Thinking about Ogbu and academic identity

I referenced Farnham & Ogbu's (1986) work in my previous post, and I've trying to think through it carefully this week. I'll try to generalize some of their ideas for this post..

By using a cultural-ecological framework, these authors hypothesize that from a young age, Black Americans form an oppositional social identity, an oppositional cultural frame of reference, and fictive kinship that labels different types of academic success as "acting white". By referring to other studies, Farnham and Ogbu give evidence that Black Americans have formed an identity in opposition to the majority culture due to their involuntary immigrant status, the job ceiling they have experienced, and the substandard education they have historically received.

As a result of this oppositional identity, they have also formed a collective identity that is the basis for a fictive kinship. This 'family' identity makes it difficult to perform outside of acceptable norms and behaviors which have been taught from a young age.

Farnham & Ogbu (1986) go on to cite their own study at Capital High where they studied 33 students for more than one year. While all of the students were Black Americans, some were considered high achieving and others were considered to be low achieving in their school.

The study concludes that Black American students don't engage with academic expectations due to the negative category of "acting white". Their research found a dramatic reaction, and their findings and generalizations have been argued in many ways for many years.

Of course, I'm interested in their theories as it applies to Black American students; however, I'm also interested in how this cultural-ecological framework might apply to class issues as well. As we were talking about literacy cultural differences in our seminar class on Thursday, I was struck by the fact that in every country we spoke about, the lower-class students received a substandard education and had less opportunity than students from the middle or higher class. Lower SES students certainly don't alway experience the breadth of experience and collective identity that Black Americans do; however, I wonder if this culture doesn't in some ways act in a similar fashion...

Could the 'membership' in the lower SES define a student's identity enough to impact his/her academic performance? (I'm not talking about not enough money for tutoring or buying notebook paper or books, necessarily.... I'm thinking about that almost subconscious connection of a group membership....)

As I work in Canton, I feel intuitively that I'm hearing more of these 'class-related' stories from students; however, I haven't studied it systematically. I'm sure there are many studies that look at this phenomenon, but I need to decide if it's a rabbit-trail at this time.... :)