Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities: A Cultural-Ecological Theory of School Performance with Some Implications for Education Author(s): John U. Ogbu and Herbert D. Simons Source: Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1998), pp. 155-188 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3196181 . Accessed: 03/10/2011 15:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Blackwell Publishing and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Anthropology & Education Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities: A Cultural-EcologicalTheory of School Performancewith Some Implications for Education JOHNU. OGBU Department of Anthropology Universityof California, Berkeley HERBERT D. SIMONS GraduateSchoolof Education Universityof California, Berkeley This articlehas threeobjectives.First, it describesOgbu'sclassificationof minorities: autonomous,voluntaryor immigrant,andinvoluntaryor nonimminorities. Second,it explainsOgbu'scultural-ecological migrant theoryof school minority performance. Finally,it suggestssomeimplications ofthetheory forpedagogy.Theauthorsregardthetypologyofminoritygroupsas a heuristic deviceforanalysisand interpretation of differences amongminoritygroupsin schoolexperience. Ogbu has studied minority education in the United States and other societies for almost 28 years.1During the first 15 years he concentrated on the differencesin school performancebetween minority-and dominant-groupstudents. He concluded that the differenceswere caused by the treatmentof minoritygroups in society at largeand in school as well as by the perceptionsof the minoritiesand theirresponsesto school due to such treatment(Ogbu 1974,1978).In the early 1980s the focus of his researchshifted toward explaining differences in school performance among minority groups themselves (Ogbu 1987).The focus on differences among minorities has generated a great deal of response from educational anthropologists and other researchers.2Some have conductedimportantresearchthateithersupportsorchallengeshis perspective. Butin reviewing these works one finds that some of his main ideas are not always understood. Among those ideas is his classificationof minoritygroups.One objective of this articleis to clarifythe classification.Some have interpreted his recentwriting to mean that minority school performanceis caused only by sociocultural adaptation. This is a misinterpretationbecause Ogbu has always said that "communityforces"constituteone of two sets of factorsinfluencingminorityschool performance(see Figure1).3Thus, Anthropology& EducationQuarterly29(2):155-188. Copyright @ 1998, American AnthropologicalAssociation. 155 156 & EducationQuarterly Anthropology "THESYSTEM" Societal Educational Policies& Practices Volume 29, 1998 "COMMUNITYFORCES" DUALSTATUSFRAMEOF REFERENCE Instrumental Beliefsabout of Schooling Interpretations (e.g., Roleof Credentials Societal Rewardsfor in in GettingAhead) Educational Relational Beliefsaboutor or Accomplishments of Schooling Interpretations (e.g., ofTrusting Schools&Those CredentialsDegree inControl; asa Processof Schooling Subordination andControl) of Treatments Minoritiesin School SymbolicBeliefsabout of Schooling Interpretations (e.g.,Is learningcurriculum, schoolculturalpractices& languagea threatto minority cultural& languageidentity?) S MINORITYEDUCATIONAL STRATEGIESVE SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT & ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT Figure1 Two parts of "the problem of minority"schooling. another objective of this article is to clarify the role of community forces. Finally, we will address the issue that some have complained that Ogbu's work does not address pedagogical issues, although Ogbu has said that his work is not about pedagogy. A Brief History Phase One, 1968-1980 As we have alreadynoted,duringthe firstperiodof his researchOgbu tried to explain why minoritystudentsperformless well in school than majority students. His search for an explanation began in 1968 with his andInvoluntary Minorities OgbuandSimons Voluntary 157 Stockton,California,study (Ogbu 1974).A few years later,he published a majorcomparativework on the same problemin six countries:Britain, India,Israel,Japan,New Zealand,and the United States.Thestudy dealt with the educationof castelikeminorities.He classifiedtheseminoritiesas castelikebecause in every case they were a subordinate group in a stratificationsystem more rigid than social class stratification.In every case, the minoritieswere historicallydenied equaleducational opportunitiesin termsof access to educationalresources,treatmentin school, and rewards in employment and wages for educational accomplishments. Ogbu reachedthe same conclusionas in his Stocktonstudy:namely,that theirlower academicperformancewas a sort of adaptationto barriersin adult opportunitystructure(Ogbu 1978). PhaseTwo,1980-1997 Although Ogbu continues to study structural barriersin minority education, his researchfocus shifted at the beginning of the 1980s to "communityforces,"which areproductsof socioculturaladaptationand are located within the minority community (Ogbu 1983, n.d.a). He hypothesized that the study of community forces would shed light on why immigrantminoritiesdo well in school while nonimmigrantsdo less well. It is true that during his researchin Stocktonhe had observed that immigrantand nonimmigrantminorities differed in sociocultural adaptation,but he did not explore the implicationsof this differencefor schooling. He continued, however, to encounter the differencein the school performanceof immigrantand nonimmigrantminoritiesin almost all of his subsequent comparative research. Ogbu is currently analyzing the ethnographicdata from a comparativestudy of community forces and educationalstrategies among AfricanAmericans,Chinese Americans,and MexicanAmericansin Oaklandand Union City, in the San FranciscoBay area.He is also revising a book for publicationby the Russell Sage Foundationbased on the quantitativepart of the study that included some 2,400students (see also Ogbu 1995a,n.d.b). Some of the questions that Ogbu asked himself and which others asked him include the following: Why do some minoritiesdo betterin school than others?Is it because they are more intelligentor genetically superior?Is it becausethey come fromculturesbetterat educatingtheir children?Is it because they possess languages or learningstyles better suited to formaleducation? Fromhis comparativeresearchOgbu has concluded that(1)no minority group does better in school because it is genetically superior than others;(2) no minoritycultureis betterat educatingits children;and (3) no minority language is bettersuited for learningin school (Simonset al. n.d.). He has arguedthatfroma comparativeperspective,one cannot attribute the differences in minority school performanceto cultural, linguistic, or genetic differences.This is not to deny genetic differences or to deny that culturaland language differencesmay have an adverse 158 & Education Anthropology Quarterly Volume29, 1998 or positive effect on minority school performance;but culture and language do not entirelydeterminethe differencesamong minorities.Consider that some minority groups, like the Burakuoutcast in Japan,do poorly in school in theircountryof originbut do quitewell in the United States,or thatKoreansdo well in school in Chinaand in the UnitedStates but do poorly in Japan.Comparativeresearchsuggests that we might discover at least a part of the explanation by closely looking at the historiesand socioculturaladaptationsof these minorities(Simonset al. n.d.). More specifically, to understand why minority groups differ among themselvesin school performancewe have to know two things: the firstis theirown responses to theirhistoryof incorporationinto U.S. societyand theirsubsequenttreatmentor mistreatmentby white Americans. The second is how their responses to that history and treatment affecttheirperceptionsof and responses to schooling. Structuralbarriersand school factorsaffect minority school performance;however, minorities are also autonomous human beings who actively interpret and respond to their situation. Minorities are not helpless victims. A Cultural-EcologicalTheory of Minority School Performance Ogbu calls his explanationof minorityschool performancea culturalecologicaltheory.This theory considers the broad societal and school factorsaswellas the dynamicswithin the minoritycommunities.Ecology is the "setting,""environment,"or "world"of people (minorities),and "cultural,"broadly,refersto the way people (in this case the minorities) see theirworld and behave in it. Thetheoryhas two majorparts(see Figure1 above).One partis about the way the minoritiesare treatedor mistreatedin educationin termsof educational policies, pedagogy, and returns for their investment or school credentials.Ogbu calls this thesystem.The second part is about the way the minorities perceive and respond to schooling as a consequence of their treatment.Minorityresponses are also affectedby how and why a group became a minority. This second set of factors is designatedas community forces(Ogbu n.d.b). Understandinghow the system affects minorityschool performance calls foran examinationof the overallwhite treatmentof minorities.The latter includes the barriersfaced by minorities qua minorities. These barriers are instrumental discrimination (e.g., in employment and wages),relationaldiscrimination(suchas socialand residentialsegregation), and symbolic discrimination (e.g., denigration of the minority cultureand language). Ogbu calls these discriminationscollectiveproblemsfaced by minorities(see Figure2). To explain the minorities'perceptionsof and responses to education, the theory explores the impactof the white treatmentof the minorities. This impact is expressed in their responses, or their "collectivesolutions," to the collective problems (see Figure 3). 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Oro l 4.0+ Ogbu and Simons VoluntaryandInvoluntaryMinorities 161 respond or develop collective solutions to the instrumental discrimination (for example, they develop a folk theory of how they can "make it"in the faceof economicdiscrimination),relationaldiscrimination(e.g., they may resort to "collectivestruggle,"become mistrustful of white Americansand their institutions),and symbolic discrimination(for example, they may develop an oppositional culturaland language frame of referenceor selectively adopt "whiteways") (Ogbu 1995a,1995b). Having examined the collectiveproblemsfaced by the minoritiesand the minorities' collective solutions to those problems, analysis now focuses on the implicationsof both forminorityschooling.Accordingto the theory,the treatmentof the minoritiesin the wider society is reflected in theirtreatmentin education.The lattertakes threeforms,all of which affectschool adjustmentand performance(see Figure1 above).The first is the overall educational policies and practicestoward the minorities (for example, policy of school segregation,unequalschool funding, and staffing of minority schools, et cetera). The second is how minority students are treated in schools and classrooms (e.g., level of teacher expectations,teacher-studentinteractionpatterns,grouping and tracking, and so on). The third is the rewards, or lack of them, that society gives to minoritiesfor theirschool credentials,especiallyin employment and wages. All minorities studied by Ogbu have experienced these discriminatorytreatments.4 Structuralbarriersor discriminationsin society and school are important determinantsof low school achievementamong minorities.However, they are not the sole cause of low school performance,otherwise all minorities would not do well in school since all are faced with such discriminations. Some educational anthropologists consider cultural and languagedifferencesthe majorcause of the problem(see Emihovich 1995; Jacob and Jordan 1993). It is true that cultural and language differencesdo cause learningproblems.But culturaland language difference explanations do not account for the school success of some minority groups that face similar discontinuitiesas do others that are less successful. Consider the variationin the school performanceof the minoritiesin Table 1. It appearsthatthe minoritieswho are doing better are those most distantin cultureand language fromthe public school. It is for these reasons that Ogbu has suggested that the clue to the differences among minoritiesin schoolperformancemay lie in the differences in theircommunity forces. The study of the communityforcesis essentiallythe study of minority perceptionsof and responsesto schooling.Fourfactorsarehypothesized to constitutethe communityforces:a frameof minorityschool comparison (e.g., with schools "backhome" or in white suburbs);beliefs about the instrumentalvalue of schooling (forexample, role of school credentials in getting ahead); relationalinterpretationsof schooling (e.g., degree of trustof schools and schoolpersonnel);and symbolicbeliefs about schooling (for example, whether learningschool curriculum,language, 162 & EducationQuarterly Anthropology Volume 29, 1998 Table 1. and school performancein a junior differences, Ethnicity,cultural/language high school, Oakland, California,1994-95 school year EthnicGroup Vietnamese Chinese Mien Cambodians Latinos/MexicanAmericans AfricanAmericans Source:Yee et al. 1995 GPA 3.2 3.0 2.5 2.2 2.0 2.6 et cetera is considered harmful to minority cultural and language identity) (see Figure 4). As already noted, these community forces tend to be different for different types of minorities. In developing this part of his theory, Ogbu has found his classification of minority groups useful. The heuristic value of the classification has further been enhanced by the concept of settler society. A settler society is a society where the ruling or dominant group is made up of immigrants from other societies who have come to settle there because they want to improve their economic, political, and social status, and so on. White Americans, the dominant group in the United States, are almost entirely immigrants. Other settler societies include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Singapore. The dominant groups in settler societies have certain beliefs and expectations in common, including the belief in opportunity in their appropriated territory for self-improvement, individual responsibility for self-improvement, and expectations that people in the society should more or less conform or "assimilate," especially in language and culture. Another feature of settler societies pertinent to the cultural-ecological theory is that within such a society there are often at least two kinds of minorities: those who have come to settle for the same reasons as the dominant group and those who have been made a part of the society against their will. We now turn to Ogbu's classification of the minority groups to clarify it.5Following this, we describe the patterns of adaptations of the minority types and the educational consequences of the adaptations on community forces. In the final part of the article, we suggest some implications for educational practice. Different Types of Minority Status Ogbu defines minority status on the basis of power relations between groups, not in terms of numerical representation. A population is a minority if it occupies some form of subordinate power position in relation to another population within the same country or society. Ogbu and Simons Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities - r - - - - - --------- - - - 163 - - --- 100 c~ 0 :6 04 g 0 2I a I- (F s E .5 P Irv. 00 p- - - - I-- - - r Z P~ p31 e e I ~h ~I4!Et .,o a ------ -----r ------- -t A - - - p~ .5 - - - - - - - - - - I 164 & Education Anthropology Quarterly Volume29,1998 For the purpose of explaining differences in school performance, Ogbu classifiesminoritygroups into autonomous,voluntary(immigrant), minorities.The differentcategoriescall and involuntary(nonimmigrant) attention to differenthistoriesof the people who make up the larger categoryreferredto as minorities. The autonomousminoritiesare people who belong to groups that are small in number.They may be different in race, ethnicity, religion, or languagefromthe dominantgroup. In the United Statessome examples are the Amish, Jews, and Mormons.Although these groups may suffer discrimination,they are not totally dominated and oppressed,and their school achievement is no different from the dominant group (Ogbu 1978). There are no nonwhite autonomous minorities in the United States, and since we are concerned with people of color we will not discuss autonomousminoritiesfurther. Theclassificationof minoritiesinto voluntaryand involuntarygroups is determinedmainly by (1) the natureof white Americaninvolvement with their becoming minorities and (2) the reasonsthey cameor were broughtto the United States. Minorities Voluntary(Immigrant) Voluntary (immigrant)minorities are those who have more or less willingly moved to the United Statesbecause they expect betteropportunities (betterjobs, more political or religious freedom)than they had in their homelands or places of origin. The people in this categorymay be different from the majorityin race and ethnicity or in religion or language.The importantdistinguishingfeaturesare that (1) the people in this categoryvoluntarilychose to move to U.S. society in the hope of a betterfuture,and (2) they do not interprettheirpresencein the United Statesas forcedupon them by the U.S. governmentor by white Americans.Voluntaryminoritiesusually experiencesome problemsin school, especially when they first arrive, because of society's discriminatory educational policies and practices (ARC 1982; Low 1982;Wollenberg 1995) and because of language and cultural differences (Wang 1995). However, immigrantminoritiesdo not experience long-lastingschool performancedifficultyand long-lastingculturaland languageproblems. Some examples of voluntaryminorities in the United States are immigrantsfromAfrica,Cuba,China,India,Japan,Korea,Centraland South America,the Caribbean(Jamaica,Trinidad,the Dominican Republic), and Mexico. andBinationals Undocumented Workers, Refugees,Migrant/GuestWorkers, Refugeeswho were forcedto come to the United Statesbecauseof civil war or other crises in their places of origin are not immigrants or voluntaryminorities.Theydid not freelychoose or plan to come to settle in the United Statesto improve their status. However, they sharesome Ogbu and Simons VoluntaryandInvoluntaryMinorities 165 attitudes and behaviors of immigrant minorities which lead to school success. For example, they come to the United States with already existing differencesin languages and culturesand with a touristattitude toward the culturaland language differences.Liketourists,they knew before coming to the United States that to accomplishthe goal of their emigrationthey would have to learnnew, thatis, white American,ways of behaving and talking. The tourist attitude helps them to learn to behaveand talklikewhite Americanswithout fearof losing theircultural and language identity. Examples of refugees in the United States are Cambodians,Ethiopians,Haitians,Hmong, and Vietnamese. Migrant/guest workers are not immigrant or voluntary minorities because they usually do not plan to settle in the United States permanently. Like refugees, they bring with them pre-existingcultural and language differencesand are able to adopt the tourist attitude toward learningthe culture and language of their host society. However, since the sojournof migrantworkersis temporary,they tend to learnonly as much of their host's culture and language as necessaryto achieve their temporarygoals, which may not include school credentials.In countries where it is permitted,some migrantworkers in due course may choose to become immigrants(Hagan 1994). Neither undocumented workers nor binationalsare immigrants or voluntaryminoritiesas defined in the cultural-ecologicaltheory. Since undocumented workers are not an easily identifiable population, we have no way of knowing aboutwhether they cameto settle permanently in the United States or about their socioculturaladaptation and their school experience. Some studies indicate that binationals maintaineconomic and other ties with theirplacesof originand thatthese ties maketheirsociocultural adaptationdifferent from that of immigrants from the same places of origin (Baca1994).Thus, the community forcesthatinfluencethe education of binationalsappear to be different from those that influence the educationof immigrants.Forexample, whereas immigrantsoften operate on the belief that they are preparingtheir childrento live and work in the UnitedStates,binationalsare not always sure or clearaboutwhere they arepreparingtheir childrento have a future,in the United Statesor in theirplaces of origin (Baca1994). Involuntary(Nonimmigrant)Minorities Involuntary(nonimmigrant)minorities are people who have been conquered, colonized, or enslaved. Unlike immigrant minorities, the nonimmigrantshave been made to be a part of the U.S. society permanently against their will. Two distinguishing features of involuntary minoritiesare that (1) they did not choose but were forcedagainst their will to become a part of the United States, and (2) they themselves usually interprettheir presence in the United States as forced on them by white people. Again, the people in this categorymay be differentfrom 166 &Education Anthropology Quarterly Volume29, 1998 the dominant group in race and ethnicity or in religion or language. Involuntaryminoritiesare less economicallysuccessful than voluntary minorities,usually experiencegreaterand more persistentculturaland language difficulties,and do less well in school. Involuntaryminoritiesin the UnitedStatesare AmericanIndiansand Alaska Natives, the originalowners of the land, who were conquered; early MexicanAmericansin the Southwest who were also conquered; Native Hawaiians who were colonized; Puerto Ricans who consider themselvesa colonized people;and blackAmericanswho were brought to the United Statesas slaves. InvoluntaryMinoritiesversusCastelikeMinorities.Involuntaryminorities are a part of what Ogbu called "castelikeminorities"in his earlier work (Ogbu 1978). Furtherresearchhas shown, however, that some immigrant minorities may also have castelike relationships with the dominant group. This seems to have been the case of Chinese immigrants in the Mississippi Delta in the 19th century (Loewen 1988).But unlike nonimmigrant castelike minorities, the Chinese were able to escape from their initial castelikestatus through beliefs and behaviors more or less typical of voluntaryminorities. Descendants or LaterGenerations Childrenof immigrantminoritiesare voluntary minorities like their foreign-bornparents.Forexample,second-,third-,or fourth-generation U.S.-bornChinesearevoluntaryminorities.Itdoes not matterthatit was their forebearsratherthan themselves who made the decision to come to settle in the United States.Ogbu has found that the education of the descendantsof immigrantscontinuesto be influencedby the community forcesof theirforebears.6 Theexceptionsaredescendantsof immigrantsfromgroups who share affinitywith nonimmigrantminorities,thatis, with thoseminoritieswho were originallyincorporatedinto U.S. society against theirwill through conquest, colonization,or slavery. Immigrantshaving such an affinity are usually treatedby white Americansas a part of the pre-established nonimmigrantgroups.WhiteAmericansforcesuch immigrantsto reside and work alongside the nonimmigrantgroup throughresidentialsegregation, job discrimination,and other discriminatorytreatments.Under these circumstancesthe immigrantsand nonimmigrantsintermarryand their descendants grow up with their nonimmigrant peers, tend to identify with them, and assume the same sense of peoplehood or collective identity.This is what has been happeningin the United Stateswith black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.Their descendants eventually become "BlackAmerican."7As a result of their assimilation into the involuntaryBlackAmericanminoritygroup,some descendants of the earlierAfro-Caribbeanimmigrantshave become BlackAmerican civil rights leaders. andInvoluntary Minorities OgbuandSimons Voluntary 167 A similar process of assimilation takes place among Mexicanimmigrantswho, in subsequentgenerations,becomea partof the involuntary MexicanAmericanminority group. However, there is a differencebetween descendants of Mexican immigrants and descendants of black immigrants:descendantsof Mexicanimmigrantshave optionsnot available to descendants of black immigrants. One such option is that an offspring of Mexican-Anglointermarriagewith enough white features can "pass"and become a partof the white majority.One informanttold Ogbu that since the civil rights movement of the 1960s,some Mexican immigrantshave been using intermarriagewith Anglos to enable their offspringto pass into white society and avoid membershipin the involuntaryMexicanAmericanminoritygroup (David Garza,Personalcommunication,Austin, TX,November 1996). FurtherImportant Featuresof theClassification TheClassification Is Not Determinedby Race.The distinction between and voluntary involuntaryminoritystatus is not based on race.Rather, it is a partof a generalframeworkthatexplains the beliefsand behaviors of different minorities, regardless of race or ethnicity, and how these beliefs and behaviors contributeto school success or failure. It is not aboutblackAmericansas an involuntaryminorityorChineseAmericans as a voluntaryminority group. The distinction is based upon a careful comparativestudy of ethnic and racialminoritiesand how the status of a group affects its economic progress and academic performance.The frameworkis not specificallydirected at any particularrace or even at any particularcountry.For example, Koreansare voluntaryminorities in the UnitedStates(Y.Lee 1991)and China (Weiwenand Qingnan1993; Yin 1989)but are involuntaryminoritiesin Japan(Y. Lee 1991;Lee and DeVos 1981);MayaIndiansarevoluntaryminoritiesin the United States but involuntaryminoritiesin Mexico(Hagan1994);and blackAmericans are voluntary minorities in Ghana,Japan, France,and other countries but are involuntaryminoritiesin the United States. It is a group's history-how and why a group becamea minorityand the role of the dominantgroup in society in theiracquisitionof minority status-that determinesits voluntary or involuntarystatus ratherthan its race and ethnicity.8Chinese Americans are voluntary minorities because of the ways and reasons they came to the United States, not because of their Chinese ethnicity. Black Americans are involuntary minoritiesin the United Statesbecausethey were broughthere as slaves against theirwill, not because they are black.The fact that blackpeople fromthe Caribbeanand Africain the United Statesarevoluntaryminorities furtherdemonstratesthat it is history and not race that determines voluntary or involuntary status. Colin Powell makes this point very clearly: 168 & Education Anthropology Quarterly Volume29, 1998 My Blackancestorsmay havebeen draggedto Jamaicain chains,but theywere not draggedto the UnitedStates.Thatis a fardifferentemotionaland psychologicalbeginningthanthatof AmericanBlacks,whose ancestorswere brought here in chains.[Powell 1995] as FocusofAnalysis.The frameDominantPatternsof BeliefandBehavior work is about how groups operate within a society. It focuses analysis on the dominant patterns of belief and behavior within different minority groups. Ogbu's research suggests that some beliefs and behaviors apply to enough members of a minority group or a type of minority group to form a visible pattern. Not all members of a minority group believe the same thing or behave the same way. Some individuals will always believe or behave differently from the dominant pattern in their group. This point can be illustrated with findings from Ogbu's current research in Oakland, California. He found in one black American community that the people speak an English dialect that they call their "regular English." But some members of the community speak standard English, or white people's "regular English," at least when talking with outsiders. He also discovered that Oakland Chinese more or less practice ancestor worship. It is customary for these Chinese to visit their family graves (ch'ing ming) to sweep the graves and pay respect to dead ancestors every year between March and April. It does not follow that every Chinese American in Oakland practices it, but enough of them do so for one to speak of Oakland Chinese as ancestor worshippers. There are also class and regional differences in beliefs and behaviors within each minority group. What the theory does is to provide a framework for understanding the beliefs and behaviors of members of minority groups, including the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of minority students, who follow the dominant patterns of their groups. An analogy is speaking about differences in social class beliefs and behaviors. When we refer to middle-class beliefs or behaviors, we do not usually mean that among white, middleclass Americans everybody believes the same thing or behaves the same way; nor does reference to the lower class mean that among white, lower-class Americans everyone acts alike. The same is true when we speak of the beliefs and behaviors of voluntary and involuntary minorities. of VoluntaryandInvoluntaryMinorityGroupsRepBeliefsand Behaviors resent Ends of a Continuum. Furthermore, the distinguishing patterns of beliefs and behaviors of voluntary and involuntary minorities are more of a continuum than a strict dichotomy. Some beliefs and behaviors that are attributed to voluntary minorities are also found among involuntary minorities, although to a lesser degree and vice versa. DifferenceswithinVoluntaryand InvoluntaryCategories.All voluntary minority groups are not alike and all involuntary minority groups are not alike. Among the groups that make up each type or category, there are differences in the degree to which members of a given minority group exhibit the dominant patterns of beliefs and behaviors characteristic of andInvoluntary Minorities OgbuandSimons Voluntary 169 that category.Forexample, among involuntaryminority groups, black Americansare the most visible. Their beliefs and behaviors show the most conformityto the patterncharacteristicof involuntaryminorities. The beliefs and behaviorsof MexicanAmericans,a group with a different and more varied history, circumstances,and skin color, show less conformityto the involuntaryminority pattern. Another source of differenceamong involuntaryminority groups is the degree to which individual members can leave the group and thus escape subordination,that is, the possibility of "passing."Passing is most difficultforblackAmericansbecausethe castesystem underwhich they have existed defines any offspring of black and white mating, no matterwhat his or her color,complexion, or physical features,as black and thus prohibited from joining the white community (Burma1947; Davis et al. 1942).Finally,for voluntary minorities the more recentthe immigration,the more they conformto the voluntary minoritypattern. TheSameTreatment ElicitsDifferentInterpretations. As was notedearlier, the same treatmentcan be interpreteddifferentlyby differentminority groups, depending upon their history. Forthe same reason,when they encountersimilarculturalor language differencesthey tend to interpret and respond to them differently.For example, Ogbu has found in his Oaklandstudy that when asked to learnstandardEnglishin school the two types of minoritiesseem to respond differentlybecause they attach differentmeaningsto speakingstandardEnglish(Ogbu1995b,n.d.d). Withthese points in mind, we turnto how minorities,as activeagents, interpret and respond to their treatment in U.S. society because of differinghistories.Followingthis, we examinehow theirinterpretations and responses (i.e., beliefs and behaviors)affect theirschooling. Minorities' Adaptations:Different CulturalModels (Interpretations)of and Responses to U.S. Society Ogbu's researchsuggests that voluntary and involuntaryminorities develop differentculturalmodelsof U.S. society. Culturalmodels are the ways that members of a minority group understand or interprettheir world and guide theiractionsin thatworld. Thisunderstandingfallsinto four types in which voluntaryand involuntaryminoritiesdiffer:frames of reference,folk theories of "makingit" (and role models), degree of trust of white people and their institutions,and beliefs about the effect of adopting white ways on minority identity. The description of the general responses of the minorities below follows the schematicrepresentationin Figure3 above;the descriptionof theirresponsesto education specificallyis representedschematicallyin Figure4 above. It is importantto keep in mind that the following discussion is about dominantpatternsof beliefsand behaviorswithin eachcategoryor within each minoritygroup.As we stated before,not all membersof a minority group believe the same thing or behave the same way. Some individuals 170 Anthropology& EducationQuarterly Volume 29, 1998 and some subgroups believe or behave differently from the dominant pattern of the group. Status Frameof Reference A frame of reference is the way a person (or a group) looks at a situation. People in different situations differ in their frames of reference. Voluntary and involuntary minorities whose situations are different tend to have differing frames of reference, which suggests why they also differ in their attitudes and behaviors. Voluntary minorities have a positive dual frame of reference,at least during the first generation. One frame of reference is based on their situation in the United States. The second frame of reference is based on their situation "back home," or in their place of origin. For them the comparison is a positive one because they see more opportunities for success in the United States than back home. As a result, they are willing to accommodate and to accept less than equal treatment in order to improve their chances for economic success (Ogbu 1978; Shibutani and Kwan 1965). Although many immigrants are conscious of the differences that exist between them and white Americans, their comparative frame of reference is the "back home" situation.9 They became immigrants because they hoped to do better than they did previously in their home countries or places of origin. In comparing their situation in the United States to that of family and friends back home, they often conclude that they are doing better or are seeing better opportunities for their children in the United States. This provides them with motivation to work hard to succeed. Immigrants think that discrimination is temporary and may be the result of their "foreigner status" or because they do not speak English or do not speak it well (Gibson 1988; Ogbu n.d.b). Although children of immigrants may not have a first-hand experience of limited economic or other opportunities back home, they are likely to have heard of such experiences from their parents and other adults in their community. Consequently, they also tend to believe that there are more opportunities to succeed in the United States than back home. In Ogbu's study of Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans, and black Americans in Oakland, most students of immigrant descent reported that the opportunity to succeed or make "progress" is better in the United States than elsewhere; equally important, they themselves as well as people in their families and communities believed that what makes a person successful in the United States is education and hard work, whereas back home a person succeeds by getting help from friends and relatives, by using contacts ("whom you know"), through favoritism, or "because of your name" (Ogbu n.d.b; Suarez-Orozco 1989). Voluntary minorities' attitude toward schools is influenced by the "back home" comparison. The immigrants believe that they have more educational opportunity in the United States than back home. Some Ogbu and Simons VoluntaryandInvoluntaryMinorities 171 immigrated to the United States specifically for the opportunity to give their children an "American education," especially higher education. They see higher education in the United States as providing a chance for professional careers they would not otherwise have attained back home. Here is how some parents put it: OaklandChineseParent#227C:It is very important[formy childrento make good grades]because the purpose for us to come is to let them have a good future and become successful.I sacrificedeverythingfor them [to come and get Americaneducation]. Interviewer:What did you tell your children about why they are going to school? OaklandChinese Parent#223C:I told them to study hard and have a good future.I always tell them I had sacrificeda lot. The reasonfor us to come here is for them to have a good education. I always remind them about this. [MinorityEducationProjectn.d.] Involuntary minorities also have a dual frame of reference. However, their comparison is both different and negative, in contrast to that of voluntary minorities. The first frame of reference is their social and economic status in the United States. The second frame of reference is the social and economic status of middle-class white Americans. For involuntary minorities the comparison is a negative one because they see their economic and social condition, as well as their schools, as inferior to those of middle-class white Americans. They believe and resent the fact that whites have more opportunities. They do not believe strongly that the United States is a land of great opportunity where anyone who works hard and has a good education will succeed. This negative comparison is also true for middle-class involuntary minorities. The latter do not believe that they are fully rewarded or accepted for their education and hard work when they compare their situation to that of their white peers (Benjamin 1992; Cose 1993; Matusow 1989). Because discrimination against them has existed for many generations, involuntary minorities tend to believe that it appears to be a permanent feature of U.S. society. Involuntary minorities' evaluation of their schools is influenced by the negative comparison with white suburban schools. To begin with, they do not consider their ghetto, barrio, or reservation schools "better" because they do not have the "back home" educational situation. Instead, they think that their schools are "worse" because they are not like white schools in the suburbs. They see no justifiable reason for the inferior education--except discrimination. They tend to be more critical of the school curriculum and mistrustful of teachers and the school than the immigrants. 172 & Education Quarterly Volume29, 1998 Anthropology Instrumental Responses Instrumental responses have to do with the means necessary to succeed in the United States; they include folk theories of "making it" and role models. Folk Theory of "Making It." A group's ideas about how to achieve success, folk theories are not the official policies or beliefs of society but the community's or peoples's ideas. They are orally transmitted beliefs about the workings of society. Because of their differing histories and perceptions of opportunities, voluntary and involuntary minorities differ in their views of making it in the United States. Voluntary minorities' folk theory of making it involves the belief that hard work, following the rules, and most important, getting good education will lead to good employment and success in U.S. society. When they first arrive they are optimistic that with education and hard work they will make it. Their folk theory is partly the product of immigrants' belief about opportunities in the United States beforeemigration and partly due to the fact that they, especially the most recent immigrants, have not yet been exposed to discrimination long enough to have internalized its effects or have those effects become an ingrained part of their thinking (Ogbu 1978). In Oakland, for example, immigrants are more concerned with "language problems" (e.g., not knowing English) than with "racial discrimination" (Ogbu n.d.b). Immigrants see school success as a major route to making it in the United States. The community, family, and students believe strongly that the same strategies that middle-class white Americans employ for success, namely, hard work, following the rules, and getting good grades, will also work for them in school and in the future job market. Involuntary minorities have an ambivalent folk theory of making it. True, they believe that hard work and education are necessary to succeed in the United States. But because they have faced employment and wage discrimination as well as other barriers to making it in a white-controlled economy for many generations, they have come to believe that (1) job and wage discrimination is more or less institutionalized and permanent, and (2) individual effort, education, and hard work are important but not enough to overcome racism and discrimination. The ambivalence may not be conscious. Parents and other adults in the community tell children to do well in school because that will help them get good jobs and be successful adults. However, from their personal and group experiences with employment discrimination they know only too well that school success often does not lead to a good job. Moreover, they often engage in various forms of "collective struggle" with whites for more job opportunities. Involuntary minority children are affected by this actual texture of their parents' lives: they observe and hear about their parents' experiences. Eventually they share their parents' ambivalence. Thus, involuntary minorities are less sure that education leads to success or helps to overcome barriersto upward mobility. The community, Ogbu and Simons Voluntaryand InvoluntaryMinorities 173 families, and students are skeptical and ambivalent about the role of educationin getting ahead. Some studies (such as Mickelson 1990) may provide a clue to this ambivalence.When asked, most involuntaryminorityparentsand students say they believe that education and hard work are the ways to succeed. However, their individual and community's concrete experiences with job and other economicdiscrimination,combined with their awarenessof historicalsegregationand racismin schools,contradictthis abstractbelief and serve to reinforcethe concretebelief that education and hard work will not necessarilylead to economic success. Furthermore, they believe that schools cannot be trusted to educate their children properly. Mickelson found in her researchthat parents' and students' concreteexperiences predicted school performance,while their abstractbeliefs did not. This suggests that it is people's actual experiences with education and with opportunity structure or rewards of education thatinfluence theirbehaviormuch more than abstractbeliefs about the importanceof education. RoleModels.Role models within the voluntaryminority communities are usually people who have fully acculturated,attaineda higher education,and achievedeconomicsuccess.Theyare hardworkerswho have played by the rules of the system and succeeded. Voluntaryminorities are less conflicted about accommodatingto white society, so their role models include people who fully adopt white ways and language (see section on symbolic interpretation).Among the Chinese Americans, successfulmembersof earlierimmigrantsserve as role models for newer immigrants. Involuntary minorities' role models include conventional categories-entertainers, athletes, professionals,and the wealthy-as well as nonconventionaltypes-rebels against white society and people of exceptional courage. Unlike voluntary minorities who admire conventionalrole models (e.g.,minoritydoctors,engineers,executives,lawyers) for working their way up from the inside and playing by the rules, involuntary minorities tend to criticizeminority professionals as "unconventional"(froma minorityperspective),rule-breakers,people who achieved success because they worked twice as hard, were twice as smart, twice as strong, and sometimes were just lucky. Furthermore, minority professionals, businesspeople, and politicians are not very influentialas role models because it is suspected that for them to have succeeded they probablyhave had to adopt white ways such as speaking standardEnglish,which is seen as giving in to the white oppressorand abandoning their identity (Taylor 1973). Moreover, the professionals among involuntaryminoritieshave few ties to the community and are not visible in it. Athletes and entertainersare admired, but often these are people who did not use educationbut talent and physical strength as a route to success. 174 & EducationQuarterly Anthropology Volume 29, 1998 Thereareinterestingdifferencesbetweenblackand Chineseparentsin Ogbu's Oaklandstudy in the choice of role models for their children.Asked whom they would like their children to be when they grow up, Chinese parents mentionedscientists,astronauts,lawyers,doctors,architects,and so on. Generally they wanted their children to grow up as professionalsin technical fields. In contrast,only one blackparentmentionedsomeone in a professional field, a brother whom she said was "a successful executive"with a major departmentstore (unnamed)in New YorkCity. One parentmentionedJesus Christ;many others named famous celebrities (e.g., Michael Jackson,Bill Cosby,M. C. Hammer)and severalathletes.[MinorityEducationProjectn.d.] Trust in WhiteInstitutions Immigrants have an optimistic, practical attitude when they arrive. This leads them to trust white-controlled institutions like the public schools; at least they trust what the institutions have to offer. Ogbu calls this pragmatictrust (Ogbu n.d.c; see also Gibson 1988). But where immigrants are blatantly denied educational opportunity, such as exclusion from or segregation in the public schools as was the case in San Francisco, they have challenged school authorities and become mistrustful of them (Low 1982; Wollenberg 1995). In general, immigrant minorities do not question the authority of schools and other institutions, and they tend to conform to the rules of the schools because they see them as providing a route to success in society. Some immigrants, such as Koreans in Los Angeles (Eu Yum Kim, Personal communication, Berkeley, CA, 1993) and Afro-Caribbeans in New York (Ksinitz 1992) establish their own schools to supplement their children's education where they feel that it is inadequate in the public schools. In the case of involuntary minorities, their long history of discrimination, racism, and conflict leads them to distrust white-controlled institutions. The schools are treated with suspicion because the minorities, with justification, believe that the public schools will not educate their children like they educate white children (Ogbu n.d.c). Some involuntary minorities, such as black Muslims, have established their own schools, but their rationale differs from that of voluntary minorities (Francine Shakir, Personal communication, Berkeley, CA, 1996). SymbolicResponseand CollectiveIdentity Symbolic response has to do with the way minorities understand and interpret the differences between their culture and language and white American culture and language. Adopting white ways or crossing cultural/language boundaries has a very different meaning for voluntary and involuntary minorities.10 Voluntary minorities come to the United States seeking a better life. They also come with the tourist model or attitude mentioned above toward learning the culture and language of their new society. For this reason, they are willing to learn to speak standard English and to Ogbu and Simons Voluntaryand InvoluntaryMinorities 175 conform to the rules and mores of the public schools and other societal institutions. This is particularly important because these things are the requirements of an institution, the school, which the immigrants see as holding the key to making it in the United States. However, as we will see below, knowing that standard English and school rules are important for success is not sufficient to enable a minority group to actually learn and behave accordingly. What further helps the immigrants to cross cultural and language boundaries is that they define the cultural and language differences they encounter as barriers to be overcome by learning the differences. Furthermore, they are willing to accommodate because they do not imagine that learning mainstream white ways and language will harm their group identity. They see it as additive, that is, they are learning new skills, behaviors, and language that will enable them to succeed in society while still retaining their own culture and language. For example, immigrants see learning English in school as adding another language rather than replacing their native language. Involuntary minorities did not choose to become minorities in a new society to achieve a desired or better future (e.g., better education, better jobs, et cetera). They do not, therefore, possess the tourist attitude about learning how to behave and talk like white Americans. Like the immigrants, they know and believe that to succeed in school and to get good jobs they have to master standard English and master some white people's ways of behaving. Thus, they consider the cultural and language differences as barriers to be overcome by learning the differences. Yet they have difficulty doing so for two reasons: One is that they feel that these differences or requirements are imposed on them by white Americans. The second and more serious reason is that involuntary minorities interpret the cultural and language differences as markers of collective identity to be maintained, not merely barriers to be overcome. In responding to their forced incorporation into U.S. society and their subsequent mistreatment, they develop a collective identity defined to a great extent by its difference from and opposition to white American identity. Given this interpretation, some individuals feel that if they learn white American ways or "white talk" they will lose their minority identity. For them, adopting white ways and language is a subtractive or replacement process that threatens minority identity and therefore is resisted. The special problem of nonimmigrant minorities is that they hold two incompatible beliefs about school cultural and language requirements (Ogbu n.d.c). Thereareboth ethnographicand nonethnographicdatasuggestingthatinvoluntary minorities equate learning white ways with losing their minority identity.Again,we arewriting about a dominantpattern,not generalizingfor every individual.The dominantpatternexisted in the Oaklandblackcommunity studied by Ogbu. The following responseby a blackparentis typical: 176 & EducationQuarterly Anthropology Volume 29, 1998 Parent25L:I thinkit's literallyinsaneand stuff for a lot [of]black people who areblack [to] see blackpeople who pretendto be white. Interviewer:Um hum. Parent25L:They get very angry... . Angry ... becausethey'reproud of their being black.And to see somebodyelse who is blackactuallyput it down and try to hide it. I mean it's like... becauseI feel thatway, too. It'slike ... feeling thatbad aboutbeing blackthatyou want to hide it. Interviewer:Um hum. Parent25L:That'swhat you'regonna be from now until the day you die and ain't nothing nobody gonna do to change it. [Thatis, you should retainyour blackidentity].[MinorityEducationProjectn.d.] A number of minority authors have also addressed the issue of the interpretation of school requirements as a threat to minorities' collective identities. For example, Luster (1992) discovered during her ethnographic study of black women in San Francisco who were attending a GED-preparatory school that the biggest signifier of "acting white" and a source of strong opposition was speaking standard English. This minority also opposes adopting white behaviors or ways of talking because they think that the person doing so is denying his or her minority identity (see also Becknell 1987:36;David Garza, Personal communication, Austin, TX, November 1996; Steele 1992; Taylor 1973). CommunityForcesand Schooling:Attitudesand Behaviorsin School Thebeliefsand responsesof the minoritiesdiscussed above affecttheir attitudesand behaviorstoward school. Voluntaryand involuntaryminorities differ in these attitudes and behaviors (see Figure 4 above)." Once again,the readershould keep in mind thatwhat we presentin this section are dominantpatternsof attitudes and behaviors within each category.There are both individual and subgroup variationsin school attitudesand behaviors. VoluntaryMinorities Due to the way and the reasons they became minorities, their pragmaticallypositive attitudetowardU.S. society and institutions,and the way they interpretculturaland language differences,voluntaryminority communitiesand parentsare strongly committed to their children succeeding in school. They have high academic expectations of their childrenand tend to hold the children,ratherthan the schools, responsible for academicperformance.Exceptwhere they encounterdeliberate and blatanteducationaldiscrimination,as in San Francisco,immigrants do not usually blame or even question their children's teachers for problemstheirchildrenencounter.Theyareunequivocalin theirsupport Ogbu and Simons Voluntaryand InvoluntaryMinorities 177 of their children learning English as well as the rest of the curriculum (see the comments by a Chinese parent in the following excerpt). The reason for this unequivocal support is that they see learning these things, especially English, as a necessary requirement for success in school and in the job market. This belief leads them to expect their children to get high grades. Immigrants also seem to have strong control of their children's time, which allows them to make sure that the children do homework even when their parents are not able to help them. OaklandChineseParent#279C:I don't know what they do in school. If they arenotgood in Englishtheirteachersshould help themmorein English.I wish theirteachershould help themas muchas possibleand encouragethem more. Chinesestudentsareusuallyvery hardworking.Theproblemis thatthey can't speak Englishwell. If they don't understand [English]they won't get good grades. Teachersshould help them more so they can catch up with others. [MinorityEducationProjectn.d.] Voluntary minority students share their parents' and community's positive attitudes and verbal commitment to school. They work hard, strive for high grades, pay attention in class, do their homework, and generally follow school rules. Immigrant minority students are rarely disruptive in class, and they show respect for the teacher. They are anxious to learn English. Their peers support school success, so that they experience minimal peer pressures detrimental to academic achievement. InvoluntaryMinorities Involuntary minority communities and parents have ambivalent attitudes toward schools. On the one hand, they strongly endorse learning standard English and other requirements for school success and future jobs. On the other hand, their support for the abstract ideology that education is the key to success in life is contradicted by their concrete experiences with society and by the failure of schooling to lead to economic rewards for them. Consequently, involuntary minority parents seem to convey to their children contradictory messages about education: they tell their children to work hard in school, but then their own attitudes and comments show a mistrust of schools in terms of quality education and future economic rewards. They hold schools and teachers, rather than their children, responsible for poor academic performance. When their children receive poor grades they blame teachers for not teaching their children properly, for not informing parents in time that their children are not doing well in class, and for treating their children in a discriminatory manner. In addition to their ambivalence about the instrumental value of education and their mistrust of the schools, involuntary minorities also face identity problems. Ogbu has suggested that involuntary minorities have developed oppositional collective or group identities (i.e., the sense of who they are) in response to their treatment by white Americans. Their 178 & EducationQuarterly Anthropology Volume 29, 1998 identities are defined to some extent by their difference from the white society (Ogbu 1995a). Because their identities were developed in response to discrimination and racism, these minorities are not anxious to give them up simply because their "oppressors" require them to do so. Oppositional identity plays a major role in the attitudes of the community, parents, and students toward school because they see the school as a white institution. The requirements for school success, which involve mastering the school curriculum, learning to speak and write standard English, and exhibiting "good" school behaviors, are interpreted as white society's requirements designed to deprive minorities of their identities. For example, teaching standard English at school may be interpreted as a mechanism of language assimilation (Steele 1992). Thus, conforming to school requirements means "acting white" and giving up one's minority identity. Behaving or talking in a manner that leads to academic success is feared as likely to displace one's minority identity. These beliefs create two dilemmas for involuntary minority students. First, they make the students feel that they have to choose between (1) conforming to the school demands and rewards for certain attitudes and behaviors that are definitely "white," especially the mastery and usage of standard English, and (2) the community interpretations and disapproval of or ambivalence toward those attitudes and behaviors. The second dilemma is that these beliefs make the students feel that they must choose between (1) an instrumental interpretation of schooling as a route to future employment and upward social mobility, and (2) the suspicion of the community that the school curriculum is something designed to displace their minority identity. Steele clearly expresses this identity-transforming role of the curriculum of the public school: One factoris the basic assimilationistoffer that schools make to blacks:You can be valued and rewardedin school (and society), the schools say to these students, but you must first master the culture and ways of the American mainstream,and since that mainstream(as it is represented in school) is essentially white, this means you must give up many particularsof being black-styles of speechand appearance,value priorities,preferences-at least in [a]mainstreamsetting.Thisis askinga lot. [1992:68-75;see also Luster1992; Ogbu 1995a] Involuntary minorities see the curriculum as an attempt to impose white culture on them. This leads them to question the curriculum for not including information about their minority history and experiences. They want their children to "talk proper" but are uncomfortable when the children speak standard English, because they see this as tending to separate the children from the family and the community or to claim that one is better than other members of the family and community. The double message that involuntary minority parents and communities send to their children is to do well in school, but be wary of your teachers, school officials, and the curriculum because they are a part of white institutions that cannot be trusted (Ogbu n.d.d). andInvoluntary Minorities OgbuandSimons Voluntary 179 The parents'and community'sambivalenceis reflectedin the attitude and, most important, the behaviors of studentsin school. Like their parentsand membersof theircommunity, the students have an abstract belief in the importanceof "gettinga good education."However, their attitudes and behaviors contradict their verbal assertions.The mixed feelings lead to reducedefforts,which manifest themselvesin failureto pay attentionin class, do homework, and keep up with school assignments, and in claims that the work is uninterestingand boring. Some students are openly defiant as they challenge the teachers'authority. They do not put much effortinto learningstandardEnglishbecausethey see it as separatingthem from their peers, family, and community,thus threateningtheirminorityidentity.Thereis a strongnegativepeergroup influence that more or less stigmatizes academic success and using standardEnglishas "actingwhite." All of these attitudesand behaviors lead inevitablyto poor academicperformance. Pedagogical Implications One importantobjectiveof the cultural-ecologicaltheoryis to explain the differencesin school achievement between voluntaryand involuntary minorities.The theory is not a pedagogical one in that it does not discuss strategies for teachers of voluntary or involuntary minority students. However, by explaining the nature of the problem,it leads to some educationalstrategiesfor helping to improve learning. One point must be kept in mind while thinkingabout teachingminority students in light of the theory.The theory does not posit explicitlyor implicitly that group membership alone determines school success or failure.Forany individual student, being a memberof a group that can be characterizedas voluntaryor involuntary does not solely determine that student'sschool success or failure.Whatthe categoriesdo is to help educators think about the differences that exist between groups, not among individuals.Teachersshould avoid basing expectationsaboutan individual's school performanceand behavior on group membership. Studentsshould be treatedas individuals. The value of the theoryis that it will help educatorsunderstand why students may behave the way they do inside and outside the classroomwhen they are following their groups' patternof behavior.It follows from the cultural-ecologicaltheory thatin orderto help involuntaryminoritystudentssucceedin school, the problemof the mistrustof schools and the fearof being seen as acting white (and the subsequent lack of effort) must be recognized and addressed. EducatingInvoluntary MinorityStudents:RecognizeandDealwith andMistrust Opposition,Ambivalence, As we have shown, the fundamental problem for educatorsis that many involuntaryminorities do not trust "white"institutionssuch as 180 & Education Anthropology Quarterly Volume29, 1998 schools, courts,and government.As a result of a long history of racism and discrimination,many involuntary minorities have developed an oppositionalidentityto white mainstream society which makes them reluctantto cross culturalboundariesand adopt what they considerto be "white ways" of talking, thinking, and behaving because they fear doing so will displace their own minority identity and alienate them fromtheirpeers, family,and community.Thismistrustis oftenaccompaniedby an abstractbelief in the importanceof an education for success which is contradictedby theircommunity'sand parents'concreteexperiences.The net result is ambivalenceabout the usefulness of school as a vehicle to success in life. This ambivalencemakes it difficultfor many involuntaryminoritystudents to put in the full effortrequiredfor school success. WhatTeachers CanDo BuildTrust.Sincemany involuntaryminoritystudents come to school with an ambivalenceaboutthe value of educationand aboutconforming to the demands of a "white"institution,building trust needs to be the firstpriorityfor teachers.While it may not be an easy task to changethe student'strustin "thesystem"as a whole, individualteacherscan foster a trustingrelationshipbetween themselvesand theirstudents.As Erickson (1987)points out, students will trustteacherswhen they believe that (1) the teacher has the student's best interests at heart and (2) the student'sidentity and self-esteem will not be harmed.Teachersneed to show studentsby word and deed thatthey believe in theirstudents,that theircultureis worthyof respect,and thatsucceedingin schoolwill leave theiridentity intact. Instruction.Culturallyresponsiveor appropriate CulturallyResponsive instruction(Au and Mason1981;Ladson-Billings1994)is instructionthat acknowledges and accommodates students' culture, language, and learningstyles in the curriculumand classroom.Itis a responsedesigned to close the gap between the students' culturalpatternsand the school's institutionalrequirementsand prevent the type of miscommunication that is caused by the conflictbetween teachers'and students'culturally determinedinteractionalstyles. Culturallyresponsive instructionwill also show the students that the teacher recognizes and honors their culturaland personalexperiencesand will help make school a less alien place. ForblackAmericanstudents, for example,speakingstandardEnglish is a majorcharacteristicof "actingwhite" which is to be resisted.Thus, acknowledgingthe validity of the use of black English in appropriate contextscan help students acquirestandardEnglishwithout seeing it as threateningtheir own language and ethnic identity. Students can be taught that different ways of speaking are considered appropriatein differentsituations. In school and in other formal situations standard Englishis expectedand rewarded,while at home and out of school their Ogbu and Simons Voluntaryand InvoluntaryMinorities 181 own language is appropriate.Rather than trying to replace students' dialects with standard English, teachers need to encourage the use of code switching by showing them that appropriatenessto the situation determineslanguage use. Culturally responsive instructionrequires that teachersunderstand theirstudents' cultureand language. Bringingstudents' and theircommunity's folklore into the classroom is a particularlyeffective way to bridge the culturalgap (see Simons 1990).It helps teacherslearn about their students' culture and life experiences and communicates to the students that the teacheris interested in their world, which serves to validate theiridentity. Culturallyresponsive pedagogy has been criticizedon the grounds that there are many examples of successful schools and teachers of minoritystudents who do not accommodatechildren'scultures,such as black Muslim schools and RomanCatholicparochialschools (Erickson 1987).Thereare also voluntaryminoritygroups who are culturallyvery differentfrom the mainstreamcultureof the school yet succeed without culturallyresponsiveinstruction.Thus,closing the culturalgap does not appear to be a necessary condition for improving minority school achievement.It appears that the underlying factorin successful culturally responsive and nonresponsive instructionis the building of trust. Any type of instructionthat builds trust in one way or another,even if not "culturallyresponsive,"between the teacherand the students will increasethe chancesof improvingstudent achievement. Explicitly Deal with Opposition/Ambivalence.Involuntary minority stu- dents may not be fully conscious or have a fully articulatedunderstandingof theirown ambivalenceand resistanceto school. Butmost are aware of the oppression theirgroups have faced and still face in life. It is, therefore,importantto raise the issue of ambivalenceand resistance for discussion because it will help students to think openly about their behaviors (so that they can criticallyevaluate their own actions).Readings fromthe autobiographiesof involuntaryminoritieswho have faced and resolved their ambivalenceabout schools and teacherscan be used as a basis for discussions and writing assignments. Teachers can guide writing and discussion so that students can (1) begin thinkingconsciouslyabout the purpose of schooling;(2)assess their behavior and see how this behavior may handicap them in their academicperformance;(3)thinkabouttheirambivalencetowardschools and teachers;and (4)startto see teachersas allies ratherthanadversaries in theireducation. Anotherareafor class discussionand writing is the equatingof school success with "actingwhite"in which thereis peer pressurenotto exhibit the attitudesand behaviorsthat lead to school success. Teachersneed to find ways to help students see that they can be successful in school and maintaintheirculturalidentity. 182 & EducationQuarterly Anthropology Volume 29, 1998 RoleModels.Rolemodels play an importantpartin studentmotivation to succeed in school. Role models provide students with an adult to admireandemulate.Formanyinvoluntaryminorities,academicallyand economicallysuccessfulrole models are particularlyimportantbecause they come fromcommunitieswhere, due to povertyand discrimination, there are not enough successful role models. Role models need to be chosen carefully. It is not enough to expose students to successful membersof their particularethnic or racialgroup. Students need to be exposed through mentoring programsand other ways to members of their own groups who are academicallyand professionallysuccessful and who retain their minority identity. Successful minorities who are seen as havingabandonedtheirculturalidentityto succeedin the "white world"will not be very useful role models becausethey may be seen as Uncle Toms. High Standards.Teachersshould have clearly stated high standards and expectstudentsto meet these standards.By doing so the teacherwill build trust by conveying the message that he or she believes students have the intellectualabilityto do well and that he or she does not share raciststereotypesabout the inferiorintellectualabilityof minorities. Parent and Community Involvement. Because much of the mistrust of schools comes fromthe communityand students'parents,teacherswill need to work hard to try enlist parent and communitysupport of their children'seducation.They need to show parentsthatthey are respected and needed to help theirchildrensucceedin school.Personal,individual contactscan help overcomegroup and institutionalstereotypes.Teachers need to try to find ways to make theircontactswith parentspositive by notifyingthemabouttheirchildren'ssuccessratherthanlimitingtheir contactto informingparentsabout the students'problems.Enlistingthe supportof children'scommunitiesand parentspresentshurdlesthatare extremelydifficultto overcomebecauseteachersarenot generallytrained to engagein this type of activityand because,moreimportantly,according to the cultural-ecologicaltheory the communityand parents play a substantialif not controllingrole in producingthe mistrustthatstudents bringto school. VoluntaryMinority Students For many voluntaryminority students the problemof trust is less of an issue.Theirpragmaticattitudetowardschool,as well as high parental expectations,allow many of them to succeed even under poor instruction. The less successful voluntary minority students have different problemsthan involuntaryminority students. Theirproblems revolve aroundthe excessive pressurefrom high expectationsthat parentsand teachershave for them. The difficultyof living up to these expectations can result in poor school performancedue to anxiety or as an act of conscious or unconscious resistance. Even when school performance does not suffer,thereare residualfeelings of uneasinessand resentment Ogbu and Simons VoluntaryandInvoluntaryMinorities 183 about the model minority stereotype and the pressure to succeed. Teachers need to find ways to reduce the pressure by providing opportunities to openly discuss them and to help students develop ways of dealing with these pressures. The EducationalValue of the Ogbu Theory While the Ogbu theory is not a theory of pedagogy and does not propose educational strategies for teaching minority students, it does have educational value. First, it provides educators with an understanding of some of the sociocultural dynamics affecting minority children's school performance and explains the differences in school performance between voluntary and involuntary minority groups. Second, it highlights the central issues responsible for the school failure of many involuntary minority students, namely mistrust, oppositional identity, and peer pressure not to "act white." Third, it explains in terms of building trust why some types of instruction succeed with involuntary minorities while other types fail. Further, it provides criteria for evaluating the potential for success of educational strategies. Finally, it suggests some instructional strategies, as discussed above, that may work because they are designed to deal with the problems of mistrust, oppositional identity, and peer pressure not to act white. There is one point to keep in mind. The cultural-ecological theory places great weight on formidable nonschool community forces that affect school success. This focus on out-of-school forces may explain why educators have generally not attempted to use the theory in developing instructional strategies. Since the out-of-school forces are so strong, it is not clear how much can be accomplished in school without changing community beliefs and attitudes. This is an area in which educators have not been very successful in the past or which they see as their responsibility. It remains an open question whether changes in the schools and instructional strategies alone can improve involuntary minority students' school success. It may be necessary, as many have advocated, to enlist the support of parents and the community, which will involve earning their trust. John U. Ogbu is Chancellor'sProfessorin the Departmentof Anthropology, Universityof California,Berkeley.HerbertD. Simons is an associateprofessor in the Language,Literacy,and Cultureareaof the Schoolof Education,University of California,Berkeley. Notes The preparationof this articlewas supported by the UniAcknowledgments. versity of Californiafaculty researchfunds and by grants from the National Center for the Study of Writing,the CaliforniaPolicy Seminar,the Carnegie 184 & EducationQuarterly Anthropology Volume 29, 1998 Corporationof New York,the W. T. GrantFoundation,the RussellSage Foundation, and the SpencerFoundation. 1. JohnU. Ogbuis primarilyresponsiblefor the descriptionof the theoryand HerbertD. Simons is primarilyresponsiblefor the part on the implicationsof the theory for educationalpractice. 2. Since 1987therehave been 24 doctoraldissertations,four masterstheses, and over 20 other studies and articles based entirely or in part on Ogbu's cultural-ecologicaltheory and writings on minority education.These include studies and writers in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore,Taiwan,and elsewhere. 3. Ogbu initially suggested that there are three sets of factors influencing minority school performance: societal, school, and community (Ogbu 1987:317-320).But in his recentwritings, he talks about the "two parts"of the problem,combiningthe school and societal forces as one part, thesystem,and retainingcommunity forcesas thesecondpart(Ogbu1990:17-18;1995a).Nowhere in his writingshas he claimedthat minorityschool performanceis determined only or primarilyby "communityforces." 4. Forthe Chinesesee Low 1982and Wong 1989;for MexicanAmericanssee Blair1972andValencia1991;and forBlackAmericanssee Carnoy1994andOgbu 1978. 5. The clarificationis necessarybecause some readers of AEQ continue to misinterpretit. In a recent theme issue of AEQ (Gibson 1997), some authors lumped together "economicimmigrants,""refugees,""guest workers,""undocumentedworkers,"and "migrantsfrom formercolonies"as "immigrants" and used this classificationto evaluateOgbu's theory! 6. Some Asian Americansare currentlyreassessing the experiencesof their forebearsas well as writing on contemporaryissues of culture,language,and identity(Espiritu1992;Juan1994;Min 1995;Wei 1993).However,thereis strong evidence that descendantsof those immigrantscontinue to do well in school partlybecauseof communityforces. 7. At a conferenceat HarvardUniversity in July 1997, an immigrantfrom Jamaicatold Ogbu that her son decided to become a "BlackAmerican"at adolescence and that he ceased to follow the educational strategies of her immigrantcommunity. 8. Thelow schoolperformanceand oppositionalattitudesof Afro-Caribbeans in Canada(Solomon1992)have been mentioned as challengingOgbu'stheory. On the contrary,their situation is consistent with the theory. Initially,AfroCanadians were made minorities against their will through slavery. White Canadianshave forcedsubsequentblack immigrantsto become like the involuntary group (Dei in press; Talbot 1984). Another case said to challenge the theory is Stacey Lee's study of "Asians"and "Koreans"(Gibson 1997).Lee's study is poor for two reasons.First,the study lumps "refugees"fromCambodia and Vietnamtogetherwith "immigrants"from China,Hong Kong,and Taiwan as "Asians."Her examplesof "Asian"studentswho arenot doing well in school and manifesting oppositional attitudes and behaviors are from the refugee group. The cultural-ecologicaltheoryis about "immigrants,"not refugees.Second, she foundthatthe "newwavers"were not doing particularlywell in school. Again, the "new wavers"were not immigrantsbut "SoutheastAsian refugees from working-classand poor families"(Lee 1994:22). 9. Whitesworkingin one woolen industrybetween 1873and 1880were paid three dollars a day, while the Chinese doing the same job in the same factory Ogbu and Simons Voluntaryand InvoluntaryMinorities 185 were paid one dollara day. The Chinesefelt they had to acceptthe lower wages partlybecauseit was betterthanwhat they would make "backhome."(Coolidge 1909:359). 10. Ogbu prefersto talk about "boundaries"in discussing culturaland language differencesbetween mainstreamwhite Americansand minorities. He argues that it is not the "differences"in languageand cultureper se that are at issue; rather it is the relationshipbetween a given minority's language and cultureand mainstreamwhite Americanlanguageand culture. 11. Thediscussionin this sectionis not intendedto meanthatschooland other factorsdo not contributeto students'positive or negativeacademicengagement. 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