Review_Author: Pawel Bakowski
Book_Author: Margaret A. Gibson, John U. Ogbu
Book_Title: MINORITY STATUS AND SCHOOLINGA COMPARATIVE STUDY OF IMMIGRANT AND INVOLUNTARY MINORITIES
Reference: 1991
Date: 12/9/2004
Time: 12:18:17 AM
Remote Name: 128.175.34.35
mailto: pawel@udel.edu
The volume is a collection of ten articles on the schooling problems that ethnic minorities face in different ethnic communities in different countries: 1. M. M. Suarez-Orozco, Immigrant Adaptation to Schooling: A Hispanic Case 2. M. A. Gibson, P. K. Bhachu, The Dynamics of Educational Decision Making: A Comparative Study of Sikhs in Britain and the United States 3. Ch. Inglis, L. Manderson, Turkish Immigrants in Australia 4. Y. Lee, Koreans in Japan and United States 5. M. A. Gibson, Ethnicity, Gender and Social Class: The School Adaptation Patterns of West Indian Youths 6. M. E. Matute-Bianchi, Situational Ethnicity and Patterns of School Performance among Immigrant and nonimmigrant Mexican-descent Students 7. J. U. Ogbu, Low School Performance as an Adaptation: The Case of Blacks in Stockton, CA 8. B. J. Kramer, Education and American Indians: The Experience of the Ute Indian Tribe 9. J. M. Barrington, The New Zealand Experience: Maoris 10. N. K. Shimahara, Social Mobility and Education: Burakumin in Japan The book is preceded by an introduction by John Ogbu and followed by the summary by Margaret Gibson. In the introduction Ogbu argues for the need to apply anthropological, ethnographic approach in the research on the topic of minority education, and points to the fact that the schools miss two important factors affecting non- immigrant minority children: the lack of social adjustment and the discontinuity in cultural, communication and power relations. Ogbu criticizes the most popular, comparative perspectives (White vs. Black or Middle vs. Lower class) for several shortcomings. They ignore historical or wider societal forces that encourage/discourage academic success; they don’t consider group collective orientation and usually assume that school success is a matter of family background, individual ability and effort. Comparing voluntary with non voluntary minorities, Ogbu emphasizes fundamental difference between these two groups. First, the voluntary minorities have dual reference in interpreting surrounding world: memory of oppression in the land of origin and optimistic view of the future possibilities (often sense of superiority over dominant group.) Involuntary minorities compare their position with the position of the dominant group; assume that societal and advancement rules don’t work for them and develop survival strategies outside of the system. Therefore their children develop manipulative attitudes, knowledge, skills and consider learning at school as obeying majority people’s orders. Children develop a collective orientation – toward peers rather then toward the system and within this orientation an anti-academic success is appreciated. * Since the book is to large to be reviewed in detail, let me use as representative article, Koreans in Japan and United States by Y. Lee. During WWII 2 millions of Koreans were forcefully brought to Japan, out of which in 1946 1,4 millions returned to Korea. In 1980ties, out of over 600,000 who remained, 100,000 had Japanese citizenship and 600,000 were non citizens which caused various employment barriers (no governmental positions available, etc.). These barriers plus enormous contempt that Japanese people feel to Koreans (who represented 85% of all foreigners in Japan) resulted that Koreans live in the poorest neighborhoods, with no funds, and almost no education. Until 1965’ treaty with Korea, the Korean child was accepted to the school only if there was an available space. In the school year 1974, 75% of Korean children were enrolled in schools; and in 1981, 80% were enrolled. The author compared the situation of Koreans in Japan with that in the U.S., where Koreans constitute only 0.2% of the foreigners and are voluntary emigrants who come from middle-, and upper middle class. Unlike Japan, the U.S. is ethnically diverse and there is friendliness both ways, between the Americans and Korean emigrants. The author presented the results of the achievement tests in Southern California, where Korean children, in most grades, are within 90% percentile. The article can be summarized by stating that in Japan, the low status of the Koreans leads to low expectations by parents, teachers and peers; and that in turn leads to the low achievement of the children. The situation in the USA is exactly opposite. * The paper summarized above, as well as all other articles in the volume prove one of the most important Ogbu’s contributions to the research on education - that the historical status of the minority (voluntary or non- voluntary) determines the achievement of the children. Ogbu’s theory was widely accepted by the research community, and was usually incorporated into pedagogies that claimed that in order to fix the inequity “the system” has to be changed, usually toward the “cultural sensitivity”. It has to be emphasized that in his last book, “Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb – A Study of Academic Disengagement” (2003), Ogbu strongly criticized so called “culturally sensitive” pedagogies and emphasized that the primary reason of Black minority students’ academic disengagement is the lack of parents’ involvement in teaching process.