Culture and Class in Marginalized Minority Educational Attainment
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2017 Culture and Class in Marginalized Minority Educational Attainment Alan R. Takeall The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2129 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] CULTURE AND CLASS IN MARGINALIZED MINORITY EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT by ALAN ROBINSON TAKEALL A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York (2017) ii © 2017 ALAN ROBINSON TAKEALL All Rights Reserved iii Culture and Class in Marginalized Minority Educational Attainment by Alan Robinson Takeall This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Sociology in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________________ ___________________________ Date Juan Battle, Ph.D. Chair of the Examining Committee _______________________ ___________________________ Date Philip Kasinitz, Ph.D. Supervisory Committee Juan Battle, Ph.D., Advisor Stephen Steinberg, Ph.D. R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Ph.D. THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract Culture and Class in Marginalized Minority Educational Attainment by Alan Robinson Takeall Advisor: Juan Battle Using a national sample of Black and Latino high school students, I ask: What is the relative impact of demographic factors, aspirations, adherence to an ideology of achievement, and sociocultural capital on future educational attainment? Additionally, how do poor students compare to their non-poor counterparts on these measures? Employing the Educational Longitudinal Study (2002 & 2012) and multivariate statistical techniques, this dissertation examines the role of cultural and other factors on the educational attainment of Black and Latino students and then explores the role of poverty on those outcomes. In recent years educational reform efforts have placed considerable emphasis on reorienting minority students away from oppositional cultures and barren socioecological environments and toward modes of thought that are believed to produce better educational outcomes. Inadequate attention, however, has been paid to the degree that ostensibly positive sociocultural factors actually predict heightened educational attainment for marginalized minority students. As well, little attention has been paid to how socioeconomic status interacts with sociocultural factors and educational outcomes for those students. This longitudinal study questions the relationship between sociocultural factors, such as adherence to the achievement ideology, and future educational attainment of Black and Latino youth as well as the effects of class status on that relationship. The findings add to the current literature about race, class, culture, educational attainment, and the proper focus of educational reform efforts. v Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my Team: my mother, Gwendolyn B. Takeall, and my big brother, Sheldon E. Takeall. They believed in me even when I did not believe in me. Mom and Sheldon are the reasons for anything and everything I have accomplished. To my partner, Melody J. Davis, who calls me #myfavoritebrooklynite, thank you, beautiful. At the CUNY Graduate Center, I am forever indebted to Juan Battle, who single- handedly took me from ashy to classy. Juan is truly going to “Negro heaven” when it is all said and done. Stephen Steinberg’s thoughtful engagement and stalwart support were indispensable all the way through. His brilliance, graciousness, and political courage are inspiring to me. And when it was time to mobilize, L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, without hesitation, came through with all the witty insight and style for which he is widely known. I am also grateful to Philip Kasinitz and Rati Kashyap for holding the door open and clearing a path for me. I am honored to have known and learned from the singularly amazing Jerry G. Watts (Rest in Power), who told me that I was a scholar and a “semi-intelligent Negro” until I actually started to believe it myself. There was only one Jerry Watts, and I get to say that I knew him. A million other people, inside and outside of CUNY, held me down in a million different ways. Peace to Christine A. Pinnock, Robert Baskerville, Hanks Williams, Akissi Britton, Marcos Tejeda, Greg Smithsimon, Alex Welcome, Angelique C. Harris, Ricardo Gabriel, Robert Reid-Pharr, Zee Dempster, Fabienne Snowden, Adrienne Lotson, Kristin Moriah, Kim Cunningham, Shana Siegel, Tsedale Melaku, James Davis, Tiffany N. Davis, Annette Knuckle, Deangela Clark Webb, Nate “Boogie” Hamilton, Omar White, and my church family at Simpson Memorial United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. vi Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….. iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………… v Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………... vi List of Tables………………………………………………………………………………. vii Chapter One: Introduction and Background……………………………………………….. 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 1 Background………………………………………………………………………… 4 Methodology……………………………………………………………………….. 16 Chapter Two: Literature Review…………………………………………………………... 21 Theoretical Framework…………………………………………………………….. 22 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………...32 Contribution to the Field…………………………………………………………… 54 Chapter Three: Methods…………………………………………………………………….56 Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 56 Dataset………………………………………………………………………………58 Analytic Samples…………………………………………………………………....60 Measures…………………………………………………………………………….61 Analytic Strategy…………………………………………………………………....70 Chapter Four: Results ………………………………………………………………………75 Univariate Analysis………………………………………………………………… 75 Bivariate Analysis………………………………………………………………….. 85 Multivariate Analysis………………………………………………………………. 93 Chapter Five: Discussion……………………………………………………………………106 Domains……………………………………………………………………………..106 Theoretical Discussion………………………………………………………………121 Summary…………………………………………………………………………….128 Chapter Six: Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….130 Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 130 Limitations…………………………………………………………………………. 139 Implications…………………………………………………………………………149 Future Research……………………………………………………………………..155 References………………………………………………………………………………….. 160 vii List of Tables TABLE 4.1: Means, Standard Deviations, Ranges, and Description of Variables for Black and Latino Respondents (p. 83-84) TABLE 4.2: Comparison of Means on 3rd Follow-up Education Attainment by Dummy Independent Variables (p. 87) TABLE 4.3: Pearson’s Correlations (p. 92) TABLE 4.4: OLS Regression on Highest Education Attainment in 3rd Follow-up for Stratified Socioeconomic Groups (p. 94-95) 1 Chapter One: Introduction and Background Introduction With the 2008 election of Barack Obama—a man whose personal accomplishments are undeniably impressive—national attention became even more fixated on the cultural dimensions of achievement among non-white youth. The popular refrain goes something like: Barack Obama’s ascension to the highest office in the land proves that there are no longer any insurmountable barriers to achievement for minority youth. Thus minority youth—Black and Latino kids in particular—have “no more excuses” for not graduating from high school and college and then moving into successful careers. As President Obama himself exhorted in a 2009 “back to school” speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future” (Obama, 2009). Such comments coming from a prominent Black man reflect the broad appeal of the achievement ideology in the contemporary United States. Young people of all races and ethnicities are socialized to believe that with the right attitudes, and, in turn, the right social and cultural influences, everyone can attain the American dream. Failure, if not attributed directly to an individual’s lack of drive, is typically blamed on the cultural deficits of her family and community. For Black and Latino youth, the role of socio-cultural factors in the yawning achievement gaps that exist between these groups and white youth has been a source of constant debate within and without the academy. Eschewing direct racial discrimination explanations for the achievement gap in an era when such practices are officially outlawed and outwardly disavowed, scholars have turned to social reproduction theorists for their insight into the ways in which 2 social status is more rigid than the American dream rhetoric suggests. Many reproduction scholars have eyed the roles of external structures, institutions, and actors in sorting individuals in ways that ensure their social stations (Bowles & Gintis, 1969; Freire, 2000; Oliver & Shapiro, 2006; Orfield, Marin, & Horn, 2005; Willis, 1981). In the contemporary political climate, however, these political economy explanations have largely fallen out of fashion and given way to much less deterministic theories of social reproduction. According to culturalist scholars, poor people’s socioeconomic position, although