Black–White Biracial Students in American Schools: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

With increasing numbers of students who identify as Black and White multiracial and with the persistence of the Black-White test score gap, the necessity for research regarding these students' educational experiences cannot be understated. To date, research in this area has been scarce. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the available literature related to the experiences of multiracial-Black-White biracial in particular-students in American schools and to identify areas in need of further research. This review offers a synthesis of the historical, social, and political context of biracial people, as well as a synthesis of issues relevant to biracial students, namely, psychological adjustment, home and parental influence, and school factors. Recommendations and implications for further research related to multiracial students and their schooling are offered.

Social Bonding to School and Educational Inequality

“…Many of these studies also indicate that racial/ethnic minority adolescents are less likely than similar White American students to believe that school authority and governance are fair and just. Evidence suggests that Multi-racial American adolescents have distinct levels of attachment to school, extracurricular activity school involvement, grades, test scores, and likelihoods of dropping out in comparison with other racial/ethnic identity groups who only report being a member of just one racial/ethnic group (Cheng and Klugman 2010;Williams 2009Williams , 2013Woo and Sakamoto 2010). Studies show that Black/African American and Latina/o American students experience harsher and more frequent application of school rules and school-based punishment, including much higher suspension and expulsion rates than White American and Asian American students (Gregory, Skiba, and Noguera 2010;Kupchik 2010;Morris 2006).…”

“…Moreover, the perception of the clarity and enforcement of school rules differs among racial/ethnic groups. It is believed that the relationships and connections Multi-racial American adolescents have with their peers and teachers are weak or strained because of the pressure or expectation to choose a singular racial/ethnic identity (Cheng and Klugman 2010;Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002;Williams 2009Williams , 2013. Recent research argues that enhanced disciplinary attention toward Black/African American and Latina/o American students constitutes a means of socializing adolescents to accept increased social control and educational failure (Peguero 2012;Cammarota 2004;Hagan et al 2005;Kupchik 2010;Rios 2011).…”

Coping with the crickets: a fusion autoethnography of silence, schooling, and the continuum of biracial identity formation

“…Similarly, in a review of Black-White biracial identity scholarship, Williams (2009) noted that people can experience stages in overlapping ways, skip stages, or go through them in inverse order. Based upon this ecological perspective, we used the COBI model to guide our study (Rockquemore and Laszloffy 2005).…”

“…While scholars have paid some attention to the racial identity development of Black students in schools, particularly males (e.g. Davis 2006;Miller 2008;Noguera 2008), there exists a dearth in scholarship about multiracial students who experience this "additional layer" in developmental and schooling processes (Williams 2009). Funderburg (1994, 108) attests to this specifically in relationship to curriculum:…”

“…Although considerable attention has been paid to Black identity development (e.g. Cross 1991;Helms 1990), much less is known about how racial identity develops for people who are biracial or multiracial (Tatum 1997;Williams 2009). Within these two categories of biracial and multiracial, there are important overlaps, separations, and distinctions.…”