John U. Ogbu
• Research Question: How do African Americans interpret
and respond to cultural and language differences based
on the nature of their collectivity or group experience?
– Examining educational beliefs and behaviors of different minority
groups and why they believe and behave as they do
• Cultural-ecological theory: focus on the historical,
economic, social, cultural, and language situations of
minority groups (adaptations to US society and minority
status)
– The system
– Interpretation and response
• School adjustment and academic performance
The System and Community
• The System: the overall treatment of minorities
by U.S. society including instrumental
discrimination, relational discrimination, symbolic
discrimination
– Education policies such as school segregation,
unequal funding and staffing of schools
– Treatment of minorities in schools such as tracking
and low teacher expectations
– Unequal rewards for educational accomplishments
• The Community: the way a groups perceives
and responds to education as a result of their
histories in US
Explanations for the Achievement Gap
1.
Viewing education as a formula for preparation for
contemporary society vs. viewing education as a
process of assimilation and hegemony
2.
Presence in society as a product of choice vs. force
3.
Immigrant status (voluntary) vs. non-immigrant status
(involuntary)
4.
People’s understandings of the social reality that
guides their thoughts and actions
5.
These understandings support their behaviors and
performances in school
Adaptations and Education
Voluntary Minorities
Involuntary Minorities
• Positive dual frame of
reference
• Negative dual frame of
reference
• Folk theory: hard work,
following the rules, and getting
a good education result in
employment and success
• Folk theory: discrimination is
institutionalized and cannot be
overcome through hard work
and a good education
• Trusting relationships with
whites and white-controlled
institutions
• Distrusting relationships with
whites and white-controlled
institutions
• Different collective identity
• Oppositional collective identity
• Children held responsible for
achievement
• Schools and teachers held
responsible for achievement
Conclusions
• Involuntary minorities are doing less well in school than
voluntary minorities
– The system is responsible for some of these results
– Community forces and perceptions of education (involuntary
minorities) are responsible for some of these results
• Some Recommendations:
– Black community must help their children develop better
academic orientation and effort (trust and edu programs)
– Schools develop academic identities for black students through
clubs that recognize achievement
– Schools emphasize learning the curriculum for future jobs rather
than as a threat to one’s identity
– Schools need to address low teacher expectations
Ima- Testing the American Dream
• Model-Minority Myth: Asian students’
academic achievements surpass other
students of color and many times white
students due to family support and cultural
beliefs that emphasize education
– Implications
• Poor schooling outcomes are a result of
dysfunctional family practices
• The source and therefore the remedy of the
problem is not the schools themselves
Behind the Model-Minority Myth
• Significant groups of Asian immigrants are at risk of
school failure (Specifically Southeast Asian Refugees)
– Southeast Asian refugees as high achievers but many fail to
graduate and attain English fluency
– Cambodian Refugee and Latino drop-out rates are similar
– 2/3 of Southeast Asian students are limited English Proficiency
and therefore in lower tracks
– Southeast Asian refugees are more likely to enter postsecondary
school but less likely to be employed or in school 3 years after
graduation
– Surge in Asian gang activity in SD
Asian Immigrants and Education in San Diego
• Asian students make up 19% of enrollment in
SDCS (2/3 foreign born)
– Lack of adequate responses to newcomers in schools
• Lack of bilingual programs, bilingual personnel, primary
language materials resulting in unsuccessful English
submersion programs
• Lack of proper pedagogic techniques that address students’
cultures
• Lack of capacity to address the unique concerns of refugees
• Lack of funding to make the proper adjustements
History of Women’s Education in US
• Girls not granted any form of access to
education until 1767 (Providence Rhode Island)
• Women’s education focused on transforming
girls into strong, intellectually able mothers
(professionalizing motherhood)
• 1820’s High Schools for girls
• Coeducation as a result of financial necessity
• 1850’s Miner Normal School for Colored Girls
• Feminization of Teaching
Women and Higher Education
• 1833 Oberlin admits white men and women as well as
men and women of color
– Ladies Courses
– Duties of female students on campus: Wash men’s clothes, care
for their rooms, serve men at the tables, listening to orations,
general silence
• Elite Universities still opposed admittance of women
– Harassment and ridicule
– Maculinities and Femininities
– Devaluing of the system of higher education
• 1901 Johns Hopkins Medical School opened to women
– Increased opposition: craniology, impacts of study and
competition on reproduction
Social Change?
• Until the 1970’s women were funneled into 4 occupation
areas: secretarial, nursing, teaching, mothering
• 1972 Title IX – sex discrimination is schools as illegal
• 1978 Federal funding for sex equity research
• 1980’s Backlash
• Women in education today?
– Women in math and the “hard sciences”
– Women as tenured faculty?
– Commensurate pay between men and women with the same
degrees?