Identity and school adjustment: Revisiting the "acting White" assumption

It has long been offered as an explanation for the achievement gap between White and African American students, that African American youth would do b etter if they adopted a Eurocentric cultural values system. Unfortunately, this theory, along with a great amount of the established literature on min ority youth identity development, depends on a deficit-oriented perspective to explain the discrepancy between African American and White students. Th is is problematic because the perspective denies minority youth a culturall y specific normative developmental perspective of their own, and instead, c ompares their experience to the normative developmental processes observed in White children. This article invalidates that perspective with a Phenomenological Variant o f Ecological Systems Theory (Spencer, 1995) approach to a study of African American secondary school students. These students, contrary to the traditi onally offered "acting White" assumption, show high self-esteem and achieve ment goals in conjunction with high Afrocentricity. Further discussion of t he study stresses the importance of considering the undeniable influence of culture and context. It makes obvious the need for researchers and policym akers to focus on the contextual challenges facing these youths to have a b etter understanding of and to institute better teaching strategies for Afri can American youth and minority youth in general.