Adolescent Identity and Schooling

Diverse Perspectives

Cynthia Hudley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781138790322
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317653721
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Adolescent Identity and Schooling: Diverse Perspectives examines a range of issues related to student adjustment and achievement through research on student identity. Drawn from leading experts in psychology and sociology, it attends to important contemporary topics in educational and developmental psychology. With special attention to how students assess and relate to their own identities, this book features chapters on pertinent but under-represented identities such as parental identity, immigrant identity, and model minority identity. It blends these new topics with chapters containing the most current perspectives on traditionally covered topics, such as race and social class. In ten chapters, this book provides readers with a comprehensive set of perspectives on the relationship between student identity and success in school, making it ideal for education courses on identity in education, educational psychology, and human development.

1

INTRODUCTION

Cynthia Hudley

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA

Psychologists and educators have long noted the connections between learning and student psychosocial variables (including identity, self-concept, and aspirations and expectations, among numerous others) in producing student academic outcomes. In this volume, our interest is specifically focused on the inter–relationship of identity and school. Students bring their identities and experiences into the school setting, and reciprocally, how students experience the school setting is shaped in important ways by their various identities. Particularly for adolescents, the school context is a potent social influence that interacts with a broad variety of student identities.

Identity and Schooling

Well over a decade ago, an interesting study (Jones, 1997) uncovered multiple characteristics of a school environment that were particularly influential for a variety of identities experienced by a diverse group of undergraduate women. Students spoke most often about identities that connected them to a minority status (e.g., racial/ethnic identity, women in STEM) among a number of intersecting identities that may have had relevance to their education. These kinds of findings foregrounding some identities over others have been sustained in data examining gender identity among undergraduate white men (Davis, 2002); racial identity among African American high school men (Irving & Hudley, 2008; Wright, 2011); and the intersecting identities of race, ethnicity, class, and gender among high school students (Sadowski, 2008). These few studies have focused fruitfully on a number of the many identity variables that might interact to influence students’ educational experiences, yet other facets of identity remain relatively unexplored but may nevertheless be important.

The literature has been attentive to adolescents’ identity issues in the context of schools. Common indicators of school adjustment and achievement, including choice, persistence, aspirations, perceived competence, school behavior, student leadership, and coursetaking, have foundations in student identities, including but not limited to racial, ethnic, gender, class, national, professional, and extracurricular identities. These same dimensions of identity can also serve as protective factors (e.g., supporting resilience, or persistence in the face of inadequate environmental supports) for students who otherwise might be at significant risk for negative educational outcomes. However, some facets of identity have been studied more extensively than others.

Further, in spite of its documented importance for student outcomes, identity, with the singular exception of language competence, is too infrequently viewed by educational policymakers and teacher preparation programs as a significant variable to be understood and incorporated into educational policy and preservice teacher curricula. For example, many of the major national educational reforms such as the Race to the Top legislation or the significant national focus on reading instruction over the past decade, while attentive to issues of second language learners, have insufficiently attended to student psychosocial variables, including variables relevant to multiple student identities.

An almost singular emphasis on structural change has not done full justice to psychosocial variables relevant to identity for students, teachers, and families. The purpose of this volume, therefore, is to extend extant literature by examining a range of issues related to student identity, broadly defined, and examining their relationship to adjustment and achievement. The contributors are drawn primarily from various subfields of psychology (educational, cultural, developmental) and sociology. For example, several of the studies cited above address gender and STEM course selection or achievement. However, much of the early work to date speaks of incidence and prevalence of women in STEM college majors and careers. Specific research questions that might add depth to the literature by examining women’s expression of beliefs about gender identity have been a more recent contribution that will benefit from additional exploration.

Organization of the Book

The overarching principle for the chapters in this volume is an examination of data that explicitly attend to issues of personal identity as they relate to questions relevant to educational achievement. Each of the chapters takes up a different facet of personal identity as an influence on educational outcomes; several of the chapters address variables that have received insufficient attention in the literature. Although this volume is undoubtedly not an exhaustive review of the multiple and intersecting dimensions of personal identity, the collection of chapters addresses many of the important dimensions that influence education in secondary and postsecondary school settings.

In Chapter 2, Welch and Nesson discuss perhaps one of the least well researched identities, an academic identity, or as they refer to it, a “scholar identity.” This chapter links an historic, longitudinal study of the development of a scholar identity with the subsequent literature to determine the continued viability of their construct. Their 9-year investigation of the relationship between academic achievement and identity construction in an education support program, Project EXCEL, for educationally disadvantaged adolescents tracked the development of the scholar identity. Participants were students who were identified by school personnel as having the potential to attend college. They undertook the most stringent test of their scholar identity construct by locating it within a population that is socially stereotyped as inferior and academically incompetent. Results at the time suggested several characteristics of the school environment that supported the development of a scholar identity, including positive relationships with teachers and intellectually challenging learning environments. Their review of the subsequent literature suggests that these variables remain important in the work on academic identity, although additional important characteristics have also been identified. They conclude in this chapter that their scholar identity construct is indeed viable and may have an important role to play in understanding student achievement and persistence.

The Newman and Daniel chapter similarly focuses on a relatively understudied identity in the literature on student achievement—multiracial identity. Their case study data examined the development of a multiracial collective identity in a unique environment. The study was conducted in Northern California, which the authors identify as having one of the highest multiracial populations in the nation. Further, this neighborhood context and these youth were particularly attuned to recognizing and accepting mixed race identities. As well, the school is described as encouraging individual multiracial identities. On the other hand, the authors posit that the high school context adopted a colorblind ideology that was especially challenging for the development and expression of a collective multiracial identity. They document through student voices the several ways in which the school both supported and suppressed individual multiracial identification and purposefully directed attention away from larger collective conversations about multiracial identity.

In Chapter 4, Kaplan pursues the question of academic identity in a sample of adolescents younger than those presented by Welch and Nesson. Kaplan’s study examines the impact on friends, families, and students themselves when they are given the opportunity to receive an enriched educational experience with significantly higher demands and standards than their traditional school setting. She details how students are able to enhance their academic efforts; increase their identification with academics; and work hard to access, construct, and think deeply about academic subject matter. The program is highly motivational, as those who are successful are guaranteed a college scholarship to a 4-year university. The data detail the social and personal costs and benefits for the students and their families; however, both students and parents are entirely committed to the enriched program. The author concludes that an enriched educational curriculum is appropriate for all students, and low income, inner-city students can benefit greatly from such an opportunity.

Durán and Ubaldo in Chapter 5 offer data that again grapple with the question of academic identity. This study examined the development of identity over the transition from high school to college for Latino students, many of whom were undocumented. Using several relevant theoretical foundations, Durán and Ubaldo developed a developmental spiral model, the Pathways Model, to explore students’ conceptions of a future identity and how they managed that identity over time. The data identified student trajectories as they moved from planning in high school to implementation during the first year of college, and those trajectories were quite consistent with their Pathways Model. The authors found that aspirations, planning, background characteristics, and family circumstances all had unique roles to play in students’ trajectories that fit one of three pathways. The authors conclude with a discussion of the importance of considering student voices for academic programs and personnel to better understand the plans each has for his/her own future self.

Chapter 6 presents an interesting theoretical discussion of the damaging yet pervasive model minority stereotype. Many Asian-American students have been shown to suffer adverse consequences, including elevated levels of stress and internalizing disorders, due to the intense pressures of trying to live up to the myth of the model minority. Cho and Blair first review the genesis of the stereotype and then present a selective review of the problems inherent in such a stereotype for adolescents in school. They note the ethnic and cultural heterogeneity of the Asian-American identified group and suggest, as have many others, that an important first step is disaggregating education and mental health data to understand important subgroup variability. They go on to present an argument for the use of a culturally sensitive iteration of School-wide Positive Behavior Support, a generic model currently in use in many schools across the country. Cho and Blair argue that a number of benefits might accrue from the use of such a model, from greater parental involvement and more culturally aware educators to reduced levels of distress among students and stronger achievement among some subgroups of Asian-American students who currently struggle in school.

The material in Chapter 7 sheds light on a surprisingly understudied population, i.e., low income white men. A white male identity is typically accorded the highest level of unearned privilege in our society. Yet, white males are now under-represented on college campuses relative to their proportion in the population. Further, low income white men and those who are the first generation in their families to attend college are often not endowed with the full array of privilege that would be expected of their demographic group. Moschetti and Hudley examine the educational engagement and future aspirations of a sample of these young men who were attending a community college. Using social capital theory as a framework, they examine the amount of contact with institutional agents, as well as students’ beliefs about interacting with institutional agents on campus. The results, surprisingly, suggest that these young men hold beliefs that may interfere with their accumulation of social capital, although the accumulation of that capital is uniquely valuable for this population.

Worrell and Dixson present a discussion that is all too infrequently present in the very limited giftedness literature. In Chapter 8 they consider the ways in which both gender and racial identity impact highly accomplished, i.e., gifted, students. After first reviewing the meaning of the construct of giftedness, they turn to a review of literatures relating giftedness and racial identity, and giftedness and gender identity. In the context of their review, they discuss the unsurprising finding that many of the groups for whom racial/ethnic/cultural identity is most salient are severely under-represented in school-based programs for the gifted. Unfortunately, although racial and ethnic identities seem to be related to academic achievement, the relationships are not yet clearly understood and thus have limited ability to explain the underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minority students in gifted programs. Similarly the review reveals that there is relatively little literature that examines links between gender identity and outstanding academic performance. They conclude that the thin literature base needs further elaboration to understand how females actually perceive the schooling enterprise, particularly STEM fields. Their chapter brings a unique perspective to the literature by focusing on identity processes rather than monolithic, demographic labels when discussing racial/ethnic/cultural and gender differences in academic performance.

In Chapter 9, Stitt complements the work of Worrell and Dixson, as she provides data on academically strong women who are pursuing very rigorous academic majors. Drawing on adolescent identity theory, she explores the experiences of two African American female undergraduates who are pursing STEM fields. Identity may be particularly important for her participants, as STEM majors and occupations are dominated by white and Asian males; women and certain ethnic minority groups (i.e., African American and Latino) are severely underrepresented. After discussing the construct of late adolescence, presenting a framework of adolescent identity development, and briefly reviewing the literature on adolescent identity and STEM careers, she presents interview data on two African American women, one a freshman and another a senior. Although the women have taken somewhat different paths to arrive at their individual academic identities, both are committed to a STEM academic identity. As well, a variety of academic and social challenges faced by each woman have not compromised the STEM identity. She concludes with an analysis of the data that demonstrates how the two women constructed their academic identities, and describes important implications of these data for education professionals.

Chapter 10 addresses a heavily studied group of students, i.e., Black students from the perspective of within-group differences. Black students generally are presented in the literature as a monolithic group, with the goal of between-group comparisons (e.g., Black vs. white, Black vs. Asian). There is little thought to the ethnic differences present among Black students, a group that includes African American students whose families are the descendants of slaves and immigrants from all over the world. Further, in this group of students, immigration history is too often ignored. Although a large and deep body of literature exists that addresses the academic trajectories of immigrant and second generation adolescents, relatively little of this work has addressed students from Africa and the Caribbean. Thus we know relatively little about how the academic experiences and outcomes of immigrant and second generation Black youth compare to non-immigrant Black youth. Drawing on theories of both Black and immigrant identities, this chapter teases out within-group differences in academic achievement, motivation, and future aspirations as a function of socioeconomic status and immigrant status in a racially identified sample of Black undergraduate college students. Findings have much to tell us about the needs and beliefs of Black students, and demonstrate the inadequacies of treating this group of students as monolithic.

In sum, the chapters in this book examine a range of issues related to student adjustment and achievement, framed by theories of identity, broadly defined. The chapters present a diverse array of theories and ideas, a diverse set of populations to be considered, and a diverse collection of issues relevant to adolescent identity and schooling that can be more extensively understood by framing them in questions of identity. These chapters are a strong contribution to advancing the understanding of the intersection of identity and schooling; however, more work certainly remains to be done. Although the chapters in this volume tell us much about schooling for adolescents, there is so much more to be learned about student identity throughout the lifespan. The pressure to generate new knowledge about the role of identity in schooling, achievement, and motivation is rapidly increasing as our population of school aged children and adolescents becomes more ethnically diverse. I hope these chapters will serve as a platform from which the field can move even further forward.

References

Davis, T. (2002). Voices of gender role conflict: The social construction of college men’s identity. Journal of College Student Development, 43, 508–521.

Irving, M. A., & Hudley, C. (2008). Cultural identification and academic achievement among African American males. Journal of Advanced Academics, 19, 676–698.

Jones, S. (1997). Voices of identity and difference: A qualitative exploration of the multiple dimensions of identity development in women college students. Journal of College Student Development, 38, 376–386.

Sadowski, M. (Ed.). (2008). Adolescents at school: Perspectives on youth, identity, and education (2nd edn.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Wright, B. (2011). I know who I am, do you? Identity and academic achievement of successful African American male adolescents in an urban pilot high school in the United States. Urban Education, 46, 611–638.

2

AN EXAMINATION OF SCHOLAR IDENTITY AND ACHIEVEMENT IN AFRICAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENTS

Is There a Connection?

Olga M. Welch and Lisa M. Nesson

DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY

“When we say marginal, we must always ask, marginal to what?” (Ferguson, 1992). Ferguson reminds us that questions regarding marginality and otherness are difficult to answer because “the place from which power is exercised is often a hidden place” (p. 9). Hanson (1994) too notes that “Expectations are based on knowledge of the real world. For youths in more disadvantaged social positions, these expectations may start out high, but tend to be lowered over time as the youths observe the successes and failures of others like themselves” (p. 160). Moreover, as Bourdieu (1973) suggested, an unacknowledged selection process occurs in educational systems. The process assures that individual talent alone does not guarantee achievement; instead, systems “identify, select, process, classify, and assign individuals according to externally imposed criteria” (Kerckhoff, 1976, p. 369). Further, these syst...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 An Examination of Scholar Identity and Achievement in African American Adolescents: Is There a Connection?
• 3 Colorblind Ideology, Multiculturalism, and Collective Identity Formation Among Mixed Race Adolescents in Northern California
• 4 Student Identity in Impoverished Communities
• 5 Latino Students’ Transition to College and Perceptions of Future Self
• 6 The Model Minority and Creating System-wide Supports for Underserved Asian-American Students
• 7 Social Capital among Understudied College Students: The Case of Low-income White Males
• 8 Racial/Ethnic and Gender Identity in Gifted Classrooms
• 9 African American Women in STEM Fields
• 10 Achievement and Expectations of Immigrant, Second Generation, and Non-immigrant Black Students in U.S. Higher Education
• Index