Doing well in school can be coded by minority peers as betraying one’s culture
Evidence
According to Ogbu, due to a history of inferiorization, involuntary immigrants may see limited value in schooling. Rather, many see schools as trying to take their cultures and identities from them. As a result, these students often openly resist the agenda of school. Students who conform to culture of school may in turn be put down by their peers. In the case of African American students, Fordham and Ogbu found evidence that doing well in school is often seen as “acting white” (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986). This concept is highly controversial among both scholars and African Americans. Some writers point out that most African American students voice the belief that school is important to their future. However, this may be more a result of students saying what they think they are supposed to say, while their actual behaviors of avoiding schoolwork and refusing to attend suggest very different actual attitudes. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1300
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Academic achievement carried social shame in teenage peer culture — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 135; Educated colonial subjects doing well assimilating get punished with inferiority when rejected — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 343; Peer racial solidarity among non-white classmates can rescue assimilating minorities — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness: Iranian…, 14 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Educated colonial subjects doing well assimilating get punished with inferiority when rejected
#corroborates(0.88) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 343 - Academic achievement carried social shame in teenage peer culture
#corroborates(0.85) — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 135 - Peer racial solidarity among non-white classmates can rescue assimilating minorities
#complicates(0.78) — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 14