RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Racelessness as a Factor in Black Students' School Success: Pragmatic Strategy or Pyrrhic Victory?
JF Harvard Educational Review
JO herp
FD Harvard Educational Press
SP 54
OP 85
DO 10.17763/haer.58.1.c5r77323145r7831
VO 58
IS 1
A1 Fordham, Signithia
YR 1988
UL http://harvardeducationalreview.org/content/58/1/54.abstract
AB Signithia Fordham presents an analysis of the tensions high-achieving Black students feel when they strive for academic success. Students are pulled by their dual relationships to the indigenous Black fictive-kinship system and the individualistic, competitive ideology of American schools. By analyzing ethnographic data on six high-achieving Black high school students, the author finds that the characteristics required for success in society contradict an identification and solidarity with Black culture. Students who feel the conflict between"making it" and group identification develop the particular strategy of racelessness.