Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the new century, the debate on the sources of low educational achievement among several U.S. minority groups—African Americans in particular—continues to flourish. Perhaps the most debated theory in recent decades is Ogbu’s cultural theory of academic disengagement. This theory suggests that many minority students are socially marginalized and thereby face a unique signaling quandary. Specifically, the theory indicates that African American students must signal to institutional actors and white peers that they are part of the larger, shared culture—white enough—while they simultaneously signal to their black peers that they are a member of the shared cultural community—black enough. Although research on Ogbu’s theory of academic engagement is widespread, research on the related signaling quandary is largely quantitative and has produced mixed results. We use qualitative data from a larger study of the college experiences of African American undergraduate women to further unveil the nuances of the signaling quandary discussed in the recent literature. Our results suggest that African American college women face a unique signaling quandary. They must simultaneously signal their identity to both white and black peers by exhibiting various behaviors and revealing specific preferences. We did not find, though, that the signaling quandary was related to academic disengagement among black college women.