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http://edr.sagepub.com/content/32/5/14The online version of this article can be found at:

 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X032005014

2003 32: 14EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHERNa'ilah Suad Nasir and Geoffrey B. Saxe

Lives of Minority StudentsEthnic and Academic Identities: A Cultural Practice Perspective on Emerging Tensions and Their Management in the

  

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EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER14

Youth from minority groups often manage a tension between ethnic

and academic identities as they are positioned and position themselves

in relation to cultural practices in school and out. We argue that a

framework involving three strands of analysis is necessary to under-

stand these emerging tensions and their management in the lives of

minority youth. The strands include analyses of shifts in (a) position-

ing that take form in face-to-face interactions, (b) positioning over de-

velopmental time, and (c) the cultural capital associated with practices

themselves over the social histories of communities. We point to the

importance of multimethod approaches to pursue such analyses.

Too often, minority students believe that they mustchoose between a positive ethnic identity and a strongacademic identity.1 The research literature offers many

compelling examples of such “forced choices” in the lives ofAfrican-American students2 (Davidson, 1996; Ferguson, 2000;Ogbu, 1987). Fordham and Ogbu (Fordham, 1996; Fordham &Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu) argue that students bring ethnic identitiesinto the classroom and document how some academically suc-cessful Black students feel the need to become “raceless” in schoolin order to facilitate their success. Davidson documents howsome students work hard to do well in school by masking theirethnic selves in the classroom, while others resist such conformityby maintaining ethnic affiliations and disengaging from schoolactivities. Such tensions represent a relatively new phenomenon,because historically African Americans have placed great value oneducation (Anderson, 1988; Siddle-Walker, 1996). The com-plexity of these issues highlights the importance of understandinghow minority students structure and manage emerging tensionsas they construct and negotiate ethnic and academic identities inthe course of their everyday activities. In this article, we sketch amultilevel framework to guide the analysis of these emerging ten-sions and their management.

The approach that we adopt differs substantially from domi-nant psychological approaches in which ethnic identity, schoolidentity, and school achievement are operationally distinct vari-ables. To measure ethnic identity, investigators have used ques-tionnaires and interviews about ethnic identification to measurethe extent to which an individual affiliates with a particular eth-

Ethnic and Academic Identities: A Cultural PracticePerspective on Emerging Tensions and TheirManagement in the Lives of Minority Studentsby Na’ilah Suad Nasir and Geoffrey B. Saxe

nic group (Helms, 1990; Phinney & Alipura, 1990). Such in-dices are then correlated with measures of academic achievementto determine whether ethnic identification contributes to or hin-ders from positive academic outcomes (e.g., Davis, Johnson,Cribbs, & Sanders, 2002; Gonzalez & Padilla, 1997). Otherwork incorporates an explicit measure of academic identity (e.g.,Graham, Taylor, & Hudley, 1998; Osbourne, 1997). These cor-relational methods have generated a large corpus of findings.However, they obscure students’ engagement in creating a senseof themselves in relation to activities with which they are engagedand affiliated. In our approach, we build on the work of otherswho argue that cultural practices—socially patterned activitiesorganized with reference to community norms and values—areimportant for the enactment and formation of identity. From apractice-oriented perspective, it is through cultural practices—aspeople “do” life—that identities are shaped, constructed, andnegotiated (Holland, Lachoitte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998; Lave &Wenger, 1991; Martin, 2000; Moll & González, in press; Nasir,2002; Nasir & Kirshner, in press; Wenger, 1999).

We begin our argument with an observation made by one ofus (Nasir) as she was collecting data for a study of culture andcognition in everyday practices. The site was a courtyard of amajor university medical school where seven African-Americanmen were playing dominoes. Domino playing is often viewedwithin African-American communities as deeply affiliated withAfrican-American culture, so much so that it can come to indexaffiliation with ethnic identity. This racialization is reflected inthe local culture of play, which is loud and boisterous, charac-terized by a particular genre of humor and teasing. Dominopieces are slammed onto the table with great force, the slap of theivory tiles providing a backbeat for playful slights and signifyingactivities.3

At the site, most of the domino players were blue-collar uni-versity employees. Rarely have medical and dental students joinedthe group, and when they did, they seldom stayed for more thana few months. During the course of play, an administrator fromthe medical school (an African-American woman) walked by thegroup, where she saw Daniel, a first-year medical student. Rec-ognizing Daniel, she directed a query to him, asking about thepresence of Nasir’s camera equipment.

Daniel: (replying to the administrator) I think she’s[Nasir] doing some sort of study of something.

Player: She be at home studying them things. (refer-ring to the tapes and fieldnotes) (Laughter)Educational Researcher, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 14–18

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15JUNE/JULY 2003

Administrator: (to Daniel) Ah, exactly what you s’pose to bedoin’, too.

She implies that he should be studying instead ofplaying dominoes.

(Laughter)

Daniel: Is that right?

Administrator: [. . .] out here getting a cultural experience.

Observers: The rain is coming down! It’s raining on me!(loudly and with laughter)

As with any complex human interaction, there are many pos-sible interpretations of this exchange. One interpretation is sim-ple: an administrator encouraged a student to study instead ofplay. Success in medical school requires good use of time, and themedical school administrator may be reminding Daniel to stay ontask. A second interpretation focuses on issues of ethnic and aca-demic identities; the administrator presupposes the improprietyof dominoes as a pastime for someone of Daniel’s status as a med-ical student. In doing so, she alludes to and reinforces the issuesof race and class associated with the practice. Her comments canbe taken as signaling cultural restrictions on the kinds of publicpractices in which an aspiring physician can participate, and as of-fering advice on how to manage the inherent tension betweenbeing African American (and working class) and becoming a doc-tor. The other players have similar interpretations, as indicated byan exchange just after the administrator leaves the group.

Willie: You know they don’t supposed to be outhere. They don’t allow y’all out here playin’those dominoes.

Daniel: What, man?

Willie: Wait till you get in your second year. Youain’t goin’ to be out here.

Off-camera: You won’t have time! (Laughter)

Willie: That’s what they gon’ tell you.

Daniel: I’ll be all right.

Willie: Yeah, you’ll be all right.

In this segment, Willie, a group leader, appears to second whathe may take as the administrator’s “fixed choice” model of iden-tity. He argues that Daniel will inevitably have to choose an iden-tity associated with the practices of medical school over oneassociated with the playing of dominoes (i.e., “They don’t allowy’all out here playin’ those dominoes”). In response, Daniel po-sitions himself as capable of managing the tension (i.e., “I’ll beall right”).

That playing dominoes is viewed by some as a racialized prac-tice is corroborated by subsequent interviews and observations.In an interview with a dental student domino player, the studentrecounted remarks made by professors and a student colleaguewho viewed his domino playing as a practice that made salienthis ethnic identity, setting him apart from other students. Addi-tional evidence comes from reactions of the courtyard players toan event that occurred later in the year. The group was banned

from playing in the courtyard, and the players were convincedthat it was because the medical school administration did notwant such a public display of African-American people and cul-ture on the campus. For our purposes, Daniel’s incident pointsto the importance of social interactions in local activity as siteswhere ethnic and academic identities emerge and are negotiatedas well as how the cultural capital4 carried by marginalized prac-tices constrains and enables the construction of these identities.

A Cultural Practice Perspective on EmergingTensions: Between Ethnic and School Identities

Below, we sketch a three-strand approach to the analysis of emerg-ing tensions between ethnic and academic identities in practices,drawing on the example of domino playing to illustrate key ideas.These strands include positioning in local interactions, over de-velopmental time, and in social history. By local interactions, wemean the face-to-face encounters among individuals during rou-tine cultural practices (such as domino playing) in which ten-sions between ethnic and school affiliations may emerge. Bydevelopmental time, we mean that as individuals grow, the so-cial meaning of participating in particular practices and theforms of participation may shift; as a result, new possibilities fortensions may emerge and others may subside. Finally, by socialhistory, we mean that practices shift in their cultural meaningsover the history of communities in ways that have implicationsfor whether they become sites for the management of possibletensions between ethnic and school identities. We argue that anadequate understanding of emerging tensions and their manage-ment requires a coordinated approach in which each strand isconceptualized as partially constitutive of the others, but neces-sary to separate for purposes of analysis.

Positioning in Local InteractionsThe first strand focuses on face-to-face interactions, such as theone described in which Daniel was a participant. Interactionalanalyses have long been the province of ethnomethodologicaland sociolinguistic traditions (e.g., Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998;Bucholtz, Lliang, & Sutton, 1999; Morgan, 1996; Smitherman,1977), though these analyses have little concern for emergingtensions between ethnic and school identities and their manage-ment by minority youth.

In one exemplary effort drawing on anthropological traditions,Davidson (1996) studied 55 minority students, exploring insti-tutional opportunities for the development of identities as well asstudents’ active role in negotiating such identities. Consider, forexample, Davidson’s account of “Johnnie,” a Black male studentwho maintains a strong ethnic identity through his language prac-tices, choice of friends and clothing, and pro-Black stance, whilealso taking pride in doing well in his classes. Davidson argues thatthis “cool” but studious stance is not without conflict and requirescontinual negotiation. Not only did Johnnie negotiate the rela-tions between his ethnic and school identities across the variousclassroom environments, but he also renegotiated this tension overtime. Johnnie reported that before coming to California, he livedin St. Louis, where the school community was configured suchthat being both “cool” as an African-American and being a goodstudent were positioned in tension. The shift that Johnnie re-ports is consistent with the idea that identities are not located

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EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER16

solely in the individual, but, rather, are negotiated in social in-teractions that take form in cultural spaces.

Others point to how cultural capital associated with particularpractices (our third strand) informs the local interactions and po-sitioning that occurs (our first strand). For example, Gee (1999)proposes that cultural models (D’Andrade & Strauss, 1992) arekey to understanding the positioning of identity in local dis-course. He uses the term cultural models to capture how locallyproduced language is related to broader culturally sanctionedways of doing and knowing. Similarly, Ochs (1990) argues thattalk also indexes and reinforces broader cultural values andmeanings. These authors and others (Anataki & Widdicombe,1998; Baquedano-Lopez, 1997; Holland et al., 1998) make thepoint that local discourse supports and is supported by culturallyheld ways of knowing. In this process, individuals demonstrateand maintain identities in line with these social emblems.

In the case of Daniel, we can interpret the positioning that weobserved in activity from a perspective of cultural models in dis-course. In the dominoes interaction, the administrator posi-tioned Daniel’s participation in dominoes as oppositional tobeing a medical student. The opposition might well be rooted intwo complementary cultural models. One cultural model is thatdomino playing—including its language forms and gestures—indexes a lower class African-American identity. Another culturalmodel is that succeeding in school requires people to forego (orhide) this lower class African-American identity. Through theuse of these and, potentially, other cultural models, the admin-istrator attempts to pose a particular resolution of identity man-agement to Daniel.

Positioning Over Developmental TimeA second strand concerns shifts in positioning over developmen-tal time. Such an analytic tack captures change that occurs as in-dividuals participate in the same practices in new ways and as theybecome participants in new practices. Daniel’s playing of domi-noes is a part of his own developmental history that most likelydates back to his childhood, when dominoes may have been a partof his family life. This early play may not have provoked tensionswith schooling (a practice with which Daniel also has a history).It may be over particular turns in the events of his life that ten-sions emerged and that he created ways of managing them.

The importance of understanding shifts in how people posi-tion themselves with regard to issues of identity is supported bymuch scholarship, beginning with Erikson’s (1968) seminalcontributions in Identity: Youth and Crisis. It is also manifest inrecent empirical work (Cross, 1991; Helms, 1990; Spencer &Markstrom-Adams, 1990). However, such developmental ap-proaches have not addressed the emergence of tensions betweenethnic and school identities related to cultural practices, nor havethey explored these tensions in relation to developmental transi-tions. Additional questions can be posed at the intersection ofour second strand, positioning over developmental time, and ourfirst strand, positioning in local interactions. For instance, towhat extent do early face-to-face interactions actually matter forlater identity development? And, under what conditions? Devel-opmental analyses can enable us to understand both continuitiesand discontinuities over time in the emergence and managementof identity tensions in relation to practices.

Positioning and Social HistoryOur third strand is concerned with the emergence, maintenance,and shifts in the cultural capital associated with practices overthe social history of communities. The focus on history in ananalysis of practices has roots in the theoretical work of Vygotsky(Scribner, 1985; Vygotsky, 1962; see also Saxe, 1999; Saxe &Esmonde, in press). In current scholarship, writers use the con-cept of cultural capital to understand how history influences in-dividual identities in practices (Boykin, 1994; Holland & Lave,2001; Moll & Gonzáles, in press).

For us, an important idea is that cultural capital evolves oversocial history through practices, and plays a key role in the na-ture of the identities that participants construct. Consider, again,domino playing. It dates back to ancient China, where it maywell have been an activity among the elite. More recently, in theearly 1900s, it was played in the pubs of England. Interestingly,it has become over time not only a popular game in the African-American community, but also an index to an affiliation to aworking-class or poor African-American community. Therefore,playing dominoes comes to Daniel not as neutral or ahistorical,but, rather, as carrying a set of meanings situated in societal re-lations and economic processes. It is, in part, this meaning andthe enactment of this socially positioned practice (as well as otherpractices related to the practice of schooling) that is a source ofthe tension that we observed in the interaction.

The prior point speaks to the sociogenesis of practices and theprocesses by which they become marginalized in the social his-tory of communities. At one level, the shift in cultural capitalthat practices carry can be linked to broad social processes (e.g.,economic, political, religious). However, the local productive ac-tivities of individuals can also contribute to the reshaping andreinterpretation of practices. Indeed, critical theorists often citelocal resistance as an important mechanism for social change(Freire, 1972; Hilliard, 1995; Turiel, 2002). Consider, for ex-ample, Daniel’s resistance to the administrator’s “forced choice”model. In resisting at the moment and over his own history ofparticipation, he locally creates an alternative path in which af-filiation with activity deemed marginalized by some may coexistwith an activity deemed “high status” by others. Such resistancemay seed local shifts in community values that may spread asothers come to follow suit or create similar adaptations in variedsocial groups. Thus, the analysis of cultural capital and the shift-ing cultural capital associated with particular practices would in-volve analyses of both local interactions and the developmentalpathways constructed by individuals as they structure and man-age tensions in everyday cultural practices.

Concluding Remark

We end with a final remark about methods. Though we arguefor a disciplined approach to the analysis of ethnic identity, ourmethodological commitments are eclectic.

Ethnographic techniques are well suited for identifying impor-tant sites for analysis in which tensions between ethnic and aca-demic identities may arise, and observational analyses are key datasources for the analysis of varieties of positioning in local interac-tions. However, systematic interviews of participants in the ob-served interactions are essential for making inferences about howindividuals conceptualize tensions and manage them. Well-crafted

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surveys and questionnaires of attitudes of others in school com-munities can corroborate hypotheses about cultural capital that tar-geted practices carry in different communities. They may also beimportant data sources. We see each class of methods contributingto a synergy that would enable the generation and corroborationof claims about emerging tensions and their management in thelives of youth studied.

That said, neither observation, coordinated interview, orsurvey and questionnaire techniques can capture developmentalprocesses, nor can they capture variations in the ways affiliationwith different cultural practices may differentially support andmitigate varying tensions between ethnic and academic identities.To understand the emergence and management of tensions asthey shift over developmental time and across different commu-nities requires attention to research design. Longitudinal designsin which individuals are followed over time in their participationsin varied practices in and out of school would be key, as would becontrasts across particular subpopulations of youth in which ten-sions and their management may differ systematically.

The perspective we have sketched offers one tack for buildingknowledge about multilayered tensions and their managementas individuals position themselves and are positioned in everydaylife. We expect that such understanding can offer insight intohow to move toward schooling practices that mitigate this classof tensions and, in so doing, support students’ access to schoolas a resource to craft productive and fulfilling futures.

NOTES

Preparation of this article was made possible in part by a Spencer/NAEPostdoctoral Fellowship to Na’ilah Nasir, a grant from the SpencerFoundation to Geoffrey Saxe (#200100026), and a consortium NSFgrant, Diversity in Mathematics Education (DiME, #406F766) forwhich Geoffrey Saxe is a co-investigator. The statements made and theviews expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors. Appreciationgoes to Patricia Baquedano-Lopez, Louis Gomez, Carol Lee, and EddTaylor for comments on an earlier draft of this article.

1 We use the term ethnic identity to describe an affiliation with acommon cultural ancestry and related distinctive cultural patterns(Liebkind, 1989). We use academic identity to refer to an individual’ssense of affiliation with practices of schooling. Furthermore, we treat theconstruct of identity (both ethnic and academic) not as purely essen-tialist properties of a static self, but rather as multifaceted and dynamicas people position themselves and are positioned in relation to varied so-cial practices.

2 We do not view such a forced choice frame as an inherent propertyof minority students’ lives in school. Rather, such frames are constructedwithin institutional and classroom settings (e.g., Bowman & Howard,1985; Ferguson, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Mehan, Hubbard, &Villanueva, 1994).

3 Signifying refers to a ritualized verbal activity common in theAfrican-American community. In a signifying episode, one speaker usesdiscourse to indirectly convey a message to another speaker in a way thatis often humorous or witty. Furthermore, signifying episodes involve theexchange of an implicit message or social critique embedded in an alter-native surface content or function (Kochman, 1969; Mitchell-Kernan,1972; Smitherman, 1977, 1983).

4 Bordieu and Passeron (1977) define cultural capital as the body ofknowledge and skills that the dominant groups in society use and repro-duce over generations to maintain privilege. We use this term to makethe point that some practices carry more cultural capital than others and

that cultural capital reproduced within nondominant groups carries itsown indigenous functions as well.

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AUTHORS

NA’ILAH SUAD NASIR is assistant professor, Stanford University,School of Education, MC #3096, Lausen Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-3096; nasir@stanford.edu. Her research interests include cognitive development in different social-cultural contexts.

GEOFFREY B. SAXE is professor, University of California, Berkeley,Graduate School of Education, Tolman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1670;Saxe@socrates.berkeley.edu. His research interests include the interplaybetween culture and cognitive development focused particularly on math-ematical cognition in children.

Manuscript received November 20, 2002Revisions received March 19, 2003

Accepted March 25, 2003

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