Assessing the Oppositional Culture Explanation for Racial/Ethnic Differences in School Performance

Abstract

The oppositional culture explanation for racial disparities in school performance posits that individuals from historically oppressed groups (involuntary minorities) signify their antagonism toward the dominant group by resisting school goals. In contrast, individuals from the dominant group and groups that migratedfreely to the host country (immigrant minorities) maintain optimistic views of their chances for educational and occupational success. Because of its historical and cross-cultural appeal, this explanation has been well-received by academics, although key implications of the theory have not been carefully tested. Proponents have failed to systematically compare perceptions of occupational opportunity and resistance to school across involuntary, dominant, and immigrant groups. Using a large sample of African American, Asian American, and non-Hispanic white high school sophomores from the first follow-up of the National Education Longitudinal Study, we provide the first rigorous test of the oppositional culture explanation. Upon close scrutiny, its key predictions fail. DR espite recent improvement on some measures, the gap in educational performance across racial groups persists. Finding explanations for that gap continues to frustrate academics. Some scholars point to characteristics of the minority family itself (Moynihan 1965), while others see differences in educational performance as primarily a function of social structural conditions (Bourdieu 1977; Bowles and Gintis 1976), such as the types of neighborhoods students live in (Massey and Denton 1993) and consequently the kinds of schools they attend. The oppositional culture explanation draws from both of these traditions, recognizing that social structural conditions shape opportunities but arguing that these conditions form students' motivation for schooling.