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It seems to me that a much of the criticism could have been defused with some slightly different methodology. Some statistics that might been good ammunition (e

• dasil003 17y ago
  I think a more scientific approach is of little help here. The issue is too emotionally charged. Most people have pre-conceived notions about where the problem lies, and they will go to great lengths to cherry pick their evidence. Ogbu's research is useful today simply because political correctness has reached a point where we can't even consider the role minorities play in their own academic achievement. 50 years ago the opposite was true; the political mainstream was looking for anything they could to justify the status quo. The bottom line is that if you are trying to explain some phenomenon, you won't reach very good conclusions by taking certain aspects off the table for political reasons.
  • dschobel 17y ago
    This is what struck me most about the academics (!) who were criticizing his work in the article. "I find it useless to argue with people like Ogbu," says Urban League educational fellow Ronald Ross, himself a former school superintendent. "We know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of funding, and unqualified teachers." This guy's issue isn't with any particular bit of Ogbu's methodology or logic, just the places it takes him. How this can fly in any academic field is shocking to me.
    • maarek 17y ago
      It sounds like you don't know many academics.
      • dschobel 17y ago
        I do but they're all from engineering disciplines. Maybe that's the problem.
    • dasil003 17y ago
      To be fair, an academic administrator is not really an academic.
• javanix 17y ago
  Presenting data on the elements that aren't subject to self-bias would bolster his case - absenteeism and failure to complete homework (as opposed to completing homework poorly), from the list you gave. I'm not sure that he would have gotten much use out of the rest of them, as they would be self-reported in most cases and difficult to quantify in the others.
• ahoyhere 17y ago
  I've also read some very interesting ethnographic studies about the effects of poverty, including ones about the parenting styles of different class levels. The most staggering (to me) finding was that poor African Americans (not just blacks — specifically Americans) ask their small children fewer questions that the parents already know the answer to (e.g. "What's that?? Right! That's a kitty!"), say "No" way more often, and expect unquestioning obedience rather than questions, exploration and creativity. Lower class whites also trend that way in their parenting styles, but not to the same degree. And of course, parenting styles tend to transfer from generation to generation. Thus the whole "I'm becoming my mother" and "I want to be a better father than my father was" cliché, heritability of depression and also the legacy of child abuse. When you think that yeah, really, in terms of the number of generations, it was not long ago at all that these people's ancestors were bought and sold like property. Combine the slavery aspect with the parenting aspect -- and the fact that parents act like their parents -- and you can see how, as a race in America, those kids could be behind, even if their families are much wealthier now. Their parents' parents probably were not. To say nothing of their parents' parents' parents. It was this realization I had, more than anything else (in addition to a visit to London), that made me realize that American society truly was racially biased -- at a much deeper level than most people talk about. These sociological findings are not new or obscure -- and yet, there are so very few programs to help break the cycle by helping those families improve their parenting.