Cultural Identification and Academic Achievement Among African American Males

Abstract

Although most African Americans are aware of the importance of education, many still continue to suffer from poor school achievement. School failure, high rates of educational dropout, low college enrollment, over-representation in special education classes, and low standardized test scores reflect a pervasive problem of educational underachievement among African Americans. Our work with African American males reveals a positive relationship between cultural mistrust and oppositional cultural attitudes and an inverse relationship with outcome expectations, outcome value, and academic achievement. Cultural mistrust is a significant predictor of academic achievement. As African American males' mistrust increases, their academic outcome expectations decrease. As mistrust increases, oppositional cultural attitudes also increase. Students with high cultural mistrust, oppositional cultural attitudes, and low valuation for educational outcomes have lower expectations for the benefits of their educational outcome. A presence of cultural mistrust and oppositional cultural attitudes clearly undermines educational outcome expectations. These findings have implications for educational research and practice, particularly concerning the education of African American males living in urban environments. Resistant cultural identity or cultural mistrust may be early markers of risk status for educational underachievement. School policies and practices that support identity development may help more African American youth cultivate a strong positive cultural identity that is consistent with academic achievement. African American students who value outcomes associated with education and who exhibit oppositional identities may not anticipate being able to achieve those outcomes through educational means.