Explaining the Educational Attainment of Young Black Adults

Journal of Negro Education

Explaining the Educational Attainment of Young Black Adults: Critical Familial and Extra-Familial InfluencesAuthor(s): Karen R. Wilson and Walter R. AllenReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 56, No. 1, The Black Child's Home Environmentand Student Achievement (Winter, 1987), pp. 64-76Published by: Journal of Negro EducationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2295384 .Accessed: 21/11/2011 17:47

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Explaining the Educational Attainment of Young Black Adults: Critical Familial and Extra-Familial Influences*

Karen R. Wilson, University of Pennsylvania, and Walter R. Allen, University of Michigan**

INTRODUCTION

Always at the center of the Black community's quest for educational advancement has been the Black family. Nurturing and guiding the young, instilling a respect and yearning for education, Black families have performed this function with admirable effectiveness, achieving the goal of educating their young to advance in the face of seemingly insurmountable barriers. Yet, the role of Black families in directing the educational achievement of their children has not been adequately studied and understood.1 At various points, Black families have been unfairly denigrated and accused of actually retarding the educational development of Black youngsters.2 In order to clarify the relationship between Black family practices and educational achievement, this study investigates background, social psychological, and institutional factors believed to have critical

*The authors thank Dr. James S. Jackson (University of Michigan), director of the National Survey of Black Americans, and Dr. Philip J. Bowman (University of Illinois), project director of the National Survey of Young Black Adults, for access to the rich datasets on which this paper is based.

**Address inquiries to the senior author: Dr. Karen R. Wilson, Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Dr. Walter R. Allen is associate professor of sociology, Center for Afroamerican-African Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

'Reginald Clark, Family Life and School Achievement: Why Poor Black Children Succeed or Fail (Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); and Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, Worlds Apart: Relationships Between Families and Schools (New York: Academic Press, 1978).

2For example, David A. Schultz, Coming Up Black: Patterns of Ghetto Socialization (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969); and Daniel P. Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Planning and Research, 1965).

Journal of Negro Lducation, Vol. 56, No. 1 (1987) 64 Copyright I1987, Howard University

influence on the educational attainment of young Black men and women.

As a field, sociology has devoted considerable attention to systematic study of the educational attainment process. In the late 1960s, Blau and Duncan's approach proved persuasive in its sophis- ticated methodology and thus became the dominant paradigm3 for such studies. The practice of making cross-racial comparisons, and of referring to a person's social origin, in order to explain status attainment patterns was continued in research using the Wisconsin model. Essentially, this model represented an elaboration of the Blau and Duncan model where social psychological variables (e.g., parental and peer influence, counselor encouragement) were added to the earlier model's social origin variables (e.g., father's education and occupation, son's first job) in order to increase explanatory power. The research of Sewell, Haller and Portes; Featherman; and Sewell, Hauser and Featherman provide examples of this perspective.4

The reliance of the traditional status attainment model on individual level measures makes it less applicable to nonwhite popu- lations and women.5 Significant changes in the economy or shifts in government policy greatly influence the probability of upward mobility among nonwhites and women. For these and other rea- sons, both Coser and Burawoy have challenged the status attainment model's implicit assumption that individual attainment occurs within an open opportunity structure. In their assessment, the model fails to consider the impact of structural factors, such as economic power and social advantage, in the differentiation of people's life chances.6

Efforts to address the effects of structural factors on the status attainment process have produced several theories of income deter-

3Peter M. Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan, The American Occupational Structure (New York: Wiley, 1967). Also see Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

4W. H. Sewell, A. 0. Haller and A. Portes, "The Educational and Early Occupational Attainment Process," American Sociological Review, 34 (1969), 82-92; David Featherman, "Achievement Orientation and Socioeconomic Career Attainment," ibid., 37 (1972), 131-143; and W. H. Sewell, R. M. Hauser and D. L. Featherman, Schooling and Achievement in American Society (New York: Academic Press, 1976).

5A. C. Kerckhoff, "The Status Attainment Process: Socialization or Allocation?" Social Forces, 61 (1976), 24-45; Karen R. Wilson, "Clarifying the Educational and Early Occupational Attainment Process: The Case of Young Black Adults" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1986); and Denise C. Gottfredson, "Black-White Differences in the Educational Attainment Process: What Have We Learned?" American Sociological Review, 46 (1981), 542-557.

6Lewis A. Coser, "Presidential Address: Two Methods in Search of a Substance," American Journal of Sociology, 48 (1983), 691-700; and Michael Burawoy, "Social Structure, Homogenization and the Process of Status Attainment in the United States and Great Britain," American Journal of Sociology, 82 (1977), 1031-42.

The Journal of Negro Education 65

mination.7 The innovation of such theories over traditional status attainment theory is their assumption that systemic factors, i.e., factors outside the individual's control, exert profound influence over a person's eventual location in the status hierarchy. Structural theorists also focus on the social and economic consequences associated with the job a person holds and the extent to which race and/ or gender determines the type of occupation an individual is likely to attain.

Structural theories of status attainment are primarily concerned with what happens once an individual enters the labor market. On the other hand, traditional status attainment theory places greatest emphasis on the social psychological factors that precede and influence attainment outcomes. Neither provides sufficient explanation of the status attainment process in the absence of the other. Obviously, individual characteristics and structural level factors operate jointly to determine a person's life course. Consistent with this reality, Kerckhoff8 urges the integration of the Allocation perspective (i.e., structural causation) with the Socialization perspective (i.e., individual causation) in order to achieve increased understanding of the status attainment process. The present study takes account of both sources of influence in its assessment of educational attainment among young Black adults.

PROBLEM, DATA, AND METHODS OF STUDY This study seeks to clarify the effects of interpersonal dynamics

on educational attainment by examining the young Black adult's relations with family members and other significant people outside the family. It also looks at family and educational background, personal efficacy, and selected mediating factors (e.g., gender) as further guideposts to understanding the educational attainment process among this population.

The data used in this study are from three datasets: the National Survey of Black Americans, the Three Generational Family Study, and the National Survey of Young Black Adults. These datasets are part of the comprehensive research project conducted by the Pro- gram for Research on Black Americans at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.9

7E. M. Beck, P. M. Horan and C. M. Tolbert, II, "Stratification in a Dual Economy," American Sociological Review, 43 (1978), 704-720; Edna Bonacich, "A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market," ibid., 37 (1972), 547-559; and E. Wright and L. Perrone, "Marxist Class Categories and Income Inequality," ibid., 42 (1977), 32-55.

8Kerckhoff, "The Status Attainment Process." 9Interested readers are referred to the following article for more detailed discussion of these

research projects: James A. Jackson and Shirley J. Hatchett, "International Research: Methodological Considerations," in N. Datan, A. L. Greene and H. W. Reese, eds., Intergenerational Relations (Hills- dale, N.J.: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, 1986), pp. 51-76.

66 The Journal of Negro Education

The initial investigation was the National Survey of Black Amer- icans (NSBA). It is a cross-sectional study comprised of a nationally representative probability sample of 2,107 adult Blacks, age 18 years or older, living in the continental United States. Fifty-three percent of the NSBA's sample had three-generational families that were eligible to be interviewed in the second study, the Three Generational Family Study. Interviews were conducted with ran- domly selected family members to arrive at an intra-familial cohort sample of grandparents, parents, and children at least 14 years old.

The present study, the National Survey of Young Black Adults, focuses on 201 of those young Black adults (86 males, 115 females) who were members of the youngest (child) cohort from the three- generational sample. The young Black adults were 16-24 years of age when first interviewed as members of the three-generational- family sample in 1979 and 1980. They were between 19 and 28 years of age when interviewed by telephone in 1983.

Conceptually, the model that guides this research incorporates elements from each of three realms of influence-family, school, and society-in an attempt to account for the educational attainment of young Black adults. The outcome variable, educational attainment, is measured by the young adults' 1983 report of years of schooling completed in response to the question: "How many grades of school or years of college did you finish?"

The predictor variables represent seven domains of influence on the educational attainment process:

1. Family Socioeconomic Status was measured by mother's education, i.e., years of schooling completed. A second measure asked whether the family received welfare or government assistance while the youth was in high school.

2. Family Structure was measured by the number of siblings in the young adult's family. A second measure asked whether the father lived with the family while the young adult was in high school.

3. Family Influence was measured by the young adult's 1983 report of whether the mother and father gave encouragement for getting a better job than s/he was able to get. Youth who reported such encouragement were then asked: "What was the most important thing s/he did to encourage you?"

4. Educational Background was measured by the young adult's 1979/80 report of the racial composition of the high school attended: "When you think about the place(s) you went to high school, . .

were mostly blacks or whites there?" Another measure was based on the young adult's 1983 report of average high school grades: "What were your average grades in high school-did you get mostly


failing grades, mostly D's, C's, B's or A's?" A third measure was the 1983 report of the type of high-school curriculum completed: "While in high school did you take mostly advanced college prep courses, mostly vocational courses in business or industrial arts, mostly general courses, or what?" The final measure from 1983 asked: "Now I'd like to ask you about training you may have had in the past. Have you ever been in (a/another) job training program or worked on a job supported by CETA, WIN, Job Corps or any other government supported job program?"

5. School Influence was measured by the youth's 1979/80 report of the helpfulness of the high-school counselor: "Counselors in my school really help me plan my life and career." A second measure was based on the youth's 1979/80 report of the high school teachers' concern with student learning: "My teachers really don't care if you learn-as long as you don't make trouble."

6. Personal Efficacy was measured by the youth's 1979/80 attitude toward preparing for the future: "Do you think it's better to plan your life a good ways ahead, or would you say life is too much a matter of luck to plan ahead very far?" A second measure from 1979/80 required the youth to assess his/her own ability to control the problems of life: "Some people feel they can run their lives pretty much the way they want to, others feel the problems of life are sometimes too big for them. Which one are you most like?"

7. Mediating Factors. Four variables were expected to mediate the influence of our predictors on the young adult's educational attainment. One of these mediating variables, age, was measured by asking, "What is your date of birth?" Gender, another mediating variable, was measured by: "What is [your] sex?" The young adult's parental status was measured by asking, "How many children have you had not counting stillbirths?" Finally, the general employment picture of the youth's state of residence was expected to mediate between the predictor and outcome variables. A variable was con- structed by matching the appropriate 1980 state and gender unemployment rates to each respondent.s

This study employs three levels of statistics for data analysis. (1) Univariate statistics provide the basis for general comparison and description of patterns in the data (e.g., frequency distribu- tions, means, standard deviations). (2) Bivariate analysis, using the chi square and eta statistics, enables us to assess relationships and

10U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Geographic Profile of Employment and Unemployment, 1980, Bulletin 2111 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982), Table 9, pp. 54-55.


strength of association between specific pairs of variables. (3) Mul- tivariate analysis permits us to explore relationships between the outcome variable, educational attainment, and the seventeen predictor variables believed to influence attainment.

Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) is the multivariate procedure employed.1" MCA is analogous to dummy variable multiple regression, however, rather than reporting coefficients as deviations from the excluded class of each set of dummy variables, the procedure reports coefficients as adjustments to the grand mean of the outcome variable. In this sense, the procedure reports the mean value of educational attainment within categories of the predictor variable of interest. MCA also provides estimates of the total variance explained (multiple R-square statistic) and of the relative importance of individual predictor variables (Beta statistic).

FINDINGS

We begin with an overview of characteristics believed to affect educational attainment. In particular, our attention is directed to univariate descriptive statistics: the mean, standard deviation, range, and frequencies for selected variables. The majority of young Black adults in this sample had pursued their education beyond the com- pletion of high school (54 percent). While the actual years of schooling completed ranged from 8 to 17 or more years, the mean was 13 years, or one year beyond high school. The standard deviation of 1.7 for this variable tells us that the majority of these young adults had between 11 and 15 years of schooling. Only 10 percent failed to complete high school. This pattern suggests high motivation for educational attainment among the youth in this sample.

Despite their high educational attainment, a majority (85 percent) of these young adults were concentrated in either lower-level white collar jobs, e.g., secretarial, sales (42 percent), or blue collar jobs, e.g., machine operator, food service worker (43 percent). While the mean Black adult unemployment rate for states where the youths lived was high (14.4 percent), mean unemployment in this young adult sample was higher (32 percent). Adding the so- called "discouraged workers," those who have given up hope of ever finding employment, raises the unemployment rate for this group to 39 percent. Clearly, a significant number of these young Black adults confront the problems and frustrations of unemployment.

"1Frank M. Andrews, J. N. Morgan, J. A. Sonquist, L. Klem, Multiple Classification Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, 1973).


Of further concern is the comparison of these youths' educational and occupational achievements with those of their parents. On the average, mothers reported one year less (12 years) and fathers two years less (11 years) of mean years of schooling completed than was true for the young adults. Since the parents have been in the labor force much longer and the young adults were just beginning their careers, direct comparison of occupational achievements is hampered. Nevertheless, the similarity in occupational attainment between the two generations is striking. Both generations are concentrated in lower-level white collar occupations (mothers-26 percent; fathers-39 percent; youths-42 percent) and in blue collar occupations (mothers-25 percent; fathers-43 percent; youths-42 percent). It is possible that the younger gen- eration will experience substantial upward mobility over the years, thus giving them an eventual occupational attainment advantage compared to their parents. Their occupational goals for the future suggest as much, since 62 percent aspire to upper level white collar jobs by the time they are 30 years old. However, given the dem- onstrated link between first job and eventual occupation, it is doubt- ful that many of these youths will ever rise to the lofty heights of their aspirations.

The majority of the 201 young Black adults in this sample were from the South (55 percent), 20 percent lived in the Northeast, 19 percent in the North Central region, and the remaining 5 percent lived in the West. Reporting on the influence of parents, respondents indicated that 35 percent of mothers, compared to 17 percent of fathers, had specifically encouraged them to stay in school. Con- cerning school influences, 51 percent felt that counselors had helped them with their plans for career and life. This is to be compared with the 68 percent who believed that their teachers cared about whether or not students were learning.

Unlike earlier generations, these young adults attended schools that were predominantly white (34 percent) or that were racially balanced, i.e., 50 percent white (25 percent). While in school, 46 percent took the general course curriculum, 25 percent took college preparatory courses, 17 percent took the business curriculum, and the remaining 12 percent took the industrial arts curriculum. The majority of young adults reported average grades ranging from A to B (62 percent), with 43 percent having participated in job-training programs. Finally, the sample expressed a strong sense of personal efficacy: 64 percent felt that they could run their lives pretty much as they wanted as opposed to feeling that the problems of life were too big to handle. Sixty-two percent thought it better to plan life a


good way ahead, rather than feeling that life was more a matter of luck.

Results from bivariate analysis of the data are presented in Table I. Respondents whose mothers had completed more years of schooling had significantly higher educational attainment (p < .01). Educational attainment was lower, although not significantly so, for those from families that had received welfare when the young adult was in high school. Turning to family structure, we see that father absence from the household during the high-school years was unrelated to educational attainment. On the other hand, youths from larger families had completed significantly fewer years of schooling (p < .01).

The association of educational attainment with significant other influences was mixed. Young adults whose mothers encouraged them to get better jobs than they had completed significantly more years of schooling (p < .01). None of the other sources of significant other influence (e.g., fathers, counselors, or teachers) was signifi-

TABLE I Young Black Adults' Educational Attainment, by Predictor Variables: Summary Table

Chi Variables N Square P-Value Eta (Adjusted)

Family socioeconomic status Mother education 199 15.3 .00 .288 Family receive welfare 200 3.6 .06 .127

Family structure Family size 201 10.0 .00 .161 Father presence 184 .6 .43 .116

Family influence Mother encouragement 198 6.1 .01 .158 Father encouragement 201 .2 .91 .152

Educational background High school race composition 192 5.5 .06 .120 High school grades 200 14.3 .00 .249 High school curriculum 198 26.7 .00 .475 Job training program 201 1.8 .18 .177

School influence How helpful counselor 185 3.5 .06 .172 How concerned teachers 185 .8 .38 .010

Personal efficacy Index 195 8.2 .02 .215

Mediating factors Age 201 1.1 .59 .218 Gender 201 1.8 .18 .000 Parental status 201 10.0 .00 .329 State unemployment 201 7.6 .02 .000


cantly related to years of schooling completed, although counselor helpfulness approached significance (p = .06).

Educational background was the most consistent category of predictors, and years of completed schooling was highest for youths who had taken the college preparatory curriculum and lowest for those who had taken the general curriculum (p < .01). Young adults who earned better grades in high school were also significantly more likely to have completed more years of schooling (p < .01). Youths who attended high schools that were mostly white had higher educational attainment than those who attended schools that were mostly Black or racially balanced (p = .06). Participation in a job-training program was unrelated to educational attainment.

Examining the remaining predictors, which can be thought of as characteristics of the person, we find that age and gender are not significantly associated with years of schooling completed. How- ever, youths possessing a strong sense of personal efficacy have significantly higher educational attainment (p < .05). By the same token, the young adults who were parents were significantly behind their peers with no children in the years of schooling completed (p < .01). Young adults from states with high unemployment rates completed significantly more years of schooling (p < .01). Presum- ably, the unfavorable job climate encouraged them to remain in school longer than was true for youths in states with plentiful entry- level employment possibilities.

Results from a multiple classification analysis of multivariate relationships in the data are summarized in Table II. Jointly, the seventeen predictor variables explained a sizable 39 percent of the total variance in Black young adult educational attainment. The large percentage of explained variance suggests that our model has effectively incorporated the major sources of influence in the deter- mination of years of schooling completed by this sample of Black youth. Comparing the relative importance of predictors, we see that high-school curriculum has the largest Beta (B = .246); therefore the pattern of courses taken in high school was the strongest predictor of educational attainment. The second strongest predictor was the young adult's parental status (B = .229), followed by age (B = .229) and counselor helpfulness (B = .222). Years of completed schooling was lowest, therefore, for young adults who were parents, for those in the youngest age group, and for those who reported high-school counselors as not at all helpful with their planning for the future.

The mother's education and the father's encouragement patterns were the next strongest influences on educational attainment. In particular, the young adults with highly educated mothers had


TABLE II Multiple Classification Analysis: Final Model Predicting Educational Attainment

Educational Attainment Unadjusted Adjusted N Beta

Mean Mean

Family socioeconomic status Mother education

0-11 years 12.6 12.8 33 .189 12 years 13.2 13.1 68 13 or moreyears 13.9 13.6 38 Don't know 12.3 12.9 14

Family receive welfare Yes 12.7 13.3 36 .060 No 13.3 13.1 117

Family structure Family size

0-2 children 13.5 13.4 62 .112 3-5 children 13.1 13.0 56 6 or more children 12.7 13.1 35

Father presence Yes 13.4 13.4 79 .135 No 12.9 12.9 74

Family influence Mother encouragement

No encouragement 12.5 12.7 24 .130 Encouraged 13.3 13.2 129

Father encouragement No encouragement 12.7 13.0 49 Encouraged 13.4 13.1 91 Not ascertained* 13.3 14.0 13 .157

Educational background High school race composition

All to mostly Black 13.0 13.1 63 .091 Half Black 12.9 13.0 39 All to mostly white 13.5 13.4 51

High school grades Failing to C's 12.6 12.8 56 .151 B's to A's 13.5 13.3 97

High school curriculum General 12.6 12.8 67 .246 Business 12.6 13.2 16 Industrial 12.8 13.1 27 College preparatory 14.4 13.7 43

School influence Job training program

Yes 12.6 13.1 69 .052 No 13.4 13.2 84

Continued on next page


TABLE II-Continued

Educational Attainment Unadjusted Adjusted N Beta

Mean Mean

Counselors helpful Very true 12.5 12.6 35 .222 Somewhat true 13.3 13.4 43 A little true 13.5 13.5 42 Not true 13.2 13.0 33

Teachers concerned Very true 13.1 13.3 17 .070 Somewhat true 12.9 13.1 30 A little true 13.3 13.0 38 Not true 13.2 13.2 68

Personal efficacy Index

Low 12.9 13.1 28 .131 Medium 12.8 12.9 53 High 13.6 13.4 72

Mediating factors Age

19-21 years 12.7 12.7 57 .229 22-24 years 13.6 13.5 55 25-28 years 13.1 13.3 41

Gender Male 13.1 13.1 69 .039 Female 13.2 13.2 84

Parental status No children 13.6 13.4 99 .229 One or more children 12.4 12.7 54

State unemployment 5-12% unemployment 12.9 12.8 48 .156

13-17% unemployment 13.1 13.4 57 18-27% unemployment 13.4 13.2 48

Note: Multiple R (Adj.) = .621; Multiple R-squared (Adj.) = .386; N = 153. *Not ascertained was included as a valid category for father encouragement because there were 26 cases with this coding. In comparison, there were only 3 cases coded as not ascertained for mother encouragement.

completed the most years of schooling (B = .189). We also note that the young adults for whom "father encouragement" was not ascertained appear to be high achievers as well (B = .157). How- ever, the low number of cases in that category casts doubt on the stability of its mean and the finding of high achievement that it suggests. What is apparent, though, as has been found in prior research, is that the educational attainment of the Black mother is significantly related to the educational attainment of her offspring.

It is with no small surprise that we note the limited importance of high-school grades (B = .15), personal efficacy (B = .13), and


mother encouragement (B = .13) in the prediction of educational achievement among young Black adults. Similarly, the literature attributes greater importance to teacher effects (B = .07), gender (B = .04), high school racial composition (B = .09), and family size (B = .11) in the prediction of educational attainment than is borne out by these data.

DISCUSSION

The paradox of this highly educated, yet sizably unemployed, sample of Black youths speaks to the heart of the ongoing debate over appropriate models for status attainment research in the social sciences. The "socialization" perspective, personified by Blau and Duncan's status attainment model, views status mobility largely as the result of fair competition in an open system. Characteristics of the individual's background, family socialization practices, and personality are believed to interact to determine a person's eventual location in the social stratification system. Over and against this view stands the "allocation" perspective, exemplified in the work of Bonacich, which views status mobility-or the lack thereof-as a feature of a restricted system. Differential access to societal resources, discrimination, and inequities in opportunities are believed to restrict structurally the opportunities certain individuals (or classes of individuals) have for upward mobility in the stratification system. 12

The socialization versus allocation debate derives from the clas- sic question of whether personality or environment best explains individual achievement. Of course, the only completely accurate resolution of this debate is to acknowledge the combined influence of socialization and allocation, of personality and environment, on educational attainment. Unfortunately, the research record has not been nearly so reasonable in the consideration of links between Black family life and the educational attainment of Black Americans. Instead, the socialization perspective has been by far the dominant view, resulting in an orthodoxy which indicts Black families. This orthodoxy would have us believe that the persistent educational, economic, political, and social underdevelopment of Black America results from failures in the capacities, motivation, and culture of Blacks rather than from systematic discrimination in the society.13

We argue that the acceptance of this view has the effect of "blaming the victim" for the societal transgressions which he or

12Blau and Duncan, The American Occupational Structure; and Bonacich, "A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism."

13Walter R. Allen and W. Reynolds Farley, "The Shifting Social and Economic Tides of Black America, 1950-1980," Annual Review of Sociology, 12 (1986), 277-306.


she suffers. So that it is clear, we do not seek to absolve Black Americans completely of individual and community responsibility for educational attainment. Black Americans' incredible gains in education attest to the effectiveness of concerted individual and community effort. From 1940 to 1980, Black Americans doubled their median years of schooling (6.2 to 12 years), virtually eradicated illiteracy, and reduced the black-white percentage point difference in proportion of high-school graduates from 10.5 to 7.0. This remarkable educational progress could not have occurred if Black Americans were without longstanding traditions in their families, churches, and culture which favored and required continued efforts toward educational advance.

Findings from Ogbu's cross-cultural study14 reveal striking con- sistencies in the educational status of minorities in Japan, Israel, Britain, New Zealand, and the United States. In each country, minorities lag far behind educationally. One explanation attributes this achievement gap to the inadequacies of minority-group members. A competing explanation attributes the gap to the prevailing system of caste stratification and discrimination. Undoubtedly, the most accurate explanation for minority disadvantage in education should incorporate a combination of institutional and individual factors. In the U.S. case, and likely in the other societies, enormous societal effort has been exerted to limit or block the access of minorities to educational opportunities. The power brokers of America have too often resorted to subterfuge, mythology, restrictions, vio- lence, and a host of other strategies, all intended to foster and maintain the educational underdevelopment of Black Americans. The mere fact that so much energy is devoted to restricting Black educational access, and the tremendous progress of Blacks despite this systematic hindrance, lend greatest credence to the minority group explanation for the gap in educational achievement.

History provides ample evidence that education has been and continues to be an important arena for struggle in the United States.15 The challenge confronting Black families now, as always, is to prepare their young to be motivationally and intellectually equipped to compete on equal terms. The challenge confronting the Black community, again as always, is to maintain the intensity and effectiveness of its struggle to open opportunity's doors. For Black Amer- ica to continue to progress, the two struggles must be waged simul- taneously, in deliberate coordination and with extreme vigor.

"4John Ogbu, Minority Education and Caste: The American System in Cross-Cultural Perspective (New York: Academic Press, 1978).

"5James D. Anderson, "The Schooling and Achievement of Black Children: Before and After Brown v. Topeka, 1900-1980," Advances in Motivation and Achievement, 1 (1984), 103-122.


Explaining the Educational Attainment of Young Black Adults

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