The three Rs of academic achievement: Reading, 'riting, and racism

Using vocational choice and social dominance theories as theoretical framew orks, the authors examined the effects of ideology/role congruency on diffe rential institutional rewards. The authors reasoned that congruents (i.e., individuals high in antiegalitarianism in hierarchy-enhancing [HE] social r oles and low in antiegalitarianism in hierarchy-attending [HA] roles) would receive higher institutional rewards than would incongruents (i.e., indivi duals high in antiegalitarianism in HA social roles and low in antiegalitar ianism in HE roles). Furthermore, it was predicted that one's continued exp osure to the university environment would increase the probability of being a congruent, The authors used a large sample of university students, with grade point average as the operationalization of institutional reward. Role was defined as the students' major and antiegalitarianism was defined by a classical racism scale. As expected, (a) everything else being equal congr uents received higher grades than did incongruents, and (b) the probability of being a congruent increased with university experience.