Signithia Fordham

Last updated
Signithia Fordham
Citizenship United States
Alma mater Morris Brown College
St. John's College
The American University
Known for"Acting White" and "Racelessness"
Scientific career
Fields Psychology, anthropology
Institutions University of Rochester

Signithia Fordham is a prominent Anthropologist who studies how race influences Black students in the classroom. [1] She began her career working with John Ogbu on their research "Acting White" and has done similar research since. [2] Most of her research is done in the DC area, which she gives the pseudonym Capital High.

Contents

Early life and education

Signithia Fordham was raised by her mother and father with numerous sisters and brothers. In the acknowledgements of her book Blacked Out, Fordham thanks her mother for "modeling Black womanhood and the life she knew awaited me.". [3] Despite strong African American models such as her mother, Fordham mentioned how in high school she often felt pressure to conform to a white "norm", which possibly influenced her later research Acting White [4]

Fordham received her B.A. with honors in Social Science Education at Morris Brown College, a historically Black college with ties to the Episcopal Church, located in Atlanta, Georgia. She went on to receive an MA from St. John's College in Liberal Education and a PhD from The American University. [5]

Career

After receiving her PHD from The American University, Fordham began working with John Ogbu at the University of California, Berkeley. She went on to receive a prestigious appointment as a visiting fellow in African and African American studies at Yale University and then to become the first presidential fellow in the department of Afro-American Studies at Princeton from 1991 to 1992. [5] In 2002, she was appointed as the Susan B Anthony Professor at the University of Rochester for her extensive research on race, gender and identity politics. [1] She remains a professor in the anthropology department at the University of Rochester, and is known for being a challenging and extremely knowledgeable professor [6]

Acting White

Fordham was a main contributor to the creation of the framework Acting White, and has published significant research, both outlining Acting White and discussing other prevalent topics for Black students in educational settings.

The Burden of Acting White [2]

Fordham and John Ogbu published "Black Students' School Success: Coping with the "Burden of 'Acting White'"" in 1986. The study, which was widely dispersed and is still relevant today, attributed Black students' lower academic achievement to the association between doing well in school and Acting White. They argued that Black students who do well in school they risk "labeling... exclusion from peer activities or ostracism, and physical assault" (183). [2] Fordham and Ogbu also develop the potential effects of Fictive kinship, which is often pertinent in Black communities, on pressure to act or not act a certain way. They argue that one mechanism through which Black students resist acculturation is by not "acting white" which is code for the activities (studying, attending class, doing home etc..) that tend to lead to academic achievement.

Fordham and Ogbu discuss various coping strategies which black students develop in cases of academic success to avoid ostracization such as athletic activities and team oriented activities, as well as clowning around. The female students tend to keep a low profile, skip classes on occasion, and appear to not care. Fordham and Ogbu concluded that an increase in opportunities for Black youth, as well as a change in Black communities and an increase in visibility of successful Black students would help to decrease the associations between Whiteness and doing well in school.

Obama and Acting White

President Barack Obama brought up the idea of "Acting White" at a Town hall meeting, and his statements were in line with the policy implications suggested by Fordham and Ogbu. [7] He explained that it is important for Black people get past the idea of an authentic way to be black and embrace both their culture and the complexities of their identity and values. [7] This recommendation put the brunt of the responsibility to address "Acting White" on Black communities without recognizing the roots of how the notion of "Acting White" developed. The deeply ingrained nature of "acting white" as perpetuated by all perspectives was showcased in the aforementioned Obama speech, in which Fordham did not receive credit for her role in the Acting White research [4] In an article entitled "Are (Black)" Female Academics Ignored?" she explained that the individuals who did receive credit for the "Acting White" work were all male and affiliated with elite institutions. [4] This demonstrates how Black women don't just choose to maintain a low profile, both academia and mainstream media ensure they are ignored. Although Fordham, Ogbu, and Obama all suggest Black communities shine light on Black (female) academics to emphasize the value of doing well in school, how are Black communities supposed to do this when those exact people are being systemically forgotten?

Criticisms to Acting White

In Acting White, Fordham and Ogbu recognize that the relation between acting white and academic success is not causal. [8] Further, they recognize that Acting White is not understood by Blacks as doing well in school, rather as behaviors such as studying and speaking up in class, which are associated with doing well in school. [2] Ogbu and Fordham, as well as Obama, suggest that parents should emphasize the values of these behaviors, and highlight role models who promote such values. However, these suggestions revert to the victim blaming ideology, where the behaviors of Black people are recognized as different, quantified as deficient, and then the brunt of the responsibility is put on the Black communities to fix the so-called "problem" [9]

Further, these suggestions ask Black families and students to adapt in order to fit a Eurocentric system. Some researchers have begun to push back, and challenge schools to be more inclusive of activities and classroom setups that promote and support Blackness and Black Identities,. [10] [11] In Fordham's research "Dissin' "the Standard": Ebonics as Guerrilla Warfare at Capital High", [10] Fordham discusses how Black students have taken on Ebonics as the Standard language, and treat Standard English as a vernacular dialect. Fordham implicates that using Ebonics or standard English is a choice. She asserts that many students don't speak "standard english" because, either consciously or unconsciously, they recognize that forcing standard English is an institutionalized convention that "marginalize[s] and stigmatize[s] the Black self." Therefore, policies based on the common assumption that Black students can't speak "standard English" will never work, because they force students to perpetuate the dehumanization that occurs by devaluing Black language. [10] Similarly, policies that focus on getting Black students to perform more behaviors associated with Whiteness will be unsuccessful to the extent they ask Black students and Black families to adopt the behaviors of the people who have historically oppressed them.

Racelessness

Racelessness is the idea proposed by Fordham that high achieving Black students and Black business people alike have to distance themselves from the Black community in order to succeed in institutions dominated by White people. [12] that the more closely they remain tied to and identify with their Black communities, the less likely they can achieve vertical success, which is largely based on the individual in white capitalist culture. [12]

"Racelessness as a factor in Black students' school success: Pragmatic strategy or pyrrhic victory?" [12]

This article, first published in the Harvard educational review, contains a comprehensive exploration into the idea of Racelessness and how it plays out at Capital High. Fordham asks the difficult question of if racelessness is a "pragmatic strategy or a Pyrrhic victory?" (Fordham, 80). She acknowledges the complicated nature of this question, as for an individual it may be a pragmatic strategy, but within Black communities, where community strength and Fictive Kinship play an important role, it is a Pyrrhic victory. She leaves the question open for discussion, and asks the Black community to question their relationship with institutions and the larger society. This also provides a framework for her later research, in which she develops the strengths of being Black in the classroom, and begins to encourage institutions to reframe their structures to be more inclusive of Black student.

"'Those loud Black girls': (Black) women, silence, and gender 'passing' in the academy" [13]

Fordham continued her work in Capital High School, this time exploring the strengths of "Loud Black Girls" embodying their Blackness. Her research followed Black female high school students and examined their identity formation and how the idea of "passing" related to them. Passing refers to the idea that women have to act in a particular way in male dominated spaces to get by and be accepted by the general public. Similarly Black women have to act in a quiet, subdued, and complacent way if they want to be perceived as good students. Fordham argues that Black women should express their "loudness" and rebel in the ways they see fit against the systems that have historically oppressed them. She sees this as a way of developing and maintaining ties to the Black community while making space for blackness in academia.

Impact

Fordham's resistance against "Passing" falls in line with works done during the same time period within the framework of Black nationalism. [14] In "Those loud Black Girls" Fordham argues that Black people needs to redefine themselves as separate from a white standard and take pride in how they exist in the world. Fordham argues that is exactly what some loud Black girls are already doing at Capital High.

Her research has looked into the different implications of being Black in a high school setting and has been greatly influential in asking people to look beyond the classic racist answers such as blacks are genetically inferior, [15] or incapable of learning Standard English [8] as justifications for the Achievement gap in the United States. Although her initial research focused on changing behaviors of Black students and the black community, she has evolved in her research, and has helped to set the stage for research focused on the strengths of Black students, thus providing evidence for the necessity of policies that put the impetus of responsibility on the schools and teachers, rather than on Black communities.

Notable works

Books

Journal articles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School discipline</span> Types of disciplinary actions used by schools against students

School discipline relates to actions taken by teachers or school organizations toward students when their behavior disrupts the ongoing educational activity or breaks a rule created by the school. Discipline can guide the children's behavior or set limits to help them learn to take better care of themselves, other people and the world around them.

Lisa D. Delpit is an American educationalist, researcher, and author. She is the former executive director and Eminent Scholar at the Center for Urban Educational Excellence at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Educational Leadership at Georgia State University, and the first Felton G. Clark Distinguished Professor of Education at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She earned the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship for her research on school-community relations and cross-cultural communication.

In the United States, acting white is a pejorative term, usually applied to Black people, which refers to a person's perceived betrayal of their culture by assuming the social expectations of white society. It can be applied to success in education, though this view is highly debated. In 2020, 93.6% of African-Americans between 25 and 39 had a high school diploma, on par with the national average, though African-Americans have a higher tendency to drop out from college than their white peers.

Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. It later spread beyond the United States, most prominently in the writings of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko in South Africa. Black is beautiful got its roots from the Négritude movement of the 1930s. Negritude argued for the importance of a Pan-African racial identity among people of African descent worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathryn Finney</span> American author, entrepreneur, innovator, and businesswoman

Kathryn A. Finney is an American author, researcher, investor, entrepreneur, and businesswoman. She is the founder of Genius Guild, a $20 million dollar venture fund & studio that invests in Black entrepreneurs building scalable businesses that serve Black communities and beyond. She is also founder and Board Chair of The Doonie Fund, a social platform that provides micro-investment to Black women entrepreneurs. Finney first made her mark as a tech entrepreneur when she sold “The Budget Fashionista” after running the site-turned-media company for 11 years.

John Uzo Ogbu was a Nigerian-American anthropologist and professor known for his theories on observed phenomena involving race and intelligence, especially how race and ethnic differences played out in educational and economic achievement. He suggested that being a "caste-like minority" affects motivation and achievement, depressing IQ scores. He also concluded that some students did poorly because high achievement was considered "acting white" among their peers. Ogbu was also involved in the 1996 controversy surrounding the use of African American Vernacular English in public schools in Oakland, California. The 2000 book Eminent Educators: Studies in Intellectual Influence focused on him as one of "four intellectual giants of the 20th century."

The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s, when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland. The African American middle class is also prevalent in the Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Antonio and Chicago areas.

Oppositional culture, also known as the "blocked opportunities framework" or the "caste theory of education", is a term most commonly used in studying the sociology of education to explain racial disparities in educational achievement, particularly between white and black Americans. However, the term refers to any subculture's rejection of conformity to prevailing norms and values, not just nonconformity within the educational system. Thus many criminal gangs and religious cults could also be considered oppositional cultures.

Mary Bucholtz is professor of linguistics at UC Santa Barbara. Bucholtz's work focuses largely on language use in the United States, and specifically on issues of language and youth; language, gender, and sexuality; African American English; and Mexican and Chicano Spanish.

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a nonstandard dialect of English deeply embedded in the culture of the United States, including popular culture. It has been the center of controversy about the education of African-American youths, the role AAVE should play in public schools and education, and its place in broader society. The linguistic and cultural history of African Americans has been fostered and maintained in part through the Black church, including some lexicon and the call and response style of linguistic engagement. Artistic and cultural movements originating with African Americans, such as jazz and hip-hop, have also significantly showcased, influenced, or sometimes mainstreamed elements of AAVE in the broader American culture and even on the global stage. The dialect is also seen and heard in advertising.

In the United States, the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), also known as the school-to-prison link, school–prison nexus, or schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Additionally, this is due to educational inequality in the United States. Many experts have credited factors such as school disturbance laws, zero-tolerance policies and practices, and an increase in police in schools in creating the "pipeline". This has become a hot topic of debate in discussions surrounding educational disciplinary policies as media coverage of youth violence and mass incarceration has grown during the early 21st century.

<i>Dude, Youre a Fag</i> 2007 book by C. J. Pascoe

Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School is a 2007 book by the sociologist C. J. Pascoe. Through ethnographic research, Pascoe examines masculinity in high schools. Pascoe's work proposes that masculinity is defined primarily through dominance and control. Further, masculinity is established by high school boys through their use of the fag (faggot) epithet. This book explores masculinity as enacted by male and female students, the consequences of a strict gender system, heteronormativity within the school system, racialized masculine ideals, and acts of resistance to the gendered social order. Pascoe conducted fieldwork for a year and a half at "River High School", conducted formal interviews with fifty students, and informal interviews with many other students, administrators and faculty members.

Duchess Harris is Special Assistant to the Provost for Strategic Initiatives at Macalester College. She is an African-American academic, author, and legal scholar. She is a professor of American Studies at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, specializing in feminism, United States law, and African American political movements. She also teaches a course on Black Health at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Margaret Beale Spencer is an American psychologist whose work centers on the effects of ethnicity, gender, and race on youth and adolescent development. She currently serves as the Marshall Field IV Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. Dr. Spencer's career spans more than 30 years and consists of over 115 published articles and chapters, stemming from work funded by over two-dozen foundations and federal agencies.

Adelbert H. Jenkins is an African American clinical psychologist who is known for his humanistic approach to Black psychology at the start of the field in the early 1970s. Jenkins was also one of the 28 founding members of the National Association of Black Psychologists, along with other notable psychologists such as Robert V. Guthrie and Joseph White. He is currently an associate professor of psychology at New York University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Educational inequality in the United States</span>

Unequal access to education in the United States results in unequal outcomes for students. Disparities in academic access among students in the United States are the result of several factors including: government policies, school choice, family wealth, parenting style, implicit bias towards the race or ethnicity of students, and the resources available to students and their school. Educational inequality contributes to a number of broader problems in the United States, including income inequality and increasing prison populations. Educational inequalities in the United States are wide-ranging, and many potential solutions have been proposed to mitigate their impacts on students.

Lynn Norment, born in Bolivar, Tennessee, is an American journalist known for her 30 years of writing and editing Ebony Magazine in Chicago, Illinois, United States. She was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame in 2009.

Chental-Song Bembry is an American author, illustrator and motivational speaker on literacy. She wrote The Honey Bunch Kids, a series of novels for middle-schoolers. Bembry, a native of New Jersey, wrote the first book when she was 13, based on characters she made up in her childhood.

Georgina Lawton is a British-Irish-Nigerian writer whose personal narrative is the subject of a non-fiction book: Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong (ISBN 978-0063009486). Part-memoir, part-socio-political discussion, the book focuses on the construct of racial identity in the homes exploring Lawton's experience of being mixed-black in a white home with two white parents without knowing why, and discovering she was the product of a brief liaison between her mother and her birth father. Taking a DNA test after the latter died showed her to be 43% Nigerian.

According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), women and racial minorities are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Scholars, governments, and scientific organizations from around the world have noted a variety of explanations contributing to this lack of racial diversity, including higher levels of discrimination, implicit bias, microaggressions, chilly climate, lack of role models and mentors, and less academic preparation.

References

  1. 1 2 Snihur, Helene. "University Appoints Susan B. Anthony Professor". Susan B. Anthony Institute of Gender and Women's Studies. University of Rochester. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Fordham, Signithia; Ogbu, John U. (1986). "Black Student's School Success: Coping with the "Burden of 'Acting White'"". The Urban Review. 18 (3): 176. doi:10.1007/bf01112192. S2CID   144414814.
  3. ↑ Fordham, Signithia (1996). Blacked Out. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  4. 1 2 3 Fordham, Signithia (6 August 2014). "Are (Black) Female Academics Ignored". Center for American Progress: Race and Ethnicity. Center for American Progress. Retrieved 21 November 2016.
  5. 1 2 Fordham, Signithia. "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). University of Virginia. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
  6. ↑ University of Rochester. "Signithia Fordham". Rate My Professors. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
  7. 1 2 Obama, Barack. "My Brother's Keeper Town Hall". Youtube.com. Indianz Com. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
  8. 1 2 Sohn, Hitae (2011). "Acting White: A Critical Review". Urban Review. 43 (2): 217–234. doi:10.1007/s11256-010-0158-6. S2CID   143383755.
  9. ↑ Ryan, William (March 1972). Blaming the victim. New York: Random House Publishing. pp. 3–30.
  10. 1 2 3 Fordham, Signithia (1991). "Dissin' 'the standard': Ebonics as Guerrilla warfare at Capital High". Anthropology & Education Quarterly. 30 (3): 272–293. doi:10.1525/aeq.1999.30.3.272.
  11. ↑ Hurley, Eric A.; Allen, Brenda A.; Boykin, A. Wade (2009). "Culture and the Interaction of Student Ethnicity with Reward Structure in Group Learning". Cognition and Instruction. 27 (2): 121–146. doi:10.1080/07370000902797346. S2CID   28176050.
  12. 1 2 3 Fordham, Signithia (Feb 1988). "Racelessness as a factor in Black students' school success: Pragmatic strategy or pyrrhic victory?". Harvard Educational Review. 58 (1): 54–84. doi:10.17763/haer.58.1.c5r77323145r7831.
  13. ↑ Fordham, Signithia (March 1993). ""Those Loud Black Girls": (Black) Women, Silence, and Gender "Passing" in the Academy". Anthropology and Education Quarterly. 24 (1): 3–32. doi:10.1525/aeq.1993.24.1.05x1736t.
  14. ↑ Mulloy, D.J. (Jul 2010). "New Panthers, old Panthers and the politics of Black Nationalism in the United States". Patterns of Prejudice. 44 (3): 217–238. doi:10.1080/0031322x.2010.489732. S2CID   144782902.
  15. ↑ Rushton, J. Phillippe (Sep 2012). "No narrowing in mean Black–White IQ differences—Predicted by heritable g". American Psychologist. 67 (6): 500–501. doi:10.1037/a0029614. PMID   22963424.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.