Forming Academic Identities: Accommodation without Assimilation among Involuntary Minorities

Students from linguistic and ethnic-minority backgrounds and lowincome families do poorly in school in comparison with their majority and well-to-do contemporaries. They drop out at a higher rate. They score lower on tests. Their grades are lower (Coleman et al., 1966; Haycock & Navarro, 1988; Jencks et al., 1972). And most importantly for the topic of this chapter, they do not attend college as often (Carter & Wilson, 1991; Center for Education Statistics, 1986).