And then, I'm movin on...
as i said before, his core finding seems pretty innocent...he attempted to analyze a broad social phenomenon, but only had data for a small aspect of that phenomenon - then analyzed the data and found the impact limited to extreme minority situations for blacks and also found that the most popular low-achievers, in a W-sorta-way, were white kids at prep schools. go figure...
On page 18, Fryer writes, "Blacks and Hispanics with a GPA above 3.5 are actually losing other-race friends, exacerbating the effect of 'acting white' among this select group This result is troubling, as one would hope that high achieving minority students could find refuge among high achieving whites."
Refuge? refuge. - as in shelter or protection from danger or distress. I'll admit that I read on after that, but that about did it for me...the findings are cool - somewhat intuitive and the rest - well, it is what it is. By the way, the day i need to seek refuge among high achieving whites is the day i need to push up daisies - unless of course, these high achieving whites are on a high achieving black agenda and collaborating against other high achieving whites to serve a higher purpose...then it might be okay.
refuge...
i finally got around to reading fryer...i can see the utility of his basic premise...i will need to revisit the scope of policy implications - but his basic observation of the data could be interesting - it's the interpretation that is likely to be problematic for the following reasons:
Roland Fryer, Harvard professor, recently authored an empirical analysis of a "phenomenon" referred to as "acting white." In a nutshell, here it is...in integrated schools with large white majorities, black students receive two "signals" about behavior. The first signal is that academic success will "beget labor market success." The second signal is that behaviors associated with "acting white" will "induce peer rejection." The result, then, is that "racial differences in the relationship between peer group acceptance and academic achievement will exist and these differences will be exacerbated in arenas that foster more interracial contact or increased mobility..."
That sounds fairly straightforward. There are, however, a number of problems occasioned by the context of the discussion. Here is a partial list of some of the problems:
1) the author presumes to be contributing to "the racial achievement gap in education." the problem with this statement is that he does not define any of his terms...for example, if blacks are a race and whites are a race, then would the superior academic performance of African girls (better than white boys) in England serve as part of what Fryer terms "a vexing reality." If Asians are a race would their academic performance on a level that exceeds whites also be part of that vexing reality. If we are strictly talking the "achievement" of black students in the US, are we still talking about race - or are we talking about a national issue?
2) Achievement is not defined. Achievement occurs in many areas...for example, beyond the context of schools, black youth have created or redefined a number of multibillion dollar industries in the US since 1970. Music, film, fashion and professional athletics are three areas which have changed tremendously. The "racial achievement gap" in these areas might also be viewed as a vexing reality - depending on your perspective.
3) the author assumes that white Americans are not part of an anti-intellectual culture - but the data rejects this assumption...while the measures of popularity in public schools for white students suggest a correlation between achievement and popularity - take a look at the private school findings. the most popular white students in private schools have a gpa around 2.0...as a graduate of an elite private school, i can say this squares with my experience (the wealthiest kids were often the least inspired, most drugged out cats on campus)...moreover, the anti-intellectual approach of american's is legendary - check Alexis de Tocqueville or Bertrand Russell...there are some unresolved issues here to say the least.
4) the author admits to using the most narrowly prescriptive definition of "acting white" and admits the data set is not "robust" enough to capture the other elements. big problem - especially since I would maintain that academic achievement is the smallest part of "acting white" and little more than a corollary to behavior and practice.
5) the author uses a bit of intellectual slight of hand in reporting on studies done in previous years. he cites the neal and johnson (1996) study in suggesting that "eliminating the test score gap that exists at labor market entry may be a critical component of reducing racial wage inequality." this may or may not be true. what neal and johnson actually found was that hourly wages between blacks and whites differed by 24-26% without controlling for test scores; the differential decreased to 7-10% after controlling for test scores - BUT, the annual wage gap was 30% - with the control for test scores. so, fryer is a bit disinterested in telling the entire story...
6)the author assumes that students who attend the same schools reside in the same neighborhoods(p.15)...that's crazy...i have lived in new york city, pottstown, pa. and ann arbor, michigan - and spent a great deal of time in DC, Chicago, Syracuse, ny., Philly and numerous other places where students attended integrated schools but DID NOT live in the same neighborhoods. in fact, in this nation's larger schools, it is unlikely that these students live in the same neighborhoods - particularly when "race" is a variable.
that's all for now on this. next...the policy implications.
The Encarta website is taking advantage of the OPENSOURCE CLIMATE created in recent years (30+). This link constitutes an invitation to REWRITE - for a huge audience the massunderstandings of our time and our history. This could be interesting.
In a paper written with P. Torelli, Roland Fryer tackles the dreaded "acting white" syndrome. If you were to look at the press coverage of the article, you'd expect that Fryer and Torelli's paper breaks the back of the unbelievers--people like me, Ed Brown, and Dunovant.
Nope.
So on a suggestion from Dunovant I take a look at technorati for the first time (recognize, I'm not a blogger...I'm a scholar who blogs).
Marginal Revolution? Gets it wrong.
Lockjaw's Lair? Gets it wrong.
The California Patriot blog? Yep...them too.
I don't really feel like going through the entire list (which wasn't half as long as I thought it would be...Earl made it seem like there were HUNDREDS). But I'm willing to bet that the entries are all...off. Just like the ones above. I don't know whether these readers are clueless or something else is going on.
Here's the skinny. The paper's findings toss out the two most prominent theories of acting white--John Ogbu's oppositional culture theory, and McWhorter's theory (which actually is more of an anecdote than a theory). Fryer's argument is that there is a two stage signalling process occurring, where the things needed to succeed in the labor market are juxtaposed against the things needed to be popular. Getting information about both things, causes one to have to choose--be popular or be able to get a job.
His findings suggest that this dynamic really only occurs in ONE setting--integrated public schools with small black populations. It doesn't happen in private schools. Doesn't happen in majority black schools.
There are some problems with the paper. Perhaps the biggest one they cannot deal with. If the problem of 'acting white' is one that only occurs in schools where blacks represent a minority then they would have to deal with the possibility that the market itself is gamed. If we assume that the smartest students are the ones most likely to be in honors and ap classes, we have to think about the possibility that ap class spots are being allocated based on something other than merit. The political dynamics of the school setting should somehow be accounted for.
Earl links to an article written by lit professor Stanley Fish, arguing that composition students should be taught HOW to write as opposed to WHAT to write about.
One of the biggest problems that students have that I can see as both a parent and a college professor is that they don't know how to logically construct an argument using the English language. While black, brown, and poor kids of various ethnic backgrounds are hit hardest, this is an AMERICAN phenomenon.
I don't see this is as being an either-or thing. You should be able to teach content and form simultaneously. But what Fish is talking about is something a lot deeper than just giving people various models of essays. We should expect freshman comp students to be able to logically structure an argument. We shouldn't expect them to come out of that class knowing Ellison. Form should rule.
The entire basis of Brown vs. Board of Education was wrong in my opinion. Instead of arguing that black kids felt bad about themselves because they went to black schools, Thurgood et al should have argued that they weren't getting the resources. Black self-esteem isn't a significant problem...though the existence of stereotype threat is a signal exception. So while browsing for something else I come across the following abstract:
Ethnic identity was conceptualized into three categories: (1) unexamined, (2) searching for identity, and (3) achieved ethnic identity. Analyses of data collected from 12,386 adolescents showed that ethnic identity is an important qualifier of the relationships between independent variables of ethnicity and gender, and dependent variables of global self-esteem, academic self-confidence, and purpose in life. Whites and Native Americans had lower ethnic identity, and Blacks and Hispanics had higher ethnic identity. Asians and repondents of mixed ethnicity had intermediate levels of ethnic identity. The greater the ethnic identity, the higher the self-esteem, purpose in life and self-confidence. This mechanism applies to ethnic minorities and to women among whom achieved ethnic identity may blunt the negative effects of social denigration and stereotyping, and it applies to whites, too. The paper argues that multiculturalism in the schools can increase ethnic identity.