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Victimization, Separatism and Anti-intellectualism: An Empirical Analysis of John McWhorter's Theory on African American's Low Academic Performance

The purpose of this study was to test John McWhorter's theory on African American academic underachievement. The theory claims that since the 1960's African American identities have been significantly influenced by beliefs of victimization and anti-intellectualism along with values of separatism. In order to test for the existence of these dimensions in African American's thinking and for their relationship to academic achievement, data from the Maryland Adolescence Development In Context Study (MADICS) were used. Findings indicated that victimization, separatism and anti-intellectualism have a causal relationship and that sentiments of victimization are found to be significantly higher among African Americans. A Bourdieuian theoretical framework is used in the framing and interpretation of the results.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-2634
Date21 March 2014
CreatorsMarion, Marlon DeWayne
PublisherPDXScholar
Source SetsPortland State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceDissertations and Theses

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