Identity and School Adjustment: Revisiting the Acting White Assumption
Author(s)
Spencer, Margaret Beale; Noll, Elizabeth; Stoltzfus, Jill; Harpalani, Vinay
Abstract
It has long been offered as an explanation for the achievement gap between White and African American students, that African American youth would do better if they adopted a Eurocentric cultural values system. Unfortunately, this theory, along with a great amount of the established literature on minority youth identity development, depends on a deficit-oriented perspective to explain the discrepancy between African American and White students. This is problematic because the perspective denies minority youth a culturally specific normative developmental perspective of their own, and instead, compares their experience to the normative developmental processes observed in White children. This article invalidates that perspective with a Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory approach to a study of 562 African American secondary school students (aged 11-16 yrs). These students, contrary to the traditionally offered “acting White” assumption, show high self-esteem and achievement goals in conjunction with high Afrocentricity. Further discussion of the study stresses the importance of considering the undeniable influence of culture and context.
