hypothesis. i don't know if the article mentions it, but this is ogbu's theory -- and it hasn't been supported, except in ethnographic studies.. and even then, it's been problematic. Sociologist Douglass Massey (et al .. 2003 ,I think), tested out a number of different theories attempting to explain the achievement gap.. they looked specifically @ high achieving minority students at selective universities across the country -- there was no support for the acting white hypothesis at all.. I'd love to actually look at the study cited in the article to see how they operationalized 'acting white' (it wasn't explained whatsoever here).. I'd also be interested in the methodology -- are we talking self-reported popularity? And what about students' perceptions of acting white - how is that accounted for? Without the neccessary qualitative analysis to complement the quantitative data, the argument seems mad weak to me.


$ociologik
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