Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234 DOI 10.

1007/s11256-010-0158-6

Acting White: A Critical Review

Kitae Sohn

Published online: 17 April 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract The hypothesis of acting White has been heatedly debated and inuential over the last 20 years or so in explaining the BlackWhite test score gap. Recently, economists have joined the debate and started providing new theoretical and empirical analyses of the phenomenon. This paper critically reviews the arguments that have been advanced to support and refute the hypothesis. This review particularly covers the analyses in economics because the economic analyses are relatively new and usually neglected in other disciplines. Also, nationally representative data are emphasized, whenever possible, to improve the generalizability of the arguments. This review concludes that although the analyses in both noneconomics and economics are thought-provoking and compelling in some respect, a substantial body of empirical evidence is inconsistent with the assumptions of and results from the analyses. Keywords Acting White The BlackWhite test score gap Critical review

Introduction The average test score gap between Black and White students at the ages of 9, 13, and 17 was narrowed fast in the 1970s and early 1980s in both math and reading before reversing itself thereafter (Lee 2002). The size and pattern of the gap are of concern not only for educators but also economists. Economists have been keenly aware of the increasing importance of cognitive skills in determining the level and dispersion of wages (Murnane et al. 1995; Neal and Johnson 1996; Acemoglu 2002). Moreover, the current (cognitive) skill-biased technology is only expected to exacerbate further the wage inequality (Autor et al. 1998, 2008) unless demand for
K. Sohn (&) Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, 108 Yangjae Road, Seoul 137-747, Korea e-mail: ksohn@kiep.go.kr

123

218

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

skilled workers drops precipitously. If this trend is considered together with the growing test score gap, it is likely that the widening gap in test scores will result in a widening gap in wages. Considering the trend of the gap and its implications for wages and welfare, it is not surprising to observe a burst of papers on the subject in economics. For instance, a decade ago, Jencks and Phillips (1998) already collected papers written by researchers from diverse disciplines including economics and edited an arguably authoritative book in this literature, The BlackWhite Test Score Gap. More recently, using a new, nationally representative data set, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), two economists, Fryer and Levitt (2004, 2006), demonstrate that Black students experienced a widening test score gap from kindergarten through third grade. Among many possible hypotheses for the test score gap, one long-held hypothesis is the burden of acting White imposed on Black students. According to this hypothesis, Black students view academic excellence as something that belongs to White not Black students. Hence, any Black students who cross the boundary are ridiculed as acting White, and this fear of acting White leads to the underperformance of Black students. Although the term was used long before its popular usage (e.g. Frazier 1957; McArdle and Young 1970), its popularity is mostly attributable to Fordham and Ogbu (1986) and to the subsequent (over)simplication in the popular press (e.g. Hill 1990; Gregory 1992; Suskind 1994; Raspberry 2001). Since its popularization, the thesis has been debated mostly outside economics. As the debate became heated, the subject started inuencing the discipline of economics. Akerlof and Kranton (2002) briey mention the term in the context of identity in economics. More directly, Austen-Smith and Fryer (2005) introduce a theoretical analysis of acting White from an economists point of view. Also, Fryer and Torelli (2005) empirically assess the hypothesis to nd a negative relationship between popularity and academic achievement among Black adolescents. More than 20 years have passed since the term became widely circulated in public. As the impact of the hypothesis grows, a critical review is needed to evaluate its importance in explaining the test score gap in particular and to guide future research on the subject in general. Especially covering the analyses in economics, this paper critically reviews the arguments that have been put forth. The reasons for the particular coverage are as follows. The economic analyses are relatively new, and partly because of this, they are mostly neglected in other disciplines. Another reason for the neglect could be that the economic analyses seem to be too technical for a broader audience. And yet, the analyses have strong points worth considering. Most of all, they are constructed not to refute the hypothesis, as has generally been thus far, but to provide an alternative perspective on the phenomenon. The mechanism of the negative effect of acting White is not through culture as the original hypothesis posits but through incentive. The new mechanism allows empirically oriented researchers to estimate the effect of acting White more concretely because incentive is relatively easy to measure compared with culture. This paper attempts to make the economic analyses as accessible as possible to a larger audience. In addition to the coverage, this paper emphasizes nationally

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

219

representative data sets, whenever possible. Many studies that support or refute the hypothesis usually rely on ethnographical and interview data. This aspect of the studies, however, compromises the generalizability of their ndings. This paper is structured as follows: Section Non-economic analyses of acting White discusses the original hypothesis of acting White; Section Economic analyses of acting White examines an alternative perspective on the phenomenon in economics; Section Further issues explores further issues on the thesis; and Section Conclusion concludes.

Non-Economic Analyses of Acting White Fordham and Ogbu (1986) propose the original hypothesis of acting White in the context of the underperformance of Black students. Although this hypothesis is thought-provoking and compelling, as has been demonstrated in its wide and fast inuence in diverse academic disciplines and the popular press, the hypothesis was constructed based on an ethnographical study at one segregated high school (pseudonym, Capital High) in an impoverished neighborhood in Washington, DC. The small empirical base of the hypothesis requires broader empirical support for its generalizability. The original hypothesis will be briey described, followed by empirical checks. The Original Hypothesis of Acting White The broad conceptual framework of the burden of acting White proposed by Fordham and Ogbu (1986) is the interaction between dominance and resistance. In the context of school, the struggle is between Black students and the White society embodied in (mostly White) school authorities. According to the hypothesis, Black students are thrusted into the struggle to preserve historically constructed Black identity from the imposition of the dominant norms and values by the White society (Fordham 1996). More specically, Fordham and Ogbu (1986) start the hypothesis by classifying three types of minority groups: autonomous, immigrants, and subordinate minorities. The main distinction of interest is the last two categories. Immigrant (voluntary) minorities differ from subordinate (involuntary) minorities in that the former group voluntarily came to America, so their future perspective is optimistic. Asian Americans are a good example of this group. By contrast, subordinate minorities were involuntarily and permanently incorporated into the American society. Black Americans are the most notable example of this group, but also included are American Indians, Mexican Americans, and Native Hawaiians. Fordham and Ogbu (1986) trace the root of the burden of acting White to the preemancipation era.1 They argue that White Americans have provided Black Americans with inferior schooling. To make matters worse, White Americans have
1

Ogbu (2004) elaborated the historical background later, but the essential point is the same as the paper written by Fordham and Ogbu (1986).

123

220

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

rewarded Black Americans not properly reecting the educational achievement of the latter. In opposition to the maltreatment, Black Americans have developed a collective identity and a culture of opposition as a coping device. The culture delimitates attitudes and behaviors that belong to White Americans, and any Black Americans who cross the cultural boundary are accused of acting White or called Oreo. The fear of acting White, as the argument goes, prevents Black students from pursuing academic achievement vigorously. Fordham and Ogbu (1986) list examples that are identied as acting White at their ethnographic site, Capital High: (1) speaking standard English; (2) listening to White music and White radio stations; (3) going to the opera or ballet; (4) spending a log of time in the library studying; (5) working hard to get good grades in school; (6) getting good grades in school; (7) going to the Smithsonian; (8) going to a Rolling Stones concert at the Capital Center; (9) doing volunteer work; (10) going camping, hiking, or mountain climbing; (11) having cocktails or a cocktail party; (12) going to a symphony orchestra concert; (13) having a party with no music; (14) listening to classical music; (15) being on time; (16) reading and writing poetry; and (17) putting on airs, and so forth (p. 186). Because academic excellence is one type of acting White, Black students underachieve for the fear of peer accusation. Fordham (1988) even asserts that if Black Americans want to be successful at school or at work, they need to abandon the collective identity and embrace an individualistic outlook, i.e. wear a persona of racelessness. Hence, according to her, Black students face two choices: either to fail by identifying with the Black community or to succeed by dissociating from the Black community.

Counter-Arguments 1 There are ve critical nodes in the hypothesis to explain the test score gap: (1) a monolithic collective identity; (2) inferior school resources for Black students; (3) disadvantageous reward structures against Black Americans; (4) an oppositional culture towards education among Black students; (5) a negative relationship between popularity and academic achievement. This subsection assesses whether or not empirical evidence supports the rst four nodes. The last node will be discussed in detail in Sections Empirics and Counter-arguments 3. The hypothesis of acting White heavily relies on a monolithic collective identity among Black Americans. However, one brief observation easily calls this assumption into question. Both Fordham (1996) and Ogbu (2003) acknowledge that the parents of Black students want their children to be academically successful. Nationally representative data conrm this point (Cook and Ludwig 1998). The educational support by the parents of Black students appears inconsistent with an oppositional collective identity or oppositional cultural frame of reference asserted in the original hypothesis. Even if the assumption were correct, it is not obvious from the assumption alone why these two groups, Black students and their

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

221

parents, who shared the same collective identity, would have the conicting attitudes toward academic achievement. The hypothesis proceeds that White Americans have provided Black Americans with inferior schooling. This argument would be true if the period in question were before the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. Ever since this landmark decision, however, de jure school segregation has been prohibited, and it is not persuasive to place all the burden of the low performance of Black students on White Americans. De facto school segregation through residential segregation can be to blame for the inferior schooling of Black Americans, because, in general, back students in segregated schools usually study in poorer school environments compared with their White counterparts. Because de facto school segregation is related to residential segregation, it is difcult to separate the effects of school resources on academic achievement from those of family and neighborhood resources.2 Also, it is not entirely clear whether school desegregation benets or harms the academic performance of Black students (see Armor 1995 for a review). For example, one may argue that more school resources would help Black students to improve their academic performance. On the other hand, if Black students feel intimidated by White students in integrated schools, school integration could worsen the academic performance of Black students. Moreover, it is still open to debate whether more school resources directly enhance academic performance or its related outcomes (Burtless 1996). Note that most of the school desegregation took place between 1968 and 1972 and school desegregation was limited later on. And yet, the test score gap was narrowed until the early 1980s, far later than the period of vigorous desegregation. It is possible that the subsequent reduction is attributable to the lagged effects of school desegregation. Students in desegregated schools, however, did not outperform students in segregated schools in either the level or change of test scores (Armor 1992). Empirical evidence is also weak to substantiate the argument that Black Americans are not rewarded commensurate with their academic achievement. This argument could be true in the past when racial discrimination was formally or informally sanctioned (Tyack 1974). Time has changed, however. After a careful reading of available evidence, Heckman (1998) concludes that an earnings gap between Black and White Americans existed in the 1990s not because employers discriminated against Black workers but because Black workers brought a lower level of skills to the labor market. After estimating the returns to cognitive skills in a nationally representative data set, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, Neal (2006) concurs that there is no discrimination against Black workers in terms of the returns to cognitive skills. Instead, Black workers are rewarded more on their cognitive skills depending on the specications. Furthermore, there is no consistent evidence that Black students oppose education. Most of the evidence points to the other direction. Bergin and Cooks
2

From a recent randomized experiment, the Moving to Opportunity, Sanbonmatsu et al. (2007) nd that moving to a better neighborhood improves little, if any, Black students educational outcomes and attitudes toward school. The results are in contrast to the previous results from a quasi-experiment, the Gautreaux Program (Rosenbaum 1995).

123

222

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

(2002) nd that 38 relatively high-achieving African American and Mexican American students in various high schools in their interviews actually resisted the accusation of acting White and strived for high achievement. Nor did they deny their ethnic identity. Similarly, Wiggan (2008) interviewed high achieving Black students, who listed success factors in the school context and school processes. In an embedded micro-ethnography, Graham and Anderson (2008) also investigate the attitudes of three academically gifted Black students toward education to nd that they valued education and benets associated with it and showed a strong connection to their ethnicity. It could be argue that the sample of the interviewees in these studies is biased in favor of nding evidence against the hypothesis of acting White because all of them were high achievers, which excludes minority students who could have lowered academic performance for the fear of acting White. And yet, more evidence is weighed against the hypothesis. The educational aspiration of Black students is usually as high as or even higher than that of White students. Kao and Tienda (1998) interviewed students from two Chicago area high schools in 1994. They report that students who repeated a grade were teased more frequently than high-achieving students. To the surprise of supporters of the hypothesis, the high-achieving students in their study showed off their grades. Similarly, Spencer et al. (2001) nd in a longitudinal study of 562 Black youths in sixth to eighth grades, the Promotion of Academic Competence, that almost all Black male and female students indicated very bad or slightly bad on the statement, I unked a class. Studies drawing on nationally representative data also conrm that Black students do not show oppositional attitudes toward education. Using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS), Kao and Tienda (1998) demonstrate that Black students had a similar level of educational aspiration to that of White students. For instance, 41, 28.1, and 36.1 percents of Black boys wanted to graduate from college in eighth, 10th, and 12th grades, respectively. On the other hand, the corresponding gures for White students were 44.4, 33.1, and 36.6 percents. In addition, more Black female students in 10th and 12th grades wanted to graduate from college than White female students. With other covariates (e.g. family background, family structure, family resources, etc.) controlled for, both Black male and female students wanted to graduate from college more or no less than White students in all of the available grades. Hauser and Anderson (1991) report similar results with regard to both planning and aspiring to go to a 4-year college with another nationally representative data set, the Monitoring the Future. Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey (1998) also use the NELS to estimate that Black students were more likely to agree than White students to the statement, education is important for getting a job later on. Although teachers perceived that Black students put less effort in school and were more disruptive, Black students displayed more positive attitudes to school. For example, Black students had more favorable opinions about teachers, were stricter about rule-breaking (e.g. cheating), and tried hard more often in class. Cook and Ludwig (1998) corroborate this point with the same data set. Peterson-Lewis and Bratton (2004) are sympathetic with the acting White hypothesis by arguing that attributes for acting Black as well as against acting White

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

223

denigrate academic achievement. However, even if an oppositional culture to education exists among Black students whether in acting Black or not acting White, this culture does not exclusively belong to Black students. A similar type of culture has been documented extensively among students of other races and ethnics: White working-class students in a British Midland industrial town (Willis 1977), White working-class students in Detroit, Michigan (Eckert 1989), West Indian students in Toronto (Solomon 1992), Mexican students in Houston, Texas (Valenzuela 1999). Hemmings (1996) even observes that both Black and White students shared an oppositional culture in the same high school in a large mid-western city. In (mostly White) elite boarding schools, students who intensively studied were teased as Embryo Joes or Sweats (Cookson and Persell 1985, p. 105). Hence, Tyson et al. (2005, p. 582) aptly conclude that the stigma related to academic excellence is not a Black thing. Although all of the studies are based on samples of a small size, enough cases seem to have been accumulated to caution against any exclusive focus on Black students with regard to an oppositional culture to education. Considering the acting White hypothesis and counter-arguments against it together, it appears that both high-achieving and low-achieving Black students embrace Black identities. And yet, meanings they attach to the identities are different between both parties, which contradicts Assumption (1), namely, a monolithic identity among the Black. Hence, Nasir et al. (2009) observe that while the former identies Black with doing well in school, the latter associates school with negative characteristics depending on the local school setting. However, it should be noted that this nding does not prove that negative meanings attached to the identity cause low performance. Causality could run the other way to justify their low performance. Alternatively, some third factor could cause both negative meanings and low performance while negative meanings and low performance are not related at all. So far, it has been argued that the main assumptions of the hypothesis are hardly substantiated by empirical evidence. And yet, if Black students actually underachieve for the fear of acting White, this hypothesis is worth considering. Empirical evidence will be examined in Sections Empirics and Counter-arguments 3 regarding this nal and most important point of the hypothesis. Before the examination, however, an economic model will be discussed, on which the following empirical estimates are based.

Economic Analyses of Acting White Whereas the FordhamOgbu hypothesis relies on culture to explain the test score gap between Black and White students, incentive plays the major role in the economic analyses of the gap. However, the economic analyses are silent on how the incentive has been created and maintained if it exists. And yet, the analyses are worth examining because they can be applied to any group regardless of race, gender, social class, and so on as long as some assumptions are met. This exibility relaxes the constraint imposed on the culture-based hypothesis of acting White. In

123

224

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

this section, a theoretic model of acting White is described and discussed, which will be followed by empirical ndings based on the theory. Theory The FordhamOgbu thesis is essentially based on culture. On the other hand, Austen-Smith and Fryer (2005) view the phenomenon of acting White as an equilibrium issue. The basic set-up of their model is as follows. There exists a unitary peer group, which perceives no value in its members academic achievement. Also, each member is endowed with binary social ability (low and high) and continuous economic (or academic) ability. Both types of ability are not correlated, so it is allowed in the model that a smart student can be sociable and vice versa. The peer group accepts only members of the high type of social ability, namely sociable members. In addition, as a member has more economic ability, the member experiences less pecuniary and non-pecuniary costs of education. Wages are given as a product of economic ability and education. Hence, a member with high economic ability has more incentive to invest in education than a low-ability member does because their costs of education are relatively low and one additional year of education yields higher wages. Finally, every member likes to be accepted by the group and earns high wages, but depending on circumstances, some trade-off is necessary. Under this environment, when both types of ability are known only to oneself, the member invests in education after taking into account his type of social ability and the cost-benet of education. If the member has sufciently high economic ability to succeed in school, he invests in education regardless of his social ability because the forgone wages are too high to be compensated by peer group acceptance. If the member has a moderate level of economic ability and is of high type of social ability, he under-invests in education because peer group acceptance offers enough incentive not to pursue more education. They argue that there is nothing particular about Blackness in the model and the agent behaves rationally according to his social and economic ability. The theory is built not to refute the hypothesis of acting White but to view it from a different perspective. The phenomenon amounts to the issue of incentive not culture in the model. This new point of view is more aligned with the disparagement of education widely observed among different races and ethnicities whether they are voluntary or involuntary immigrants. And yet, the theory has critical problems, which will be explained in the next subsection. Counter-Arguments 2 The model is the rst economic model specically constructed to explain the phenomenon of acting White. It also provides an alternative explanation for the phenomenon without relying on culture, which is difcult to measure. Groundbreaking and tractable as it may be, the basic assumptions do not match well with empirical evidence.

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

225

First of all, the assumption of a unitary peer group seems to be too strong. Coleman (1961) extensively described about student sorting about half century ago. Steinberg et al. (1992) also report that students self-selected into different groups and students even knew who belonged to which group. If there are various peer groups, students can choose their own peer groups. If not, they can even create one. This freedom has two consequences. First, students do not need to worry about acceptance or rejection by peer groups because they can sort and be accepted by their own peer group. In this way, students invest in education according to their economic ability without concerning about the reaction of their peer group. Second, students can sort in such a way as that their peer group values the members education and the students do not face the trade-off between acceptance and academic achievement. In this case, students invest more in schooling to be accepted by the peer groups. Brown and Steinber (1991) observe from students at three high schools in Wisconsin and six high schools in the San Francisco Bay area that the student groups were stratied by academic achievement and high-achieving group encouraged each other for study most.3 Also, Hovart and Lewis (2003) discover in two public urban high schools in California that high-achieving students disregarded unsupportive peers and shared their educational success with supportive peers. Even if one unitary peer group exists and it ridicules a high-achieving or hardworking student, it is not straightforward to assume that the ridicule inuences the academic performance of the student. The student can disregard the peer group as troublemakers (Petroni and Hirsch 1970, p. 20) or see the ridicule as jealousy (Hovart and Lewis 2003, p. 270). Suppose further that one peer group exists, the group teases a high-achieving or hard-working student, and the accused student takes the accusation seriously. Even with these strong assumptions, one important factor, parental approval, is missing in the model. Students rely on nancial and possibly emotional support of their parents. This incentive cannot be neglected in the decision-making of students on academic performance. In a society where academic success is critical for economic success, it seems unlikely that parents praise or even encourage the academic failure of their children (Fordham 1996; Ogbu 2003). In this case, parents have the effect opposite to that of peer groups. If the former dominates in the decision-making, the students would study harder for parental approval. This outcome is similar to the case where students sort such that they encourage each other for more education. The theory yields some interesting results that potentially reect the phenomenon of acting White. The main assumptions are not realistic enough to take into account the complex situation that students face at school and at home, however. Empirics Based on the theory proposed by Austen-Smith and Fryer (2005), Fryer and Torelli (2005) use a nationally representative data set, the National Longitudinal Study of
3

The student sorting by academic achievement among Black students is not as clear as that among White and Asian students.

123

226

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

Adolescent Health, to estimate the relationship between popularity and academic performance of Black adolescents. If the thesis of acting White is correct, one would nd a negative relationship. This is actually what they nd in the estimates. Their measure of popularity is not self-reported popularity as in Cook and Ludwig (1998) but popularity reported by others. This is one major innovation in the paper because this new measure is more likely to be objective. They regress this measure of popularity on various measures of academic performance and other covariates to investigate whether there is a negative relationship between popularity and academic performance among Black students. The negative relationship found in the estimation stands in stark contrast to no or even a positive relationship reported by Cook and Ludwig (1998). And yet, little relationship exists in private schools. Another relevant point is that the negative relationship is stronger in integrated schools relative to segregated schools, which is in agreement with the results obtained by Cook and Ludwig (1998).4 Fryer (2006) interprets the strong negative relationship in integrated schools as an effort to preserve a group identity. Specically, more successful members in a traditionally low-achieving group are a valuable asset for the preservation of the groups identity, as long as the members are loyal to the group. If the successful members, however, have more opportunities to meet outsiders, the group is at risk of losing the members, a valuable asset. Anticipating the risk, the group punishes the members for their differentiation from other less successful members in the group. The empirical estimation improves a measure of popularity and yields results that cannot be easily explained by the FordhamOgbu hypothesis. For example, the strong and negative relationship found in integrated schools is inconsistent with the original hypothesis. Capital High is a segregated school, which would predict, according to the estimation by Fryer and Torelli, a relatively weak relationship between the popularity and the academic performance of Black students. Nevertheless, this school inspired Fordham and Ogbu to conceive the original hypothesis. In addition to the improvement of a measure of popularity, the empirical results strengthen the argument that the phenomenon of acting White is an outcome of incentive not culture. And yet, the empirical results and interpretations are not entirely satisfactory when checked against other empirical evidence.

Cook and Ludwig (1998) adopt ve measures of low standing: feels put down by students, threatened at least once last fall, not popular, not part of leading crowd, and not popular with opposite sex. They nd only the last measure is statistically signicant between predominantly White schools and predominantly Black schools. They dene a predominantly White school is as a school where at least 60 percent of the total student population is non-Hispanic White. An analogous denition is applied to the denition of predominantly Black schools. And yet, when Farkas et al. (2002) focus on the rst measure only (feels put down by students) and use a different denition of predominantly Black schools (schools with less than 25 percent White students), they nd a statistically signicant negative relationship between the measure of popularity and being Black. These two inconsistent results point out that the relationship between popularity and academic achievement among Black students is sensitive to measures of popularity and denitions of Black/White schools (or segregated/integrated schools) used in the estimation.

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

227

Counter-Arguments 3 The empirical relationship between the popularity and the academic achievement of Black students is robust to changes in specications. However, the critical issue with the negative relationship is that, as the authors admit, the relationship does not establish causality that the burden of acting White actually deters Black students from striving for academic excellence. As listed in Section The original hypothesis of acting White, acting White implies a variety of behaviors and attitudes. Academic achievement is only one element among many regarded as acting White. Most of all, they are potentially correlated and unobservable to researchers. A high achieving student may be unpopular not because of his high achievement but because of his standard English, frequent visits to the Smithsonian, punctuality, or some common factors determining all or some of the attitudes and behaviors. The different results in integrated and segregated schools are interesting, considering that the phenomenon of acting White was originally observed in a segregated school. In fact, some ethnographical studies conrm the empirical results. For example, Miron and Lauria (1998) study two inner-city schools in the southeastern United States. There, students in the segregated school did not connect achievement to acting White whereas students in the integrated school did. Tyson (2006) examines four related research projects interviewing more than 250 students at elementary to high schools in North Carolina to agree that the burden of acting White has been more common in integrated schools than in segregated schools. What these researchers reveal through their ethnographic studies is, however, that context matters. Segregation does not automatically lessen the burden, as may be incorrectly inferred from Capital High. Instead, the interaction took place not only among students. Teachers and administrators were also deeply involved in alleviating or exacerbating the burden. This observation implies that the insignificant relationship in segregated schools estimated by Fryer and Torelli (2005) is potentially caused by systematically different interactions among students, teachers, and administrators in the schools to harmonize students and emphasize education for future success. A corollary is that some third factors may drive the negative relationship between the popularity and the academic achievement of Black students in integrated schools. Also, the results cannot explain why integrated and segregated schools yielded similar growth patterns of Black students in math and reading from 1975 to 1990 (Armor 1992). If the stigma of acting White were more widespread in integrated schools compared with segregated schools, the growth, if not the level, of the academic achievement of Black students should have been lower. This inconsistency implies that other Black students did not accuse high-achieving Black students of acting White. Alternatively, there was the accusation, but the accusation was not effective enough to be a burden on high-achieving Black students. High-achieving Black students might have dismissed the accusing Black students as troublemakers. It is still possible that they might have sorted according to their academic achievement, so they cannot even hear the accusation. Moving to private schools by high-achieving Black students is one possibility. Recall that Fryer and Torelli (2005) do not nd any negative relationship in private schools. Also, Fryer (2006)

123

228

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

acknowledges that Black students in private schools are academically different from their counterparts in public schools. More interestingly, when the test score gap was rapidly reduced in the 1970s and early 1980s, it is low-achieving Black students who gained test scores the most (Hedge and Nowell 1998; Lee 2002). This fact ies in the face of the worry of Ferguson on commenting Cook and Ludwig (1998), i.e. low-achieving Black students may impose emotional or physical penalties on other low-achieving Black students who strive for high achievement. This phenomenon is ironic because the hypothesis of acting White presumes that low-achieving Black students are the least likely to endeavor for education. Is it that low-achieving Black students accused high-achieving Black students of acting White but they secretly studied hard? Moreover, Spencer et al. (2001) nd that it is low-achieving Black students who were more Eurocentric (White salience attitudes and values). If this is true, is it that low-achieving Black students teased high-achieving Black students for acting White but they relished acting White behind high-achieving students? Although it is difcult to get the straight answers to these questions, the questions point out that the phenomenon of acting White may not even exist among Black students as far as academic achievement is concerned. To be conservative, suppose that the burden of acting White exists among contemporary Black students. Fryer (2006) explains the phenomenon by using an example of groups investigated in anthropology. According to him, when the most successful members in a group make contact with outsiders and the members do not identify with the groups interest, the group faces a risk of losing its identity. To prevent this, the group steps in and penalizes the members. This explanation is loose and ahistorical. In spite of the fact that the plausibility of the explanation critically depends on the type of the group, he does not specify what group he refers to. From the context, the group seems to be the peer group of Black students. As contended in Section Counter-arguments 2, however, it would be more realistic that Black students have more than one group to take into account for their decision-making in education. The explanation cannot account for why their parents emphasize on the importance of education and motivate them to engage in it. Even if the phenomenon of acting White really exists, there is one peer group, and the peer group disparages education, it needs to be answered what makes Black students listen to the peer group rather than their parents? Moreover, it is unclear what interest of the group is at stake when the group loses the most successful members to outsiders. Group identity seems to be a vague term. In addition, the explanation does not seem to answer why the Black community so enthusiastically supported education before as well as after the Emancipation. Even when the Black community realized that education was structured and controlled by White elites, it never disparaged education out of belief that education belonged to the White society. Instead, despite severe poverty, a lack of support by state and local governments, and constant challenges by White planters and small farmers, Blacks in the South contributed money and labor to establishing schools for their children. There was no sign that peer groups, not to mention the parents and the Black community as a whole, penalized Black children for academic excellence at the time (Anderson 1988). What makes Black students in the past different from

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

229

Black students at present, if they ever differ? Moreover, if a traditionally lowachieving group tends to punish the most successful members for their academic differentiation, as Fryer (2006) maintains, the phenomenon of acting White should have been more severe in the past than at present because the academic achievement of Blacks as a group was much lower in the past than at present. This seems to contradict his argument. The empirical ndings by Fryer and Torelli (2005) have substantive merits to take note of: the data are nationally representative, their popularity measure is more objective, their results are robust to various specications, to name only a few. Their ndings, however, are inconsistent and often contradictory with many other empirical ndings. Also, the explanation for the ndings is conceptually unclear and historically incongruous.

Further Issues There are two issues that both non-economic and economic analyses of acting White have difculty in addressing. One is the BlackWhite test score gap in students in elementary school. The other is the accusation of acting White among Asian students, who generally excel White students in test scores on average. Based on large national samples, Phillips et al. (1998) nd that the test score gap has widened after children entered school. With recent, nationally representative data, ECLS-K, Fryer and Levitt (2006) conrm that the raw gap in math grew from 0.663 Standard Deviation (SD) to 0.882 SD from the fall of kindergarten to the spring of third grade. The corresponding gures for reading were 0.400 SD and 0.771 SD. Even when student and family characteristics and school-xed effects are controlled for, the gap grew by 0.180 SD and 0.214 SD during the same period in math and reading, respectively. Farkas et al. (2002) analyze a nationally representative data set, the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), to nd that Black fourth graders agreed more to the statement, my friends make fun of people who try to do well than their White counterparts. This suggests an early appearance of the stigma of acting White among Black students, which could explain the growing test score gap in childhood. Downey and Ainsworth-Darnell (2002), however, expand the sample period to include eighth and 12th graders in addition to fourth graders and reanalyze the data. Surprisingly, what they nd is that the older Black cohorts agreed to the same statement as much as or even less than their White counterparts. The latter nding is inconsistent with the FordhamOgbu hypothesis. The hypothesis predicts a stronger relationship in adolescents than children as Black students become aware of the presumably discriminatory social structure against them. In fact, researchers who both support and criticize the FordhamOgbu hypothesis generally acknowledge that the stigma of acting White is hardly observed in children and that it usually starts appearing in junior high school (Eckert 1989, chap. 5; Ogbu 2003; Tyson 2002, 2006). Therefore, the FordhamOgbu hypothesis has difculty in explaining the early and growing test score gap.

123

230

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

The Austen-Smith-Fryer model may be used to argue that, as children grow older, they get higher utility from acceptance by their peer groups than from a better prospect of future wages if they ever concern about future wages. However, Betts (1996) argues that undergraduates at the University of California, San Diego, began to form a concrete estimation of future wages in as late as their senior year. This point weakens the argument based on the trade-off that students in elementary school face between acceptance by their peer group and a better prospect of future wages. Also, the explanation demands an answer why parental approval loses its signicance relative to acceptance by their peer group. There is no a priori reason to presume that children discount parental approval relative to acceptance by their peer group. A more subtle issue is that there are Asian versions of Oreo. South Asians call it coconut, and Eastern Asians call it banana. Yet, the stigma is limited to nonacademic issues such as appearance. Instead, Asian students seem to be under the pressure of not underachievement but overachievement (Jones 2005). The distinction between voluntary and involuntary immigrants does not help to understand why Asians face the stigma but the stigma is not attached to academic achievement. Ogbu (1974) designated Asians as voluntary immigrants and argued that voluntary immigrants follow, not oppose, the norms and values of the dominant group. Fryer (2006) may ascertain that academic achievement does not constitute acting White among Asians because they can afford losing successful members, i.e. there are enough high achieving members in the group. And yet, this argument still needs to answer why Asian students feel the pressure of overachievement. Moreover, this argument is ahistorical. According to US census data, the initial Chinese and Japanese immigrants were actually underachieving,5 but the subsequent generations academically caught up to and surpassed White Americans around the 1920s (Hirschman and Wong 1986). From this historical point, it seems to be that either there is little relationship between underachievement and the accusation of acting White or the former generates the latter not the other way around.

Conclusion The hypothesis of acting White started in anthropology and education, but now its inuence is palpable in other academic disciplines including economics. There is no sign that the inuence will subsidize in the near future. Despite its controversy and signicant inuence, a critical review has not been written that covers the recent economic analyses and focuses on nationally representative data sets in addition to ethnographical and interview studies. This paper lls the void in the literature.
5

The initial immigrant took place between 1850 and 1882 for Chinese immigrants and between 1890 and 1924 for Japanese immigrants. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 forbade Chinese immigration until the law was repealed in 1943. The Gentlemans Agreement of 1907 had limited, and the immigration act of 1924 had terminated Japanese immigration until the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 allowed naturalization privileges to Japanese immigrants.

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

231

The general conclusion is that the hypothesis in both non-economics and economics is supported little by empirical evidence whether the evidence is drawn from ethnographical and interview studies or nationally representative data sets. Although the original hypothesis and subsequent alternatives to it in economics provide an interesting perspective on explaining the BlackWhite test score gap, empirical evidence for them is tenuous at least as far as academic performance is concerned. As mentioned in the beginning of this paper, the test score gap implies more than educational achievement. It has implications for the future welfare of students as well. Obviously, research on the test score gap has merit to pursue, and the hypothesis of acting White offers a valuable conceptual framework to understanding the gap. In this sense, this review does not completely reject the hypothesis. A further insight into the gap may be gained from imaginative and in-depth research based on the hypothesis. However, the review implies that the research does not seem to yield promising outcomes to explain the gap. This is more likely especially when oppositional culture accounts little for the gap in the two nationally representative data sets, the NELS and the NAEP whether or not the phenomenon of acting White exists among Black students (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey 1998; Downey and Ainsworth-Darnell 2002). One alternative way to improve understanding of the gap can be found in Sohn (forthcoming). Using the ECLS-K, he decomposes the gender gap into parts explained and unexplained by various characteristics in each quantile. The results indicate that measuring the gap only at the mean misses a dynamical aspect of the evolution of the gap. For example, the explained part of the decomposition has no role in explaining the gap. Also, girls at the top of the math distribution initially fall behind boys whereas girls in other parts of the distribution do not. As girls grow older, on the contrary, girls at the top distribution recover their initial loss, but girls in the other parts of the distribution lose ground to boys. When applied to the Black White test score gap, this type of research may offer more substantive insight into the BlackWhite test score gap than the hypothesis of acting White may. Researchers would know how much of the gap is explained and unexplained by characteristics. Moreover, they can even understand when and how much Black students at a certain quantile of the distribution of test scores start falling behind White students or recover. Another promising way in non-economics would be looking beyond the xed notion of race to see more nuanced aspects of the relationship between race and academic performance. Bartlett and Brayboy (2005) briey review a new stream of research in this direction including cultural ecological theory, racial formation theory, practice theory cum cultural production theory, critical race theory, and theoretical work on race talk and silence. However, this proliferation of new research needs to be integrated at some point, and parsimony should guide theories lest it would be difcult to conceive practical policies for narrowing the Black White test score gap. Notwithstanding a long list of studies on the test score gap, the gap has not been closed. Instead, it is growing. This issue cannot be emphasized enough considering its implications for the future welfare of students, and by extension, society as a

123

232

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

whole. The hypothesis of acting White has been a compelling explanation for the gap for many years, yet more research needs to be done to improve on and look beyond it.
Acknowledgments I am grateful to two anonymous referees and Co-Editor, William Pink, for helpful comments.

References
Acemoglu, D. (2002). Technical change, inequality, and the labor market. Journal of Economic Literature, 40(1), 772. Ainsworth-Darnell, J. W., & Downey, D. B. (1998). Assessing the oppositional culture explanation for racial/ethnic differences in school performance. American Sociological Review, 63(4), 536553. Akerlof, G. A., & Kranton, R. E. (2002). Identity and schooling: Some lessons for the economics of education. Journal of Economic Literature, 40(4), 11671201. Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of blacks in the South, 18601935. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina. Armor, D. J. (1992). Why is black educational achievement rising? Public Interest, 108, 6580. Armor, D. J. (1995). Forced justice: School desegregation and the law. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Austen-Smith, D., & Fryer, R. G. (2005). An economic analysis of acting white. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120(2), 551583. Autor, D. H., Katz, L. F., & Kearney, M. S. (2008). Trends in U.S. wage in equality: Revising the revisionists. Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2), 300323. Autor, D. H., Katz, L. F., & Krueger, A. B. (1998). Computing inequality: Have computers changed the labor market? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 113(4), 11691213. Bartlett, L., & Brayboy, B. M. J. (2005). Race and schooling: Theories and ethnographies. Urban Review, 37(5), 361374. Bergin, D. A., & Cooks, H. C. (2002). High school students of color talk about accusations of acting White. Urban Review, 34(2), 113134. Betts, J. R. (1996). What do students know about wages?: Evidence from a survey of undergraduates. Journal of Human Resources, 31(1), 2756. Brown, B. B., & Steinber, L. (1991). Final report: Project 2. Noninstructional inuences on adolescent engagement and achievement. Washington, DC: Ofce of Educational Research and Improvement. Burtless, G. (Ed.). (1996). Does money matter?: The effect of school resources on student achievement and adult success. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Coleman, J. S. (1961). The adolescent society: The social life of the teenager and its impact on education. New York: The Free Press. Cook, P. J., & Ludwig, J. (1998). The burden of acting white: Do black adolescents disparage academic achievement? In C. Jencks & M. Phillips (Eds.), The blackwhite test score gap (pp. 375400). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Cookson, P. W., & Persell, C. H. (1985). Preparing for power: Americas elite boarding schools. New York: Basic Books. Downey, D. B., & Ainsworth-Darnell, J. W. (2002). The search for oppositional culture among black students. American Sociological Review, 67(1), 156164. Eckert, P. (1989). Jocks & burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York: Teachers College Press. Farkas, G., Lleras, C., & Maczuga, S. (2002). Does oppositional culture exist in minority and poverty peer groups? American Sociological Review, 67(1), 148155. Fordham, S. (1988). Racelessness as a factor in black students school success: Pragmatic strategy or pyrrhic victory. Harvard Educational Review, 58(1), 5484. Fordham, S. (1996). Blacked out: Dilemmas of race, identity and success at Capital High. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fordham, S., & Ogbu, J. U. (1986). Black students school success: Coping with the burden of acting white. Urban Review, 18(3), 176206.

123

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

233

Frazier, E. F. (1957). Black bourgeoisie: The rise of a new middle class in the United States. New York: Free Press. Fryer, R. G. (2006). Acting white: The social price paid by the best and brightest minority students. Education Next, 6(1), 5359. Fryer, R. G., & Levitt, S. D. (2004). Understanding the blackwhite test score gap in the rst two years of school. Review of Economics and Statistics, 86(2), 447464. Fryer, R. G., & Levitt, S. D. (2006). The blackwhite test score gap through third grade. American Law and Economics Review, 8(2), 249281. Fryer, R. G., & Torelli, P. (2005). An empirical analysis of acting white. NBER Working Paper 11334. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Graham, A., & Anderson, K. A. (2008). I have to be three steps ahead: Academically gifted African American male students in an urban high school on the tension between an ethnic and academic identity. Urban Review, 40(5), 472499. Gregory, S. S. (1992, March 16). The hidden hurdle. Time, 4446. Hauser, R. M., & Anderson, D. K. (1991). Post-high school plans and aspirations of black and white high school seniors: 197686. Sociology of Education, 64(4), 263277. Heckman, J. J. (1998). Detecting discrimination. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(2), 101116. Hedge, L. V., & Nowell, A. (1998). Blackwhite test score congruence since 1965. In C. Jencks & M. Phillips (Eds.), The blackwhite test score gap (pp. 149181). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Hemmings, A. (1996). Conicting images? Being black and a model high school student. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 27(1), 2050. Hill, R. (1990, May 18). Lesson to learn: Bad grades arent cool: Montgomery black groups holding festival to sell minority students on achievement. Washington Post, D1. Hirschman, C., & Wong, M. G. (1986). The extraordinary educational attainment of Asian-American: A search for historical evidence and explanations. Social Forces, 65(1), 127. Hovart, E. M., & Lewis, K. S. (2003). Reassessing the burden of acting white: The importance of peer groups in managing academic success. Sociology of Education, 76(4), 265280. Jencks, C., & Phillips, M. (Eds.). (1998). The blackwhite test score gap. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Jones, K. A. (2005). Oreos, coconuts, apples, and bananas: The problem of racial self-identication amongst young people of color. Rutgers Race & the Law Review, 7(1), 149184. Kao, G., & Tienda, M. (1998). Educational aspiration of minority youth. American Journal of Education, 106, 349384. Lee, J. (2002). Racial and ethnic achievement gap trends: Reversing the progress toward equity? Educational Researcher, 31(1), 312. McArdle, C. G., & Young, N. F. (1970). Classroom discussion of racial identity or how can we make it without acting white? American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 40(1), 135141. Miron, L. F., & Lauria, M. (1998). Student voice as agency: Resistance and accommodation in inner-city schools. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 29(2), 189213. Murnane, R. J., Willett, J. B., & Levy, F. (1995). The growing importance of cognitive skills in wage determination. Review of Economics and Statistics, 77(2), 251266. Nasir, N. S., McLaughlin, M. W., & Jones, A. (2009). What does it mean to be African American?: Constructions of race and academic identity in an urban public high school. American Educational Research Journal, 46(1), 73114. Neal, D. (2006). Why has blackwhite skill convergence stopped? In E. Hanushek & F. Welch (Eds.), Handbook of the economics of education (Vol. 1, pp. 511576). New York: Elsevier. Neal, D. A., & Johnson, W. R. (1996). The role of premarket factors in blackwhite wage differences. Journal of Political Economics, 104(5), 869895. Ogbu, J. U. (1974). The next generation: An ethnography of education in an urban neighborhood. New York: Academic Press. Ogbu, J. U. (2003). Black American students in an afuent suburb: A study of academic disengagement. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum. Ogbu, J. U. (2004). Collective identity and the burden of acting white in black history, community, and education. Urban Review, 36(1), 135. Peterson-Lewis, S., & Bratton, L. M. (2004). Perceptions of acting Black among African American teens: Implications of racial dramaturgy for academic and social achievement. Urban Review, 36(2), 81100.

123

234

Urban Rev (2011) 43:217234

Petroni, F. A., & Hirsch, E. A. (1970). Two, four, six, eight, when you gonna integrate?. New York: Behavioral. Phillips, M., Crouse, J., & Ralph, J. (1998). Does the blackwhite test score gap widen after children enter school? In C. Jencks & M. Phillips (Eds.), The blackwhite test score gap (pp. 229272). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Raspberry, W. (2001, June 1). Smashing stereotypes is key to black academic progress. Denver Post, B11. Rosenbaum, J. E. (1995). Changing the geography of opportunity by expanding residential choice: Lessons from the Gautreaux Program. Housing Policy Debate, 6(1), 231269. Sanbonmatsu, L., Kling, J. R., Dunca, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2007). New kids on the block: Results from the moving to opportunity experiment. Education Next, 7(4), 6066. Sohn, K. (forthcoming). A new insight into the gender gap in math. Bulletin of Economic Research. Solomon, R. P. (1992). Black resistance in high school: Forging a separatist culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Spencer, M. B., Noll, E., Stoltzfus, J., & Harpalani, V. (2001). Identity and school adjustment: Revisiting the acting white assumption. Educational Psychologist, 36(1), 2130. Steinberg, L., Dornbusch, S. M., & Brown, B. B. (1992). Ethnic differences in adolescent achievement: An ecological perspective. American Psychologist, 47(6), 723729. Suskind, R. (1994). Class struggle. Wall Street Journal, 1, 6. Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell. Tyson, K. (2002). Weighing in: Elementary-age students and the debate on attitudes toward school among black students. Social Forces, 80(4), 11571189. Tyson, K. (2006). The making of a burden: Tracing the development of a burden of acting white in schools. In E. M. Hovart & C. OConnor (Eds.), Beyond acting white: Reframing the debate on black student achievement (pp. 5788). New York: Rowman & Littleeld. Tyson, K., Darity, W., & Castellino, D. R. (2005). Its not a black thing: Understanding the burden of acting white and other dilemmas of high achievement. American Sociological Review, 70(4), 582 605. Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U. S. Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Wiggan, G. (2008). From opposition to engagement: Lessons from high achieving African American students. Urban Review, 40(4), 317349. Willis, P. R. (1977). Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs. Farnborough, Hants, UK: Saxon House.

123