Bearing the burden of whiteness: the implications of racial self-identification for multiracial adolescents’ school belonging and academic achievement |
Ethnic and Racial Studies
Volume 36, Issue 5 (May 2013)
pages 747-773
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2011.628998
Ruth Burke
Department of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania
Grace Kao, Professor of Sociology, Education, and Asian American Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Previous literature on racial self-identification among multiracials demonstrates that self-identification differs by context. Moreover, among multiracial adolescents, identity, usually measured in school, is correlated with achievement. In addition, a few studies have indicated that for half-white, half-minority adolescents, school achievement falls in between the achievements of their monoracial counterparts. Using the in-school and in-home components of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between racial self-identification and school belonging and achievement. We find that among black/white and Asian/white adolescents, adolescents who self-identify as white are particularly disadvantaged in school, reporting lower grade point averages (GPA) than their multiracial counterparts. Our conclusions suggest that multiple contextual measures of self-identification better capture the relationship between racial identification and academic achievement among multiracial adolescents.
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Tags: Ethnic and Racial Studies, Grace Kao, Ruth Burke, Ruth H. Burke, Ruth Hunt Burke