Rethinking the Attitude-Achievement Paradox Among Blacks

Abstract

Blacks offer positive responses to a wide range of survey questions gauging attitudes toward schooling, yet perform less well in school than do whites. The credibility of blacks' attitudes is a central issue among competing explanations for this paradox. In this article, the authors assess questions about the validity of blacks' pro-school attitudes with the National Education Longitudinal Study. Two findings prompted the authors to rethink the paradox. First, a key reason for doubting blacks' pro-school attitudes—that they fail to predict achievement—does not generalize to the national data. Second, rather than challenge the credibility of blacks' pro-school attitudes, the results reveal minimal differences in attitude-achievement associations between blacks and other minority groups. These patterns have implications for thinking about whether blacks resist schooling.

Race to College: The “Reverse Gap”

“…The empirical generalization dovetails with another widespread result: That compared to whites, black people have more pro-school attitudes and higher educational aspirations (Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey 1998;Downey 2008;Downey et al 2009;Downey and AinsworthDarnell 2002;Harris 2008). The consonance between blacks' attitudes and actions (i.e., investment in education) resolves the ''attitude-achievement paradox'' (Mickelson 1990).…”

Inequality Is a Problem of Inference: How People Solve the Social Puzzle of Unequal Outcomes

“…achievement gap can be explained, in part, by black students opposing school because they think the structural barriers to achievement are insurmountable [18]. While research since has refuted the notion, these later studies at the same time show how minority students' academic efforts reflect a (sometimes unrealistic) meritocratic belief that hard work makes for societal success [21,22]. Taken together, these findings underline the importance of understanding what drives people's different beliefs about inequality, which is the topic to which I now turn.…”

Unraveling the race paradox of achievement and self-views

“…Mickelson (1990) suggests that a general recognition that academics and getting an education can be an avenue to upward mobility is an abstract attitude that does not necessarily impact students' behavior. This argument has been challenged by recent evidence suggesting that these attitudes do in fact predict educational attainment among African Americans, and in a manner similar to other groups (Downey et al 2009). Another issue is students may find it difficult to explicitly devalue something that clearly is associated with positive outcomes in society at large ).…”