Real Effects of Attitudes about the Value of Education and Social Structure on the Black/White Academic Achievement Gap

Contemporary education research accepts as a given there is a direct and measurable effect of students’ attitudes on academic performance. For this reason, attitudinal factors are cited as a partial explanation for known racial and social class gaps (Pino and Smith 2004). Particularly, the effects of student attitudes on white-black disparities in grades and test scores has been discussed for several decades (including Ogbu 1978; Fordham and Ogbu 1986; Mickelson 1990; Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey 1998; Tyson et al. 2005; Harris and Robinson 2007; Harris 2011).