ABSTRACT
In a joint 1986 publication, Professor Signithia Fordham and I first argued that cultural frame of reference and collective identity should be included among the widely recognized, interlocking societal, school, and community factors known to influence minority students’ school performance. A cultural frame of reference reflects an ethnic group’s shared sense of how people should behave, and a collective identity expresses a minority group’s cultural frame of reference. In some situations, an ethnic minority group’s collective identity may oppose what its members perceive as the dominant group’s view of how people should act (Ogbu, 1982a, 2000; Ogbu & Simons, 1998). When the cultural frame of reference is oppositional, it can adversely affect an ethnic minority group’s schooling. Students may not engage in certain behaviors that are conducive to doing well academically to avoid having their peers identify them with the dominant group.1
