great importance," but only one-fifth of white seniors felt the same.
Other and more recent surveys have had similar results. A 2006 survey by Public Agenda found that black students were more likely than white students to believe that "increasing math and science education would improve high school." The Higher Education Research Institute's 2006 survey of college freshmen found that the majority-black students at historically black colleges were more likely to aspire to obtain a Ph.D. than college freshmen generally.
Different organizations asking different questions of different black students at different times have all come to the same conclusion: black students value education. Despite the fact that these surveys are based on interviews of hundreds of black students from nationally-representative samples, none of them has been deemed as newsworthy as that study with four students worried about being called "brainiacs."
I can imagine some critics arguing that it doesn't matter what black students say, what matters is what they do. They might point out that black students have lower levels of academic achievement than white students. This is true, but it is only a part of the achievement story. One has to look at the trends in academic achievement, not just the one-time snapshots.
Since the 1970s, the best standardized tests have shown a greater increase in black students' scores than in white students' scores. The long-term trend National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math test for eight graders, for example, shows a 14 point gain for white students but a 34 point gain for black students. There remains a large gap in scores on this test, but it was 20 points larger in the 1970s.
There are similar results for the long-term trend NAEP reading test, for the National Assessment of Adult Literacy test, the General Social Survey vocabulary test and other standardized exams. If black students are rejecting education left and right, why are their test scores increasing?
What the current academic research shows is that much of the black-white achievement gap exists prior to first-grade, many years before academic teasing begins. This gap is due to broad social and economic disadvantages among black families in comparison to white families. The gap grows during school years because these disadvantaged black students then attend schools of lower quality than white students.
Adults concerned about raising black student achievement have two options: we can get back into the civil rights business of confronting the social and economic inequalities that produce the achievement gap or we can cling to convenient stereotypes and keep on blaming black students. Blaming black students certainly means less work for us.
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Nico commented on Are black students really afraid of 'acting white'?:
What is "acting white"? This is the 21st Century. Please join us at your leisure.... -
Purl Gurl commented on Are black students really afraid of 'acting white'?:
Algernon, your article is a very good read. I much enjoy your sharing thoughts with readers. I will... -
alicia banks commented on Are black students really afraid of 'acting white'?:
excellent column sir! any teacher will tell you that MOST students of ALL races are anti-intellectu... -
Mr. FAMU commented on Are black students really afraid of 'acting white'?:
Yawn, When I was in high school I was one of the only black students in all the Honors and AP classe... -
Annabella commented on Are black students really afraid of 'acting white'?:
Give me a break, at these bad schools in the inner city, I doubt if anyone is called 'acting white" ...
May 2, 2008 5:49 AM
Okay, so black kids bully other black kids equally as whites with taunting names like "brainiac," "nerd," "geek,".
What's the point? Black folks are so far behind that our children ought to be brought up to RESPECT not denigrate what used to be grounds for denial and even death; an education. What an ignorant piece of tripe this article is.
May 2, 2008 9:17 AM
Give me a break, at these bad schools in the inner city, I doubt if anyone is called 'acting white" that is one played out theory. Now its everyone of all races 'acting black.' And, to keep it real, the educators of these children come in with stereotypes that black kids can't learn and are 'acting black' when they can't teach them. Being poor is only part of the issue.
The only thing that is going to change education is better schools that are funded equally, and, the low expectations of black boys in particular dealt with. And, parents need to be involved from day one. It has nothing to do with 'acting white' it has to be doing the right thing for all kids, no matter the race, since getting a good education should have no labels and certainly not one with race attached to it.
May 2, 2008 11:26 AM
Yawn, When I was in high school I was one of the only black students in all the Honors and AP classes. And you know what? It wasnt about acting white. It was about outshining white kids every chance I had and I did. If anything I knew I was "acting" just as black as I wanted to and that was super intelligent. Please acting white? If anything they were trying to act like me.
And now that I attend an HBCU "acting white" is a concept that never even crosses my mind. Striving for academic excellence is not a tribute of one race or ethnicity buddy.
PS: Go to most schools all of the smart kids are the COOL kids. Being a geek or a nerd is def not a liability these days. When everyone is trying to get in the top college of their choice.
May 2, 2008 1:47 PM
excellent column sir!
any teacher will tell you that MOST students of ALL races are anti-intellectual and underachieving...it is only the racist media that paint toxic students as exclusively black
all american "students" are global jokes!
and
NCLB has dumbed down all students even further...
thanks for debunking this racist myth!
peace
ab
May 2, 2008 8:47 PM
Algernon, your article is a very good read. I much enjoy your sharing thoughts with readers.
I will add some thoughts for you and will disagree with one point you make.
Improving our peoples' average educational level and improving the quality of our educational system is an extremely complex task. We should not attempt to address specific issues rather we should attempt to address a myriad of issues.
As a public school teacher and an English professor for many years, I can add some brief issues for you, keeping in mind I am only writing about a handful of issues out of my myriad of issues.
Enjoying pre-school attendance, as you hint, is very critical. Providing a pre-school experience for a child makes a dramatic difference. Those kids who attend pre-school always, literally always perform much better in school. Your words, "...black-white achievement gap exists prior to first-grade...." are quite true but not quite accurate. Yes, there are gaps exhibited per ethnic background but more important is a gap in school performance between those children who attended pre-school and those who did not. Children who attend pre-school always do better regardless of culture. Your point is very important; once a child is behind at an early age, always behind from childhood to adulthood.
Parental involvement is highly critical. Education begins at home, not at school. My experience is a large majority of parents are not willing or not able to participate in a child’s education. In more cases, though, parents are simply not willing to take part in a child’s education. During my teaching career, I developed a bad attitude, was always angry with so many parents unwilling to meet with me, unwilling to help me develop effective individual lesson plans for their children. My parent-teacher conference requests were almost always ignored by parents.
Funding is laughable. Most teachers spend ten percent to twenty percent of their paychecks to buy school supplies for their students. As you know, teachers are sorely underpaid. A good chunk of my paycheck went to pencils, paper, copy supplies, even books. During my last ten years of teaching I only enjoyed about twenty-five books to service four to five classes. Students can no longer take school books home. Twenty-five books on the average and some of my classes averaged forty students per class. Obvious problem, yes? Shoot, I had to pay five cents per page for copying material for students. I ended up buying a refurbished old fashion “blue ink” ditto machine so I could afford to make copies of material for students to take home and keep.
When a budget crunch, such as today, what is the first budget slashed? Education.
Administrators are not friends to education. For each class, I would spend one-fourth of my class time taking care of administrative business. I had to take roll to be sure our school received money based on head count, had to give students “principal messages” to take home, had to read whatever announcements, then tackle a stack of paperwork from administration, nurse’s office, from counseling, on and on. The administration end of our schools is very hostile to teachers. Administers are thought to be traitors, thought to have gone over to the dark side. Administrators have absolutely no business being in a classroom; they are not teachers.
Discipline is another critical problem. There was a day we could discipline students. Today, we are not allowed to even raise a voice to children, much less touch a student. Know what happens when a teacher sees a student fight? Teachers turn a blind eye and walk in different direction for fear of being sued because of touching students to break up a fight. Another fourth of classroom time is lost to discipline, better, a legally mandated lack of discipline. A majority of administrators, this is, a principal or a vice-principal, will refuse to support teacher discipline efforts for the same reason; fear of being sued. I could tell you horror stories about being brought before a school board, even being sued, for my working at effective firm but fair discipline.
Home environment is a big issue. Today, so many dysfunctional families, so much alcoholism, so much abuse. The moment a child is born to this type of family, this child does not stand a chance in life, this child is forever damaged by a lack of a good loving family life.
Algernon, I could continue listing literally thousands of issues like this which effect all children regardless of ethnic background. However, I will move to some issues important to your black community.
During the latter years of my teaching career, I moved over to a district which was quickly growing through an influx of mostly black people from the Los Angeles region. These were people looking to escape urban strive of inner-city Los Angeles. My new district was a mix of suburban and rural which is a lifestyle quite alien to a previous urban lifestyle. Parents intended to escape from problems but ended up bringing problems with them. Teachers were overwhelmed with this new class of peoples; we did not well know how to deal with urban issues being so removed. Parents and students coming in from Los Angeles, soon created the same problems from which they wished to escape. Being candid, new arrivals could not shake off the behaviors learned while living within inner-city regions of Los Angeles.
These are some points I learned from this inner-city influx.
Black students who did not do well, tended to move into the rap-gangster type of behavior. Hispanic students who did not do well moved into the street gang type of behavior. White students who did not do well moved into the rock&roll-drug type of behavior. Point here is new arrivals who failed in school, fell back to learned behaviors of inner-city life; parents failed to provide good role models, failed to shield children from bad street behaviors.
Those students who were successful, those who could adapt to a new lifestyle, well, you could look at grade books, look at essays, look at discipline records, and you could not spot any differences based on ethnic background. All students who did well all behaved much the same, no differences worthy of mention are found.
Academic achievement is not based in ethnicity. All children are equally capable.
Our problems are tied to living environment and tied to home environment. Our problems are tied to values taught or lack of values taught to children by parents.
Algernon, I could drop a black kid, a Hispanic kid, an Asian kid, a white kid, drop any “color” of kid into a rough and disadvantaged inner-city lifestyle and all would suffer the same negative effects and all would turn out about the same.
Ethnicity is not an issue in education. Environment is the issue.
My disagreement with you, on a single point, is effecting a civil rights movement to better the lives of black children. I understand you represent Black America and I sincerely appreciate this. Nonetheless, we should not address a single ethnic group, we should address all of our American children. Our education system is broken, we need to fix our education system for all of our children. This is the only viable approach to resolution of these problems in education and these challenges which confront all children.
We can begin to fix our education system by first solving poverty. The environment in which our children live is the most critical factor in education. We must solve poverty, we must educate parents, we must improve home life for all children, not just the few. We must break this generational cycle, break this hand-me-down poverty and ignorance cycle. Only after we defeat poverty and defeat bad living conditions, can we address problems in our educational system.
We are not born racist, we are not born hateful, we are not born criminal, we are taught those notions by our parents. We must break this generational cycle of “hand-me-down” lifestyles.
I much enjoy reading your articles, Algernon. Please keep contributing.
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
May 5, 2008 5:13 AM
What is "acting white"?
This is the 21st Century. Please join us at your leisure.