'Oppositional Culture Theory'

No one can argue that when talking about educational attainment amongst minorities John Ogbu is at the forefront of the conversation.?Anthropologist, John Ogbu’s debate with ‘micro-ethnographers’, the scientific study of people and subcultures, claimed that they underestimated the historical racial experience of ethnic minority groups (Foley, 1991).?His ‘oppositional culture theory’ comes from a “cultural-ecological” (Ogbu and Simons, 1998) study in Stockton, CA, 1968, where Ogbu attempts to examine the disparities in educational achievement between Whites as a normative value (dominant culture) and Black Americans (non-dominant culture or involuntary minorities).?Ogbu’s “oppositional culture theory” states that minorities adopt adverse behavioral attitudes to the dominant culture as a result of the racial history of America that affects their educational attainment.?His initial interest in studying minority-student underachievement derived in part from his reaction to the then-prevailing explanations for African-American children’s poor academic performance, which focused on genetic and cultural deficits (Gibson, 2004).????????

The dichotomous nature of Ogbu’s typology, a systematic classification, has also drawn fire from scholars, such as Gibson, Ainsworth-Darnell-Downy, and many others,?in this country, who find his framework too simplistic and unable to account for intragroup variability.?Intragroup variability accounts for African-American youth that excels academically.?Other scholars such as Gibson and Carter have charged that his theory is overly deterministic and that his persistent focus on community forces underplays the impact of school factors on minority underachievement (Gibson, 2004).?In my analysis, I will seek to examine three tenets of Ogbu’s 1974 study on academic attainment amongst minorities.?First, what ‘oppositional culture theory’ seeks to explain according to John Ogbu. Secondly, what are the concept’s strengths and weaknesses of ‘oppositional culture theory’??Lastly, what can the community and educational leaders do to address the alleged detrimental effect that an oppositional identity has on school performance?

Ogbu defines ‘oppositional culture theory’ as “structural barriers in minority education” (Ogbu and Simons, 1998).?The first component of “oppositional culture theory” is Ogbu’s classification of minorities: voluntary or immigrant and involuntary or non-immigrant minorities (Ogbu and Simons, 1998).?A key component in the theory of ‘oppositional culture’ explanation, is the distinction between immigrant or voluntary minorities - groups who migrated to the host country of their own free will - and involuntary minorities - groups historically enslaved, colonized or conquered.?Immigrant minorities tend to compare their condition to that of relatives in their homelands, and because this comparison is usually favorable, they develop optimistic attitudes regarding both their chances in the new country and the payoff for efforts aimed at promoting achievement.?In comparison, involuntary minorities are in a psychologically vulnerable position; their members did not migrate with an expectation to improve their condition but were incorporated into society against their will (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey, 1998).?Ogbu has suggested that immigrant minorities may have an adaptive advantage over those who have been incorporated involuntarily into the society in which they now reside, and, as noted, in countries where both reside, the quantitative findings do indicate that in the aggregate immigrant minorities are more successful in school than involuntary minorities(Ogbu 1978,1991).?

However, according to Gibson, Ogbu’s analysis has centered on one particular type of immigrant minority, namely those who have migrated voluntarily to a new country to enhance their economic opportunities and who enter the new country with full rights of permanent residence.?He also gives less attention to how well his model pertains to other types of immigrants (Gibson, 1997).?Margaret Gibson further argues that there are a number of factors, including the immigrants reason for leaving their homeland, their status in the new country, the context they encounter on arrival, and the nature of the resources available to the group, interact together to shape immigrant students performance in school (Gibson, 1997).?

Additionally, Gibson describes five types of immigrants in her argument of John Ogbu’s immigrant model as described below:

Economic Immigrants:

“Those who immigrate primarily for economic reasons may be more willing than political refugees to adopt the ways of the new country, and may view their children’s adaptation as a necessary strategy for achieving their economic goals.?This strategy has been characterized as one of accommodation and acculturation without assimilation.”

Refugees:

“Refugees, on the other hand, who at least initially may believe their stay in the new country to be only temporary, are less driven by economic and job aspirations.?Anticipating a return to their homelands, they generally have less incentive to adopt the ways of the new country or to encourage their children to do so.”

Guest Workers:

“Guest workers, like refugees, although moving to the new country mainly for economic rather than political reasons, generally do not expect to remain permanently, and they may therefore have little incentive to integrate themselves into the larger society.?As with refugees, the nature of schooling provided to the children of guest workers is influenced by whether the host country wishes the workers to settle permanently.”

Undocumented Workers:

“There is little social science literature on the school performance of undocumented immigrants, since, understandably, students without legal residence keep a low profile.”

Migrants from Former Colonies:

“Those who migrate from former colonies to the country that formerly colonized or conquered them cannot readily be classified as either immigrant or involuntary minorities.?We do not find that the group’s prior colonial history has led necessarily to a conflicted or oppositional relationship between students and teachers” (Gibson, 1997).

Whereas, Ogbu argues that the racial legacy of involuntary minorities has left them with a ‘negative model of folk success’, and a pessimistic view of the labor market as having a racially stratified ‘job ceiling’.?Moreover, these negative, defeatist attitudes of involuntary minorities are passed on to their youth who develop an ‘oppositional culture’ of what he calls ‘secondary cultural practices’ (Foley, 2004).?Foley further states that these new secondary cultural practices are often rooted in urban ‘street’ and ‘hip-hop culture’ with a romanticized zero sum logic of success.?Achieving school success is equated with ‘acting white’, thus selling out one’s racial/cultural heritage (Foley, 2004).?In a societal system where one’s ‘cultural capital’, the conceptual trademark of Pierre Bourdieu, isn’t accepted as being valid, it is understandable that one would seek to find an environment in which one finds belonging.?Bourdieu introduced his notion of cultural capital as how individuals’ access to certain cultural signals such as attitudes, preferences, tastes, and styles.?These notions either enable or limit their entry into high-status social groups, organizations, or institutions.?Cultural capital is context-specific and is a currency that?varies across different social spaces, where struggles for legitimation and power exist (Carter, 2003).?Bourdieu maintained that schools help reproduce a stratified class system by bolstering the dominant social group's cultural capital (Bourdieu 1977a, 1977b; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977).?Integrating Bourdieu’s and Ogbu’s arguments, we might conclude that social, economic, and political conditions compel African-American students to develop alternative cultural responses. These responses to opportunity prevent them from gathering the requisite cultural capital for academic, and ultimately socio-economic, success (Carter, 2003).?This is why ‘oppositional culture theory’ is also known as ‘blocked opportunities framework’ (Tallman, 1966) and ‘resistance theory’ (De Man, 1982). Given this more complex reality of achievers and non-achievers within previously assumed bounded, and homogeneous groups, Carter developed three ideological profiles. The first of them is that of “ cultural mainstreamers” who rely on traditional assimilationist values and their approach is to “fit” into the system.?“Noncompliant believers” on the other hand do not act in accordance with the dominant values and norms even though they subscribe to the functional aspects of a good education.?Finally, “cultural straddlers” can strategically and effectively move across the different cultural spheres, enabling them to achieve academically by playing the game, all the while maintaining their sense of racial or ethnic identity (Samkian, 2005).?Yet Carter also realizes that achievement necessitates an ability to access dominant forms of cultural capital and what she calls ‘multicultural navigators’, who assist students in negotiation between the dissonance of their own cultural capital and the organizational habitus which regulates schools (Samkian, 2005).

One important objective of the cultural-ecological theory is to explain the differences in school achievement between voluntary and involuntary minorities.?The theory is not a pedagogical one in that it does not discuss strategies for teachers of voluntary or involuntary minority students but has.?However, by explaining the nature of the problem, it adds educational value and leads to some educational strategies for helping to improve learning (Ogbu and Simons, 1998).?Social scientists and educational practitioners need to understand not only how myriad cultural resources convert into capital within the wider society, but also how this occurs within the wider society, and also how this occurs within lower-status communities (Carter, 2003).?Teachers can guide writing and discussion so that students can (1) begin thinking consciously about the purpose of schooling; (2) assess their behavior and see how this behavior may handicap them in their academic performance; (3) think about their ambivalence toward schools and teachers; (4) start to see teachers as allies rather than adversaries in their education (Ogbu and Simon, 1998).?Other elements for minority academic achievement are role models to provide students with an adult to admire and emulate, clearly stated high standards as a system of belief and confidence in minority students and parent and community involvement as a way of reinforcing children’s success rather than limiting their contact to informing parents about the student’s problems (Ogbu and Simons, 1998).?

In conclusion, it is extremely impressive that Ogbu was connected to the educational attainment research of minorities that he started some 30 years prior with the study being published in 1974.?Post-civil rights the study of ‘oppositional culture theory’ was quintessential in numerous ways: identifying that the disparity of educational achievement between a dominant and nondominant culture which was tied to racial history and not genetics, specifying the difference between ‘voluntary minorities’ that have chosen to migrate for the opportunity and ‘involuntary minorities’ that was the result of being conquered and enslaved, and provided a baseline understanding on the success and failure in schools with regards to minority students.?It is hard to understand looking back that Blacks were considered genetically inferior.?Ogbu’s theory provided the proper framework to have the conversation of the disparity between dominant and nondominant culture.?One of the things that allowed his study to have the platform that it did was that Ogbu intelligently based his debate with micro-ethnographers on his research from Stockton, CA.?Never does he speak of his experience being Nigerian and being an immigrant himself.?

The comparative study allows intellectuals and academians to stay with the context of his study which has kept their responses mostly empirical.?I believe those that have chosen to debate his theory sometimes do not recognize the time the study was done and the fact that it was the first of its kind to give more attention to the racialized historical context of the American construct.

Once again, ‘oppositional culture theory” is not a pedagogical theory but gives light to ideologies that must be considered when teaching.?With the majority of teachers being from the dominant culture and of a different class structure, I believe Ogbu’s theory of ‘oppositional culture theory’ could have a tremendously positive effect if it was more mainstream knowledge.?Instructors in today’s classroom have an enormous responsibility in understanding the varying needs and differences of individual students.

Adaptive practices of teaching seem to be more responsive to the needs of entire student bodies of both dominant and nondominant cultures.?Rodel models, high standards, culturally diverse environments, and parent and community involvement are and elementary approach help assimilate minorities students.?

Bibliography

Ainsworth-Darnell, James W., and Douglas B. Downey. “Assessing the Oppositional Culture Explanation for Racial/ethnic Differences in School Performance”. American Sociological Review 63.4 (1998): 536–553.

Bourdieu, Pierre.,?Outline of a Theory of Practice.?London:?Cambridge University Press,?1977b.?Print.

Bourdieu, Pierre., “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction.” (1977a):?487-511.

Carter, Prudence L.. ”Black'' Cultural Capital, Status Positioning, and Schooling Conflicts for Low-income African American Youth”. Social Problems 50.1 (2003): 136–155.

De Man, Paul. “The Resistance to Theory”. Yale French Studies 63 (1982): 3–20.

Foley, Douglas., “Ogbu’s theory of academic disengagement: its evolution and its critics”.?Intercultural Education 15.4 (2004)?385-397.

Gibson, Margaret A.. “Complicating the Immigrant/involuntary Minority Typology”. Anthropology & Education Quarterly ?28.3 (1997): 431–454.

Gibson, Margaret A.. “John Uzo Ogbu (1939-2003)”. American Anthropologist 106.3 (2004): 644–646.

Ogbu, John U., and Herbert D. Simons. “Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities: A Cultural-ecological Theory of School Performance with Some Implications for Education”. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 29.2 (1998): 155–188.

Samkian, Artineh.?Keepin’ it Real: School Success beyond Black and White by Prudence L. Carter.?InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 2(2), Article 11. (2006)

Tallman, Irving. “Adaptation to Blocked Opportunity: An Experimental Study”. Sociometry 29.2 (1966): 121–134.