Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities: A Cultural-Ecological Theory of School Performance with Some Implications for Education

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities:

A Cultural-Ecological Theory of School

Performance with Some Implications

for Education

JOHN U. OGBU

Department of Anthropology

University of

California,

Berkeley

HERBERT D. SIMONS

Graduate School of Education

University of

California,

Berkeley

This article has three objectives. First, it describes Ogbu's classification of

minorities: autonomous, voluntary or immigrant, and involuntary or nonim-

migrant minorities.

Second,

it explains Ogbu's cultural-ecological theory of

minority school

performance.

Finally, it suggests

some

implications of the theory

for

pedagogy.

The authors regard the typology of minority groups

a heuristic

device

for analysis and interpretation of differences among minority groups in

school

experience.

Ogbu has studied minority education in the United States and other

societies for almost 28 years.

During the first 15 years he concentrated

on the differences in school performance between minority- and domi-

nant-group students. He concluded that the differences were caused by

the treatment of minority groups in society at large and in school as well

as by the perceptions of the minorities and their responses to school due

to such treatment (Ogbu 1974,1978). In the early 1980s the focus of his

research shifted toward explaining differences in school performance

among minority groups themselves (Ogbu 1987). The focus on differ-

ences among minorities has generated a great deal of response from

educational anthropologists and other researchers.

Some have con-

ducted important research that either supports or challenges his perspec-

tive.

But in reviewing these works one finds that some of his main ideas

are not always understood.

Among those ideas is his classification of minority groups. One objec-

tive of this article is to clarify the classification. Some have interpreted

his recent writing to mean that minority school performance is caused

only by sociocultural adaptation. This is a misinterpretation because

Ogbu has always said that "community forces" constitute one of two sets

of factors influencing minority school performance (see Figure

I).

Thus,

Anthropological Association.

155

156

Anthropology

Education

Quarterly Volume 29,1998

THE SYSTEM

'COMMUNITY FORCES

Societal Educational

Policies & Practices

Societal Rewards for

Educational

Accomplishments or

Credentials

Treatments of

Minorities in School

DUAL

STATUS

FRAME OF

REFERENCE

Instrumental Beliefs about

Interpretations of Schooling

(e.g., Role of Credentials

in Getting Ahead)

Relational Beliefs about or

Interpretations of Schooling (e.g.,

Degree of

Trusting Schools &

Those

Control;

Schooling as a Process of

Subordination

and

Control)

Symbolic Beliefs about

Interpretations of Schooling

(e.g., Is learning curriculum,

school cultural practices &

language a threat to minority

cultural

language identity?)

MINORITY EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES

SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Figure 1

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

have already

noted,

during the first period of his research Ogbu

tried to explain why minority students perform less well in school than

majority students. His search for an explanation began in 1968 with his

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

157

Stockton, California, study (Ogbu 1974). A few years later, he published

a major comparative work on the same problem in six countries: Britain,

India,

Israel,

Japan, New Zealand, and the United

States.

The study dealt

with the education

ofcastelike

minorities.

He classified these minorities as

castelike because in every case they were a subordinate group in a

stratification system more rigid than social class stratification. In every

case,

the minorities were historically denied

equal educational

opportuni-

ties

in terms of access to educational resources, treatment in school, and

rewards in employment and wages for educational accomplishments.

Ogbu reached the same conclusion as in his Stockton

study:

namely, that

their lower academic performance was a sort of adaptation to barriers in

adult opportunity structure (Ogbu 1978).

Phase

Two,

1980-1997

Although Ogbu continues to study structural barriers in minority

education, his research focus shifted at the beginning of the 1980s to

"community forces/' which are products of sociocultural adaptation and

are located within the minority community (Ogbu 1983, n.d.a). He

hypothesized that the study of community forces would shed light on

why immigrant minorities do well in school while nonimmigrants do

less well. It is true that during his research in Stockton he had observed

that immigrant and nonimmigrant minorities differed in sociocultural

adaptation, but he did not explore the implications of this difference for

schooling. He continued, however, to encounter the difference in the

school performance of immigrant and nonimmigrant minorities in al-

most all of his subsequent comparative research. Ogbu is currently

analyzing the ethnographic data from a comparative study of commu-

nity forces and educational strategies among African Americans, Chi-

nese Americans, and Mexican Americans in Oakland and Union

City,

the San Francisco Bay area. He is also revising a book for publication by

the Russell Sage Foundation based on the quantitative part of the study

that included some 2,400 students (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 minorities do better in

school than others? Is it because they are more intelligent or genetically

superior? Is it because they come from cultures better at educating their

children? Is it because they possess languages or learning styles better

suited to formal education?

From his comparative research Ogbu has concluded that

(1)

no minor-

ity group does better in school because it is genetically superior than

others; (2) no minority culture is better at educating its children; and (3)

no minority language is better suited for learning in school (Simons et

al.

n.d.). He has argued that from a comparative perspective, one cannot

attribute the differences in minority school performance to cultural,

linguistic, or genetic differences. This is not to deny genetic differences

or to deny that cultural and language differences may have an adverse

158

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

Volume 29,1998

or positive effect on minority school performance; but culture and lan-

guage do not entirely determine the differences among minorities. Con-

sider that some minority groups, like the Buraku outcast in Japan, do

poorly in school in their country of origin but do quite well in the United

States, or that Koreans do well in school in China and in the United States

but do poorly in Japan. Comparative research suggests that we might

discover at least a part of the explanation by closely looking at the

histories and sociocultural adaptations of these minorities (Simons et al.

n.d.).

More specifically, to understand why minority groups differ

among themselves in school performance we have to know two things:

the first is their own responses to their history of incorporation into U.S.

society and their subsequent treatment or mistreatment by white Ameri-

cans.

The second is how their responses to that history and treatment

affect their perceptions of and responses to schooling.

Structural barriers and school factors affect minority school perfor-

mance; however, minorities are also autonomous human beings who

actively interpret and respond to their situation. Minorities are not

helpless victims.

A Cultural-Ecological Theory of Minority School Performance

Ogbu calls his explanation of minority school performance a

cultural-

ecological

theory. This theory considers the broad societal and school

factors

well

the dynamics within the minority communities. Ecology

is the "setting," "environment," or "world" of people (minorities), and

"cultural," broadly, refers to the way people (in this case the minorities)

see their world and behave in it.

The theory has two major parts (see Figure

above). One part is about

the way the minorities are treated or mistreated in education in terms of

educational policies, pedagogy, and returns for their investment or

school credentials. Ogbu calls this the system. The second part is about

the way the minorities perceive and respond to schooling as a conse-

quence of their treatment. Minority responses are also affected by how

and why a group became a minority. This second set of factors is

designated as community

forces

(Ogbu n.d.b).

Understanding how the system affects minority school performance

calls for an examination of the overall white treatment of minorities. The

latter includes the barriers faced by minorities qua minorities. These

barriers are instrumental discrimination (e.g., in employment and

wages), relational discrimination (such as social and residential segrega-

tion),

and symbolic discrimination (e.g., denigration of the minority

culture and language). Ogbu calls these discriminations

collective

prob-

lems

faced by minorities (see Figure 2).

To explain the minorities' perceptions of and responses to education,

the theory explores the

impact

of the white treatment of the minorities.

This impact is expressed in their responses, or their "collective solu-

tions,"

to the collective problems (see Figure 3). Minorities usually

Initial Terms

Incorporation

Subsequent Discriminatory Treatment of Minorities

Relational

Economic:

Job Ceiling

& Exclusion

from

Mainstream

Status

Mobility

System

Political,

Legal &

Barriers

Discriminatory

Educational

Policies &

Practices

" C.

Symbolic/ Expressive

Subordination

& Control;

Exclusion from

True/Real

Assimilation

into Mainstream

Society; Threats

& Violence

Intellectual,

Cultural &

Linguistic

Derogation,

Denigration,

Stereotyping

Educational Consequences: "The System"

Societal Factors Affecting Minority Educational Experience & Outcomes

Societal Educational

Polices & Practices

Wi thin-School

Policies & Practices

Inadequate Societal Rewards &

Recognition for Academic Achievement

Minority School Orientations, Adjustment, Strategies & Performance

Figure

White treatment or "collective problems" faced by minorities. Hi

History: How

Group Acquired Minority Status &

Subsequent Treatment by White Americans

Cultural Model of

the U.S.

US. Society

Cultural Model of Minority Status

DUAL FRAME

OF REFERENCE

INSTRUMENTAL

ADAPTATION

RELATIONAL

ADAPTATION

SYMBOLIC

ADAPTATION

HOW

WELL

THEY THINK

THEYARE

DOING

COMPARISON

WITH

OTHERS;

AND WHO

THE

"OTHERS"

ARE

HOWTHEY

THINK THEY

CAN GET

AHEAD/

"MAKE

MINORITIES

BELIEFS

ABOUT SCHOOL

CREDENTIALS

SURVIVAL

STRATEGIES

E.G.,"A

MAN HAS

GOT TO

WHAT

HE HAS

DO"

"SURVIVE

"MAKEIT

ROLE

MODELS

PEOPLE

ONE

WOULD

BELIKE

ACCOMMODATION;

COLLECTIVE

STRUGGLE;

DEGREE

TRUST/

DISTRUST

WHITES

THE

SYSTEM"

CULTURAL/

LANGUAGE

DIFFERENCES

BEHAVIOR

CULTURAL

FRAMEOF

REFERENCE:

GROUP

IDEM1TY&

BEHAVIOR

CULTURAL

FRAMEOF

REFERENCE:

GROUP

MEMBERSHIP

BEHAVIOR

•i

COMMUNITY

FORCES

CULTURAL MODEL OF SCHOOLING i.e.,

BELIEFS ABOUT OR INTERPRETATIONS OF

Instrumental Value of Schooling

Relationship With Schools & Authorities

Cultural / Language Identity & Schooling

COMMUNITY

FORCES

EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES

Figure

Minorities'

sodocultural

adaptations

"collective

solutions"

to "collective problems."

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

161

respond or develop collective solutions to the instrumental discrimi-

nation (for example, they develop a folk theory of how they can "make

it" in the face of economic discrimination), relational discrimination (e.g.,

they may resort to "collective struggle/' become mistrustful of white

Americans and their institutions), and symbolic discrimination (for ex-

ample, they may develop an oppositional cultural and language frame

of reference or selectively adopt "white ways") (Ogbu 1995a, 1995b).

Having examined the collective problems faced by the minorities and

the minorities' collective solutions to those problems, analysis now

focuses on the implications of both for minority schooling. According to

the theory, the treatment of the minorities in the wider society

reflected

in their treatment in education. The latter takes three forms, all of which

affect school adjustment and performance (see Figure

above). The first

is the overall educational policies and practices toward the minorities

(for example, policy of school segregation, unequal school 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-student interaction patterns, grouping and track-

ing, and so on). The third is the rewards, or lack of them, that society

gives to minorities for their school credentials, especially in employment

and wages. All minorities studied by Ogbu have experienced these

discriminatory treatments.

Structural barriers or discriminations in society and school are impor-

tant determinants of low school achievement among minorities. How-

ever, 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 language differences the major cause of the problem (see Emihovich

1995;

Jacob and Jordan 1993). It is true that cultural and language

differences do cause learning problems. But cultural and language dif-

ference explanations do not account for the school success of some

minority groups that face similar discontinuities as do others that are

less successful. Consider the variation in the school performance of the

minorities in Table 1. It appears that the minorities who are doing better

are those most distant in culture and language from the public school. It

is for these reasons that Ogbu has suggested that the clue to the differ-

ences among minorities in school performance may lie in the differences

in their community forces.

The study of the community forces is essentially the study of minority

perceptions of and responses to schooling. Four factors are hypothesized

to constitute the community forces: a frame of minority school compari-

son (e.g., with schools "back home" or in white suburbs); beliefs about

the instrumental value of schooling (for example, role of school creden-

tials in getting ahead); relational interpretations of schooling (e.g., de-

gree of trust of schools and school personnel); and symbolic beliefs about

schooling (for example, whether learning school curriculum, language,

162

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

Volume 29,1998

Table 1.

Ethnicity, cultural/language differences, and school performance in a junior

high school, Oakland, California, 1994-95 school year

Ethnic Group GPA

Vietnamese 3.2

Chinese 3.0

Mien 2.5

Cambodians 2.2

Latinos/Mexican Americans 2.0

African Americans 2.6

Source:

Yee et

al.

1995

et cetera is considered harmful to minority cultural and language iden-

tity) (see Figure

4).

As already noted, these community forces tend to be

different for different types of minorities.

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 immi-

grants 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, indi-

vidual 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

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

part of

the society against their will.

We now turn

Ogbu's classification of the minority groups to clarify

it.

Following this, we describe the patterns of adaptations of the minor-

ity types and the educational consequences of the adaptations on com-

munity forces. In the final part of the article, we suggest some implica-

tions 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.

History: How a Group Acquired Minority Status &

Subsequent Treatment by White Americans

Sodocultural Adaptations

Cultural Model of/Beliefs about Schooling

Beliefs about or Interpretations of

•

Instrumental Value of Schooling;

•

Relationship with Schools & School Authorities;

•

Cultural/Language Identity & Schooling

DUAL FRAME OF

REFERENCE

INSTRUMENTAL BELIEFS

ABOUT SCHOOLING

RELATIONAL BELIEFS

ABOUT SCHOOLING

SYMBOLIC BELIEFS

ABOUT SCHOOLING

Dual Frame

of Reference:

How good

their

educational

opportunities

are compared

to the

educational

opportunities

of oners and

who the

others are.

l.FoIk

theory of

Success

and

Schooling:

Beliefs

about the

role of

school

credentials

in getting

ahead.

1 Survival/

Alternative

Strategies

and

Schooling:

Beliefs

about other

ways of

getting

ahead mat

do not

require

much

education.

Role

Models and

Schooling:

Betters

about

people one

would like

and the role

of education

in making

them what

they are.

Collective

Struggle for

Equal

Education

Z Trust

/Mistrust of

& Conflicts

with

School/

Authorities

Beliefs

about the role

of schooling in

group

subordination

and control.

Cultural/

Language

Differences &

School

Behavior:

Beliefs about

cultural and

language

difference as

barriers to be

overcome or as

markers of

collective

identity to be

maintained.

Group

Identity and

School

Behaviors/

Talk:

Beliefs about

whether school

curriculum,

behaviors and

language are

threat

minority

cultural and

language

identity.

Group

Menberahip

and School

Behavior/

Taft:

BeMefs

about

members who

behave and

talk the school

ways.

5. Minorities' Educational Strategies

6. Sodal Adjustment & Academic Achievement I

Figure 4. Community forces influencing minorities' schooling.

164

Anthropology

Education

Quarterly Volume 29,1998

For the purpose of explaining differences in school performance,

Ogbu classifies minority groups into

autonomous,

voluntary (immigrant),

and involuntary

(nonimmigrant)

minorities. The different categories call

attention to different

histories

of the people who make up the larger

category referred to as minorities.

The

autonomous minorities

are people who belong to groups that are

small in number. They may be different in race, ethnicity, religion, or

language from the dominant

group.

In the United States some 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 autonomous minorities further.

The classification of minorities into voluntary and involuntary groups

is determined mainly by (1) the nature of white American involvement

with their becoming minorities and (2) the

reasons

they came or were

brought

to the United States.

Voluntary

(Immigrant) Minorities

Voluntary (immigrant) minorities are those who have more or less

willingly moved to the United States because they expect better oppor-

tunities (better jobs, more political or religious freedom) than they had

in their homelands or places of origin. The people in this category may

be different from the majority in race and ethnicity or in religion or

language. The important distinguishing features are that (1) the people

in this category voluntarily chose to move to U.S. society in the hope of

a better future, and (2) they do not interpret their presence in the United

States as forced upon them by the

U.S.

government or by white Ameri-

cans.

Voluntary minorities usually experience some problems in 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, immigrant minorities do not experience long-lasting school

performance difficulty and long-lasting cultural and language problems.

Some examples of voluntary minorities in the United States are immi-

grants from Africa, Cuba, China, India, Japan, Korea, Central and South

America, the Caribbean (Jamaica, Trinidad, the Dominican Republic),

and Mexico.

Refugees,

Migrant/Guest

Workers,

Undocumented

Workers,

and Binationals

Refugees who were forced to come to the United States because of civil

war or other crises in their places of origin are not immigrants or

voluntary minorities. They did not freely choose or plan to come to settle

in the United States to improve their status. However, they share some

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

165

attitudes and behaviors of immigrant minorities which lead to school

success. For example, they come to the United States with already

existing differences in languages and cultures and with

a tourist attitude

toward the cultural and language differences. Like tourists, they knew

before coming to the United States that to accomplish the goal of their

emigration they would have to learn new, that

is,

white American, ways

of behaving and talking. The tourist attitude helps them to learn to

behave and talk like white Americans without fear of losing their cultural

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 perma-

nently. Like refugees, they bring with them pre-existing cultural and

language differences and are able to adopt the tourist attitude toward

learning the culture and language of their host society. However, since

the sojourn of migrant workers is temporary, they tend to learn only as

much of their host's culture and language as necessary to achieve their

temporary goals, which may not include school credentials.

countries

where it is permitted, some migrant workers in due course may choose

to become immigrants (Hagan 1994).

Neither undocumented workers nor binationals are immigrants or

voluntary minorities as defined in the cultural-ecological theory. Since

undocumented workers are not an easily identifiable population, we

have no way of knowing about whether they came

settle permanently

in the United States or about their sociocultural adaptation and their

school experience.

Some studies indicate that binationals maintain economic and other

ties with

their

places of origin and that these

ties

make

their

sociocultural

adaptation different from that of immigrants from the same places of

origin (Baca 1994). Thus, the community forces that influence the educa-

tion of binationals appear to be different from those that influence the

education of immigrants. For example, whereas immigrants often oper-

ate on the belief that they are preparing their children to live and work

in the United States, binationals are not always sure

or clear

about where

they

are

preparing their children

have

future, in the United States or

in their places of origin (Baca 1994).

Involuntary (Nonimmigrant) Minorities

Involuntary (nonimmigrant) minorities are people who have been

conquered, colonized, or enslaved. Unlike immigrant minorities, the

nonimmigrants have been made to be a part of the U.S. society perma-

nently against their

will.

Two distinguishing features of involuntary

minorities are that (1) they did not choose but were forced against their

will to become a part of the United States, and (2) they themselves

usually interpret their presence in the United States as forced on them

by white people. Again,

the

people in this category may

different from

166

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

Volume 29,1998

the dominant group in race and ethnicity or in religion or language.

Involuntary minorities are less economically successful than voluntary

minorities, usually experience greater and more persistent cultural and

language difficulties, and do less well in school.

Involuntary minorities in the United States are American Indians and

Alaska Natives, the original owners of the land, who were conquered;

early Mexican Americans in the Southwest who were also conquered;

Native Hawaiians who were colonized; Puerto Ricans who consider

themselves a colonized people; and black Americans who were brought

to the United States as slaves.

Involuntary

Minorities

versus

Castelike

Minorities.

Involuntary minori-

ties are a part of what Ogbu called "castelike minorities" in his earlier

work (Ogbu 1978). Further research has shown, however, that some

immigrant minorities may also have castelike relationships with the

dominant group. This seems to have been the case of Chinese immi-

grants in the Mississippi Delta in the 19th century (Loewen 1988). But

unlike nonimmigrant castelike minorities, the Chinese were able to

escape from their initial castelike status through beliefs and behaviors

more or less typical of voluntary minorities.

Descendants or Later Generations

Children of immigrant minorities are voluntary minorities like their

foreign-born parents. For example, second-, third-, or fourth-generation

U.S.-born Chinese are voluntary minorities. It does not matter that it was

their forebears rather than themselves who made the decision to come

to settle in the United States. Ogbu has found that the education of the

descendants of immigrants continues to be influenced by the community

forces of their forebears.

The exceptions are descendants of immigrants from groups who share

affinity with nonimmigrant minorities, that

is,

with those minorities who

were originally incorporated into

U.S.

society against their will through

conquest, colonization, or slavery. Immigrants having such an affinity

are usually treated by white Americans as a part of the pre-established

nonimmigrant

groups.

White Americans force such immigrants to reside

and work alongside the nonimmigrant group through residential segre-

gation, job discrimination, and other discriminatory treatments. Under

these circumstances the immigrants and nonimmigrants intermarry and

their descendants grow up with their nonimmigrant peers, tend to

identify with them, and assume the same sense of peoplehood or collec-

tive identity. This is what has been happening in the United States with

black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. Their descendants

eventually become "Black American/'

As a result of their assimilation

into the involuntary Black American minority group, some descendants

of the earlier Afro-Caribbean immigrants have become Black American

civil rights leaders.

Ogbu and Simons Voluntary and Involuntary

Minorities

167

A similar process of assimilation takes place among Mexican immi-

grants

who,

in subsequent

generations,

become a part of the involuntary

Mexican American minority group. However, there is a difference be-

tween descendants of Mexican immigrants and descendants of black

immigrants:

descendants of Mexican immigrants have options not

avail-

able to descendants of black immigrants. One such option is that an

offspring of Mexican-Anglo intermarriage with enough white features

can "pass" and become a part of the white majority. One informant told

Ogbu that since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, some Mexican

immigrants have been using intermarriage with Anglos to enable their

offspring to pass into white society and avoid membership in the invol-

untary Mexican American minority group (David Garza, Personal com-

munication, Austin, TX, November 1996).

Further Important Features of

the

Classification

The Classification Is Not Determined by Race. The distinction between

voluntary and involuntary minority status is not based on race. Rather,

it is a part of a general framework that explains the beliefs and behaviors

of different minorities, regardless of race or ethnicity, and how these

beliefs and behaviors contribute to school success or failure. It is not

about black Americans as an involuntary minority or Chinese Americans

as a voluntary minority group. The distinction is based upon a careful

comparative study of ethnic and racial minorities and how the status of

a group affects its economic progress and academic performance. The

framework is not specifically directed at any particular race or even at

any particular country. For example, Koreans are voluntary minorities

in the United States

(Y.

Lee 1991) and China (Weiwenand Qingnan

1993;

Yin 1989) but are involuntary minorities in Japan

(Y.

Lee

1991;

Lee and

DeVos

1981);

Maya Indians are voluntary minorities in the United States

but involuntary minorities in Mexico (Hagan

1994);

and black Americans

are voluntary minorities in Ghana, Japan, France, and other countries

but are involuntary minorities in the United States.

It is a group's history—how and why a group became a minority and

the role of the dominant group in society in their acquisition of minority

status—that determines its voluntary or involuntary status rather than

its race and ethnicity.

Chinese 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

minorities in the United States because they were brought here as slaves

against their will, not because they are black. The fact that black people

from the Caribbean and Africa in the United States are voluntary minori-

ties further demonstrates that it is history and not race that determines

voluntary or involuntary status. Colin Powell makes this point very

clearly:

168 Anthropology & Education Quarterly Volume 29,1998

My Black ancestors may have been dragged to Jamaica in chains, but they were

not dragged to the United

States.

That

is a

far different emotional and psycho-

logical beginning than that of American

Blacks,

whose ancestors were brought

here in chains. [Powell 1995]

Dominant Patterns of Belief and

Behavior as

Focus of Analysis. The frame-

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 Ameri-

can 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 differ-

ences in social class beliefs and behaviors. When we refer to middle-class

beliefs or behaviors, we do not usually mean that among white, middle-

class 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 minori-

ties.

Beliefs and Behaviors of Voluntary and Involuntary Minority Groups Rep-

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.

Differences within Voluntary and Involuntary Categories. 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

which members of a given minority group

exhibit the dominant patterns of beliefs and behaviors characteristic of

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

169

that category. For example, among involuntary minority groups, black

Americans are the most visible. Their beliefs and behaviors show the

most conformity to the pattern characteristic of involuntary minorities.

The beliefs and behaviors of Mexican Americans, a group with a differ-

ent and more varied history, circumstances, and skin color, show less

conformity to the involuntary minority pattern.

Another source of difference among involuntary minority 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 difficult for black Americans because the caste system under which

they have existed defines any offspring of black and white mating, no

matter what his or her color, complexion, or physical features, as black

and thus prohibited from joining the white community (Burma 1947;

Davis et al. 1942). Finally, for voluntary minorities the more recent the

immigration, the more they conform to the voluntary minority pattern.

The Same Treatment Elicits

Different

Interpretations.

As was noted earlier,

the same treatment can be interpreted differently by different minority

groups, depending upon their history. For the same reason, when they

encounter similar cultural or language differences they tend to interpret

and respond to them differently. For example, Ogbu has found in his

Oakland study that when asked to learn standard English in school the

two types of minorities seem to respond differently because they attach

different meanings to speaking standard English (Ogbu

1995b,

n.d.d).

With these points in mind, we turn to how minorities, as active agents,

interpret and respond to their treatment in U.S. society because of

differing

histories.

Following

this,

we examine how their interpretations

and responses (i.e., beliefs and behaviors) affect their schooling.

Minorities' Adaptations: Different Cultural Models

(Interpretations) of and Responses to U.S. Society

Ogbu's research suggests that voluntary and involuntary minorities

develop

different cultural models

of U.S. society. Cultural models are the

ways that members of a minority group understand or interpret their

world and guide their actions in that world. This understanding falls into

four types in which voluntary and involuntary minorities differ: frames

of reference, folk theories of "making it" (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 schematic repre-

sentation in Figure 3 above; the description of their responses to educa-

tion specifically is represented schematically in Figure 4 above.

It is important to keep in mind that the following discussion is about

dominant

patterns of beliefs and behaviors within each category or within

each minority group. As we stated before, not all members of a minority

group believe the same thing or behave the same way. Some individuals

170

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

Volume 29,1998

and some subgroups believe or behave differently from the dominant

pattern of the group.

Status

Frame

of 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 refer-

ence is the "back home" situation.

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

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 experi-

ence 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 re-

ported 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 favorit-

ism, 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

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

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

chance for

professional careers they would not otherwise have attained back home.

Here is how some parents put it:

Oakland Chinese Parent

#227C:

is very important [for my children to make

good grades] because the purpose for us to come is to let them have a good

future and become successful. I sacrificed everything for them [to come and

get American education].

Interviewer: What did you tell your children about why they are going to

school?

Oakland Chinese Parent

#223C:

I told them to study hard and have a good

future.

always tell them

had sacrificed a lot. The reason for us to come here

is for them to have a good education. I always remind them about this.

[Minority Education Project n.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, involun-

tary minorities tend to believe that it appears to be a permanent feature

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. In-

stead, 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

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

Volume 29,1998

Instrumental Responses

Instrumental responses have to do with the means necessary to suc-

ceed in the United States; they include folk theories of "making

it"

and

role models.

Folk Theory

"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 dif-

fer 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 edu-

cation 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

before

emigration and

partly due to the fact that they, especially the most recent immigrants,

have not yet been exposed to discrimination long enough to have inter-

nalized 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

succeed

in the United

States.

But because they have faced employment and wage

discrimination as well as other

barriers to

making

white-controlled

economy for many generations, they have come to believe that (1) job

and wage discrimination is more or less institutionalized and perma-

nent, and (2) individual effort, education, and hard work are important

but not enough to overcome racism and discrimination. The ambiva-

lence 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' ambiva-

lence. Thus, involuntary minorities are less sure that education leads to

success

or helps to

overcome

barriers to

upward mobility. The community,

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

173

families, and students are skeptical and ambivalent about the role of

education in getting ahead.

Some studies (such as Mickelson 1990) may provide a clue to this

ambivalence. When asked, most involuntary minority parents and stu-

dents say they believe that education and hard work are the ways to

succeed. However, their individual and community's concrete experi-

ences with job and other economic discrimination, combined with their

awareness of historical segregation and racism in schools, contradict this

abstract belief and serve to reinforce the concrete belief that education

and hard work will not necessarily lead to economic success. Further-

more, they believe that schools cannot be trusted to educate their chil-

dren properly. Mickelson found in her research that parents' and stu-

dents'

concrete experiences predicted school performance, while their

abstract beliefs did not. This suggests that it is people's actual experi-

ences with education and with opportunity structure or rewards of

education that influence their behavior much more than abstract beliefs

about the importance of education.

Role

Models.

Role models within the voluntary minority communities

are usually people who have fully acculturated, attained a higher edu-

cation, and achieved economic

success.

They are hard workers who have

played by the rules of the system and succeeded. Voluntary minorities

are less conflicted about accommodating to white society, so their role

models include people who fully adopt white ways and language (see

section on symbolic interpretation). Among the Chinese Americans,

successful members of earlier immigrants serve as role models for newer

immigrants.

Involuntary minorities' role models include conventional catego-

ries—entertainers, athletes, professionals, and the wealthy—as well as

nonconventional types—rebels against white society and people of ex-

ceptional courage. Unlike voluntary minorities who admire conven-

tional role models

(e.g.,

minority doctors, engineers, executives, lawyers)

for working their way up from the inside and playing by the rules,

involuntary minorities tend to criticize minority professionals as "un-

conventional" (from a minority perspective), 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

influential as role models because it is suspected that for them to have

succeeded they probably have had to adopt white ways such as speaking

standard English, which is seen as giving in to the white oppressor and

abandoning their identity (Taylor 1973). Moreover, the professionals

among involuntary minorities have few ties to the community and are

not visible in it. Athletes and entertainers are admired, but often these

are people who did not use education but talent and physical strength

as a route to success.

174 Anthropology & Education Quarterly Volume 29,1998

There are interesting differences between black and Chinese parents in Ogbu's

Oakland study in the choice of role models for their children. Asked whom

they would like their children to be when they grow up, Chinese parents

mentioned scientists, astronauts, lawyers, doctors, architects, and so on. Gen-

erally they wanted their children to grow up as professionals in technical

fields.

In contrast, only one black parent mentioned someone in

professional

field, a brother whom she said was "a successful executive" with a major

department store (unnamed) in New York City. One parent mentioned Jesus

Christ; many others named famous celebrities (e.g., Michael Jackson, Bill

Cosby,

Hammer) and several

athletes.

[Minority Education Project n.d.]

Trust in White Institutions

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 pragmatic trust (Ogbu n.d.c; see also Gibson 1988). But where immi-

grants 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 discrimina-

tion,

racism, and conflict leads them to distrust white-controlled institu-

tions.

The schools are treated with suspicion because the minorities, with

justification, believe that the public schools will not educate their chil-

dren 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).

Symbolic Response and Collective Identity

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 cul-

tural/language boundaries has a very different meaning for voluntary

and involuntary minorities.

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

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

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 immi-

grants, 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 lan-

guage 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 re-

quirements (Ogbu n.d.c).

There

are both ethnographic and nonethnographic data suggesting that invol-

untary minorities equate learning white ways with losing their minority

identity. Again,

are writing about

dominant pattern, not generalizing for

every

individual.

The dominant pattern existed in

the

Oakland black commu-

nity studied by Ogbu. The following response by a black parent is typical:

176 Anthropology & Education Quarterly Volume 29,1998

Parent

25L:

think it's literally insane and stuff for

lot

[of]

black people who

are black

[to] see

black people who pretend

be white.

Interviewer: Um hum.

Parent

25L:

They get very angry Angry... because they're proud of their

being

black.

And to

see

somebody

else

who

black actually put it down and

try

to hide

it.

mean if

like...

because

feel that

way,

too.

It's like... feeling

that bad about being black that you want to hide it.

Interviewer: Um hum.

Parent

25L:

That's what you're gonna be from now until the day you die and

ain't nothing nobody gonna do to change

it.

[That

is,

you should retain your

black

identity].

[Minority Education Project n.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 ethno-

graphic 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 communica-

tion, Austin, TX, November 1996; Steele

1992;

Taylor 1973).

Community Forces and Schooling: Attitudes and Behaviors in School

The beliefs and responses of the minorities discussed above affect their

attitudes and behaviors toward school. Voluntary and involuntary mi-

norities differ in these attitudes and behaviors (see Figure 4 above).

Once again, the reader should keep in mind that what we present in this

section are dominant patterns of attitudes and behaviors within each

category. There are both individual and subgroup variations in school

attitudes and behaviors.

Voluntary Minorities

Due to the way and the reasons they became minorities, their prag-

matically positive attitude toward U.S. society and institutions, and the

way they interpret cultural and language differences, voluntary minor-

ity

communities

and parents are strongly committed to their children

succeeding in school. They have high academic expectations of their

children and tend to hold the children, rather than the schools, respon-

sible for academic performance. Except where they encounter deliberate

and blatant educational discrimination, as in San Francisco, immigrants

do not usually blame or even question their children's teachers for

problems their children encounter. They are unequivocal

their support

Ogbu and Simons Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities 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 chil-

dren's time, which allows them to make sure that the children do

homework even when their parents are not able to help them.

Oakland Chinese Parent

#279C:

I don't know what they do in school. If they

are

not good in English

their teachers

should

help them more

in English.

wish

their

teacher should help them

much

possible and encourage them more.

Chinese students are usually very hardworking.

The

problem

is that

they can't

speak English well. If they don't understand [English] they won't get good

grades. Teachers should help them more so they can catch up with others.

[Minority Education Project n.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.

Involuntary Minorities

Involuntary minority communities and parents have ambivalent atti-

tudes 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

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

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 com-

munity, parents, and students toward school because they see the school

as a white institution. The requirements for school success, which in-

volve mastering the school curriculum, learning to speak and write

standard English, and exhibiting "good" school behaviors, are inter-

preted 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 mas-

tery 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 school-

ing 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 factor is the basic assimilationist offer that schools make to blacks: You

can be valued and rewarded in 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 particulars of being

black—styles of speech and appearance, value priorities, preferences—at least

[a]

mainstream

setting.

This

asking

lot.

[1992:68-75;

see

also

Luster

1992;

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).

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

179

The parents' and community's ambivalence is reflected in the attitude

and, most important, the behaviors of students in school. Like their

parents and members of their community, the students have an abstract

belief in the importance of "getting a good education/' However, their

attitudes and behaviors contradict their verbal assertions. The mixed

feelings lead to reduced efforts, which manifest themselves in failure to

pay attention in class, do homework, and keep up with school assign-

ments, and in claims that the work is uninteresting and boring. Some

students are openly defiant as they challenge the teachers' authority.

They do not put much effort into learning standard English because they

see it as separating them from their peers, family, and community, thus

threatening their minority identity. There

a strong negative peer group

influence that more or less stigmatizes academic success and using

standard English as "acting white." All of these attitudes and behaviors

lead inevitably to poor academic performance.

Pedagogical Implications

One important objective of the cultural-ecological theory is to explain

the differences in school achievement between voluntary and involun-

tary 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 educational strategies for helping to improve learning.

One point must be kept in mind while thinking about teaching minor-

ity students in light of the theory. The theory does not posit explicitly or

implicitly that group membership alone determines school success or

failure. For any individual student, being a member of a group that can

be characterized as voluntary or involuntary does not solely determine

that student's school success or failure. What the categories do is to help

educators think about the differences that exist between groups, not

among individuals. Teachers should avoid basing expectations about an

individual's school performance and behavior on group membership.

Students should be treated as individuals. The value of the theory

that

it will help educators understand why students may behave the way

they do inside and outside the classroom when they are following their

groups' pattern of behavior. It follows from the cultural-ecological the-

ory that in order

help involuntary minority students succeed in school,

the problem of the mistrust of schools and the fear of being seen as acting

white (and the subsequent lack of effort) must be recognized and ad-

dressed.

Educating Involuntary

Minority Students:

Recognize

and

Deal

with

Opposition,

Ambivalence,

and Mistrust

As we have shown, the fundamental problem for educators is that

many involuntary minorities do not trust "white" institutions such as

180

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

Volume 29,1998

schools, courts, and government. As a result of a long history of racism

and discrimination, many involuntary minorities have developed an

oppositional

identity to white mainstream society which makes them

reluctant to cross cultural boundaries and adopt what they consider to

be "white ways" of talking, thinking, and behaving because they fear

doing so will displace their own minority identity and alienate them

from their peers, family, and community. This mistrust is often accompa-

nied

by an abstract belief in the importance of an education for success

which is contradicted by their community's and parents' concrete expe-

riences. The net result is ambivalence about the usefulness of school as

a vehicle to success in life. This ambivalence makes it difficult for many

involuntary minority students to put in the full effort required for school

success.

What

Teachers

Can Do

Build

Trust.

Since many involuntary minority students come to school

with an ambivalence about the value of education and about conforming

to the demands of a "white" institution, building trust needs to be the

first priority for teachers. While it may not be an easy task to change the

student's trust in "the system" as a whole, individual teachers can foster

a trusting relationship between themselves and their students. As Erick-

son (1987) points out, students will trust teachers when they believe that

(1) the teacher has the student's best interests at heart and (2) the

student's identity and self-esteem will not be harmed. Teachers need to

show students by word and deed that they believe in their students, that

their culture is worthy of respect, and that succeeding in school will leave

their identity intact.

Culturally Responsive

Instruction.

Culturally responsive or appropriate

instruction (Au and Mason

1981;

Ladson-Billings

1994) is

instruction that

acknowledges and accommodates students' culture, language, and

learning styles in the curriculum and classroom. It

a response designed

to close the gap between the students' cultural patterns and the school's

institutional requirements and prevent the type of miscommunication

that is caused by the conflict between teachers' and students' culturally

determined interactional styles. Culturally responsive instruction will

also show the students that the teacher recognizes and honors their

cultural and personal experiences and will help make school a less alien

place.

For black American students, for example, speaking standard English

is a major characteristic of "acting white" which is to be resisted. Thus,

acknowledging the validity of the use of black English in appropriate

contexts can help students acquire standard English without seeing it as

threatening their own language and ethnic identity. Students can be

taught that different ways of speaking are considered appropriate in

different situations. In school and in other formal situations standard

English

expected and rewarded, while at home and out of school their

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

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 appropriateness to the situation

determines language use.

Culturally responsive instruction requires that teachers understand

their students' culture and language. Bringing students' and their com-

munity's folklore into the classroom is a particularly effective way to

bridge the cultural gap (see Simons 1990). It helps teachers learn about

their students' culture and life experiences and communicates to the

students that the teacher is interested in their world, which serves to

validate their identity.

Culturally responsive pedagogy has been criticized on the grounds

that there are many examples of successful schools and teachers of

minority students who do not accommodate children's cultures, such as

black Muslim schools and Roman Catholic parochial schools (Erickson

1987).

There are also voluntary minority groups who are culturally very

different from the mainstream culture of the school yet succeed without

culturally responsive instruction. Thus, closing the cultural gap does not

appear to be a necessary condition for improving minority school

achievement. It appears that the underlying factor in successful cultur-

ally responsive and nonresponsive instruction is the building of trust.

Any type of instruction that builds trust in one way or another, even if

not "culturally responsive," between the teacher and the students will

increase the chances of improving student achievement.

Explicitly

Deal

with

Opposition/Ambivalence.

Involuntary minority stu-

dents may not be fully conscious or have a fully articulated under-

standing of their own ambivalence and resistance to school. But most are

aware of the oppression their groups have faced and still face in life. It

is,

therefore, important to raise the issue of ambivalence and resistance

for discussion because it will help students to think openly about their

behaviors (so that they can critically evaluate their own actions). Read-

ings from the autobiographies of involuntary minorities who have faced

and resolved their ambivalence about schools and teachers can be used

as a basis for discussions and writing assignments.

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; and (4) start to see teachers as allies rather than adversaries

in their education.

Another area for class discussion and writing is the equating of school

success with "acting white" in which there is peer pressure

not

to exhibit

the attitudes and behaviors that lead to school success. Teachers need to

find ways to help students see that they can be successful in school and

maintain their cultural identity.

182

Anthropology

Education Quarterly

Volume 29,1998

Role

Models.

Role models play an important part in student motivation

to succeed in school. Role models provide students with an adult to

admire and

emulate.

For many involuntary minorities, academically and

economically successful role models are particularly important because

they come from communities where, due to poverty and discrimination,

there are not enough successful role models. Role models need to be

chosen carefully. It is not enough to expose students to successful

members of their particular ethnic or racial group. Students need to be

exposed through mentoring programs and other ways to members of

their own groups who are academically and professionally successful

and who retain their minority identity. Successful minorities who are

seen as having abandoned their cultural identity to succeed in the "white

world" will not be very useful role models because they may be seen as

Uncle Toms.

High

Standards.

Teachers should have clearly stated high standards

and expect students to meet these standards.

doing

the teacher will

build trust by conveying the message that he or she believes students

have the intellectual ability to do well and that he or she does not share

racist stereotypes about the inferior intellectual ability of minorities.

Parent

and Community Involvement. Because much of the mistrust of

schools comes from the community and students' parents, teachers will

need to work hard to try enlist parent and community support of their

children's education. They need to show parents that they are respected

and needed to help their children succeed in school. Personal, individual

contacts can help overcome group and institutional stereotypes. Teach-

ers need to try to find ways to make their contacts with parents positive

by notifying them about their children's success rather than limiting their

contact to informing parents about the students' problems. Enlisting the

support of children's communities and parents presents hurdles that are

extremely difficult to overcome because teachers are not generally trained

to engage in this type of activity and because, more importantly, accord-

ing to the cultural-ecological theory the community and parents play a

substantial if not controlling role in producing the mistrust that students

bring to school.

Voluntary

Minority Students

For many voluntary minority students the problem of trust is less of

issue.

Their pragmatic attitude toward school, as well as high parental

expectations, allow many of them to succeed even under poor instruc-

tion. The less successful voluntary minority students have different

problems than involuntary minority students. Their problems revolve

around the excessive pressure from high expectations that parents and

teachers have for them. The difficulty of living up to these expectations

can result in poor school performance due to anxiety or as an act of

conscious or unconscious resistance. Even when school performance

does not suffer, there are residual feelings of uneasiness and resentment

Ogbu and Simons

Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities

183

about the model minority stereotype and the pressure to succeed. Teach-

ers 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 Educational Value 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 under-

standing of some of the sociocultural dynamics affecting minority chil-

dren's school performance and explains the differences in school perfor-

mance 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 evalu-

ating the potential for success of educational strategies. Finally, it sug-

gests some instructional strategies, as discussed above, that may work

because they are designed to deal with the problems of mistrust, oppo-

sitional 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 responsi-

bility. It remains an open question whether changes in the schools and

instructional strategies alone can improve involuntary minority stu-

dents'

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's Professor in the Department of Anthropology,

University of California, Berkeley. Herbert D. Simons is an associate professor

in the Language, Literacy, and Culture area of the School of Education, Univer-

sity of California, Berkeley.

Notes

Acknowledgments.

The preparation of this article was supported by the Uni-

versity of California faculty research funds and by grants from the National

Center for the Study of Writing, the California Policy Seminar, the Carnegie

184 Anthropology & Education Quarterly Volume 29,1998

Corporation of New York, the W. T. Grant Foundation, the Russell Sage Foun-

dation, and the Spencer Foundation.

John

Ogbu is primarily responsible for the description of the theory and

Herbert D. Simons is primarily responsible for the part on the implications of

the theory for educational practice.

Since 1987 there have been 24 doctoral dissertations, four masters theses,

and over 20 other studies and articles based entirely or in part on Ogbu's

cultural-ecological theory and writings on minority education. These include

studies and writers in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,

Singapore, Taiwan, and elsewhere.

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 recent writings, he talks about the "two parts" of the

problem, combining the school and societal forces as one part,

the

system,

and

retaining community

forces as

the second part (Ogbu

1990:17-18;

1995a).

Nowhere

in his writings has he claimed that minority school performance is determined

only or primarily by "community forces."

For the Chinese see Low 1982 and Wong 1989; for Mexican Americans see

Blair 1972 and Valencia

1991;

and for Black Americans see Carnoy 1994 and Ogbu

1978.

The clarification is necessary because some readers of AEQ continue to

misinterpret it. In a recent theme issue of AEQ (Gibson 1997), some authors

lumped together "economic immigrants/' "refugees," "guest workers," "un-

documented workers," and "migrants from former colonies" as "immigrants"

and used this classification to evaluate Ogbu's theory!

6. Some Asian Americans are currently reassessing the experiences of their

forebears as well as writing on contemporary issues of culture, language, and

identity (Espiritu

1992;

Juan

1994;

Min

1995;

Wei

1993).

However, there

strong

evidence that descendants of those immigrants continue to do well in school

partly because of community forces.

At a conference at Harvard University in July 1997, an immigrant from

Jamaica told Ogbu that her son decided to become a "Black American" at

adolescence and that he ceased to follow the educational strategies of her

immigrant community.

8. The low school performance and oppositional attitudes of Afro-Caribbeans

in Canada (Solomon 1992) have been mentioned as challenging Ogbu's theory.

On the contrary, their situation is consistent with the theory. Initially, Afro-

Canadians were made minorities against their will through slavery. White

Canadians have forced subsequent black immigrants to become like the invol-

untary 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" from Cambodia

and Vietnam together with "immigrants" from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

as "Asians." Her examples of "Asian" students who are not doing well in school

and manifesting oppositional attitudes and behaviors are from the refugee

group. The cultural-ecological theory is about "immigrants," not refugees. Sec-

ond, she found that the "new wavers" were not doing particularly well in school.

Again, the "new wavers" were not immigrants but "Southeast Asian refugees

from working-class and poor families" (Lee 1994:22).

9. Whites working in one woolen industry between

1873

and 1880 were paid

three dollars a day, while the Chinese doing the same job in the same factory

Ogbu and Simons Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities 185

were paid one dollar a day. The Chinese felt they had to accept the lower wages

partly because it was better than what they would make "back

home."

(Coolidge

1909:359).

10.

Ogbu prefers to talk about "boundaries" in discussing cultural and lan-

guage differences between mainstream white Americans and minorities. He

argues that it is not the "differences" in language and culture per se that are at

issue; rather it is the relationship between a given minority's language and

culture and mainstream white American language and culture.

11.

The discussion in this section is not intended to mean that school and other

factors do not contribute to students' positive or negative academic engagement.

As we stated earlier, there are two parts to the problem of minority students'

school adjustment and performance: "the system" (i.e., societal and school

factors) and community forces. However, the focus of the present article is the

effects of community forces on school attendance, achievement behavior, and

academic performance, since the theory predicts that differences among minori-

ties in school performance are largely due to differences in community forces.

References Cited

ARC Associates

1982 Bilingual Education in a Chinese Community: Final Report. Contract

No.

400-80-0013. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education.

Au, Kathryn, and J. Mason

1981 Cultural Congruence in Classroom Participation

Structures:

Achieving

a Balance of

Rights.

Discourse Processes 6:145-167.

Baca, Reynaldo

1994 Toward an Understanding of the Success or Secession of First Genera-

tion Mexican Immigrant Students in High School. Ph.D. dissertation,

Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley.

Becknell, Charles

1987 Blacks in the Workforce: A Black Manager's Perspective. Albuquerque,

NM: Horizon Communications.

Benjamin, Lois

1992 The Black

Elite:

Facing the Color Line in the Twilight of the Twentieth

Century. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.

Blair, Phillip

1972 Job Discrimination and Education: Rates of Return to Education of

Mexican-Americans and Euro-Americans in Santa Clara County, California. In

Compensatory Education for Cultural Deprivation. Benjamin M. Bloom,

Allison Davis, and Robert Hess, eds. Pp. 80-99. New York: Holt.

Burma, John

1947 The Measurement of Negro Passing. American Journal of Sociology

52:18-22.

Carnoy, Martin

1994 Faded Dreams: The Politics and Economics of Race in America. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carnoy, Martin, ed.

1972 Schooling in a Corporate Society. New York: David McKay Company.

Coolidge, Mary

1909 Chinese Immigration. New York: Henry Holt.

186 Anthropology & Education Quarterly Volume 29,1998

Cose, Ellis

1993 The Rage of a Privileged Class: Why Are Middle-Class Blacks Angry?

Why Should America Care? New York: Harper-Collins.

Davis,

Allison, Burleigh Gardner, and Mary Gardner

1942 Deep

South:

Study of Social Class and Color Caste in

Southern City.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dei,

George

In press Reconstructing

Dropout":

Critical Ethnography of the Dynamics

of Black Students' Disengagement from School. Toronto: University of

Toronto Press.

Emihovich, Catherine

1995 Cultural Continuities and Discontinuities in Education. In The Interna-

tional Encyclopedia of Educational Research,

vol.

Pp.

1227-1232.

London:

Pergamon Press.

Erickson, Frederick

1987 Transformation and School

Success:

The Politics and Culture of Educa-

tional Achievement. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 18:335-356.

Espiritu, Yen

1992 Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Gibson, Margaret

1988 Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an Ameri-

can High

School.

Ithaca,

NY:

Cornell University Press.

1997 Ethnicity and School Performance: Complicating the Immigrant/Invol-

untary Minority Typology. Special issue. Anthropology and Education

Quarterly 28(3).

Hagan, Jastin

1994 Deciding To Be Legal: A Maya Community in Houston. Philadelphia:

Temple University Press.

Jacob,

Evelyn, and Cathie Jordan, eds.

1993 Minority Education: Anthropological Perspectives. Norwood,

NJ:

Ablex.

Juan, Karin

1994 The State of Asian Americans: Activism and Resistance in the 1990s.

Boston: South End Press.

Ksinitz, P.

1992 Caribbean New

York:

Black Immigrants and the Politics of

Race.

Ithaca,

NY: Cornell University Press.

Ladson-Billings, Gloria

1994 The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lee,

Changsoo, and George DeVos

1981 Koreans In

Japan:

Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation. Berkeley: Uni-

versity of California Press.

Lee,

Stacey

1994 Behind the Model-Minority Stereotype: Voices of High- and Low-

Achieving Asian American Students. Anthropology and Education Quar-

terly 25:41^429.

Lee,

Yongsook

1991 Koreans in Japan and the United States. In Minority Status and School-

ing: A Comparative Study of Immigrant and Involuntary Minorities.

Ogbu and Simons Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities 187

Margaret Gibson and John Ogbu, eds. Pp. 131-167. New York: Garland

Publishing.

Loewen, James

1988 The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White. Prospect Heights,

IL:

Waveland Press.

Low, Victor

1982 The Unimpressible Race: A Century of Educational Struggle by the

Chinese in San Francisco. San Francisco: East-West Publishing.

Luster, Laura

1992 Schooling, Survival, and Struggle: Black Women and the GED. Ph.D.

dissertation, School of Education, Stanford University.

Matusow, Barbara

1989 Alone Together: What Do You Do When the Dream Hasn't Come True,

When You're Black and Middle-Class and Still Shut Out of White Washing-

ton,

When It Seems to Quit Trying? The Washingtonian, November:

153-159,282-290.

Mickelson, Roslyn

1990 The Attitude-Achievement Paradox among Black Adolescents. Sociol-

ogy of Education 63:44-61.

Min,

Pyong

1995 Asian Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Sage Publications.

Minority Education Project

N.d. Community Forces and Minority Education Strategies, A Preliminary

Report of Ethnographic Study. Department of Anthropology, University of

California, Berkeley. Unpublished MS.

Ogbu, John U.

1974 The Next Generation: An Ethnography of Education in an Urbana

Neighborhood. New York: Academic Press.

1978 Minority Education and Caste: The American System in Cross-Cultural

Perspective. New York: Academic Press.

1983 Minority Status and Schooling in Plural Societies. Comparative Educa-

tion Review 27(2) .168-190.

1987 Variability In Minority School Performance: A Problem in Search of an

Explanation. Anthropology and Education Quarterly 18:312-334.

1990 Cultural Models and Educational Strategies of Non-Dominant People.

The 1989 Catherine Molony Memorial Lecture, City College of New York.

1995a Cultural Problems in Minority Education: Their Interpretations and

Consequences—Part One: Theoretical Background. The Urban Review

27(3):189-205.

1995b Cultural Problems in Minority Education: Their Interpretations and

Consequences—Part One: Case Studies. The Urban Review 27(4):271-297.

N.d.a Understanding Community Forces Affecting Minority Students' Aca-

demic Effort. Paper prepared for the Achievement Council of California,

Oakland, California. Unpublished MS.

N.d.b Community Forces and Minority Educational Strategy: A Compara-

tive Study, Report No. 1. Department of Anthropology, University of

California, Berkeley. Unpublished MS.

N.d.c. Community Forces and Minority Educational Strategy: A Compara-

tive Study, Report No. 2. Department of Anthropology, University of

California, Berkeley. Unpublished MS.

188 Anthropology & Education Quarterly Volume 29,1998

N.d.d Beyond Language: Ebonics, Proper English and Identity in a Black

Speech Community. Department of Anthropology, University of Califor-

nia, Berkeley. Unpublished MS.

Powell, Colin

1995 San Francisco Chronicle.

Shibutani, Tamotsu, and Kian Kwan

1965 Ethnic Stratification:

Comparative Approach. New

York:

Macmillan.

Simons, Elizabeth

1990 Students' Worlds, Students' Words. Ph.D. dissertation, University of

California, Berkeley.

Simons, Herbert, John U. Ogbu, and Kutraluk Bolton

N.d. Ogbu Theory For Teachers. Department of Anthropology/School of

Education, University of California, Berkeley. Unpublished MS.

Solomon, Patrick

1992 Black Resistance in High

School:

Forging a Separatist Culture. Albany:

State University of New York Press.

Steele, Claude

1992 Race and the Schooling of Black Americans. The Atlantic Monthly,

April: 68-75.

Suarez-Orozco, Marcelo

1989 Immigrant Adaptation and

Schooling:

A Hispanic

Case.

Minority Status

and

Schooling:

Comparative Study of Immigrant and Involuntary Minori-

ties. Margaret Gibson and

JohnU.

Ogbu,

eds.

Pp.

37-62.

New

York:

Garland.

Talbot, Carol

1984 Growing Up Black in Canada. Toronto: Williams-Wallace.

Taylor, Stuart

1973 Some Funny Things Happen on the Way

Up.

Contact

5(1):

12-17.

Valencia, Richard, ed.

1991 Chicano School Failure and Success: Research and Policy Agendas for

the 1990s. London: Falmer Press.

Wang, L. Ling-Chin

1995 Lau v. Nichols: History of a Struggle for Equal and Quality Education.

The Asian American Educational

Experience:

Source Book for Teachers

and Students. Don Nakanishi and Tina Nishida,

eds.

Pp.

58-91.

New York:

Routledge.

Wei, William

1993 The Asian American Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Weiwen, Zhang, and Zeng Qingnan

1993 In Search of China's Minorities. Beijing: New World Press.

Wollenberg, Charles

1995 "Yellow Peril" in the Schools (I and II). In The Asian American Educa-

tional

Experience:

Source Book for Teachers and Students. Don Nakanishi

and Tina Nishida, eds. Pp. 3-29. New York: Routledge.

Wong, William

1989 Breaking through the Glass Ceiling. Oakland Tribune, March

31:1-11.

Yee,

Gary, Ana Resnik, P. Bith, and A. Kawazoe

1995 Lumping Data Revisited: Cambodian and Lao/Mien Student Achieve-

ment: An Exploratory Case Study. Paper presented at the annual meeting

of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, April 20.

Yin, Ma, ed.

1989 China's Minority Nationalities. Beijing: Foreign Language Press.