Black Directions

Source: Adapted from Girl Scout Research Institute, Feeling Safe: What Girls Say, 2003, 41.

For twenty years, black students have been chastised based on flawed research. Black leaders and black public intellectuals routinely claim that black students see academic achievement as “acting white.” The actual evidence for the “acting white” hypothesis, however, is meager and not at all convincing when examined carefully.

A study by the Girl Scout Research Institute shows that black and white girls experience equivalent levels of academically-oriented teasing. Forty-one percent of white girls reported that they worried about being teased for speaking or participating in class. Thirty-five percent of black girls felt the same. These results are statistically equal because the margin of error is plus or minus 7 percentage points.

The proponents of the “acting white” hypothesis claim that black students experience much more academic teasing than white students, but they have never presented any direct evidence to support this assertion.

For a detailed discussion of the flaws in the “acting white” research of Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu—the originators of the hypothesis—send a check or money order for $9 made out to “Thora Institute LLC” to “Flaws of ‘Acting White’,” Thora Institute LLC, 1380 E. Capitol Street NE, Unit B, Washington D.C. 20003.

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