Welch, Olga M. and Hodges, Carolyn R. (1997). Standing
Outside on the Inside: Black Adolescents and the
Construction of Academic Identity. Albany, NY: State
University of New York
Pp. 144
$44.50 (Cloth) ISBN 0-7914-3341-2
$14.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-7914-3342-0
Reviewed by Richard Nyirongo
Ohio University
June 2, 1999
The status of minority groups in comparison with the
dominant group of white Americans is being debated every day
in the media, academic circles, and religious organizations
as well as in homes, in the courts, and in the streets.
African Americans are the minority group most discussed in
America. At the center of the debate are efforts being made
by various interest groups and by the American government to
alter imbalances in the social, economic, and political
power that exist between the minority groups—African
Americans in particular—and their white American
counterparts. So far, efforts to remedy conditions for
minority groups and to reduce the disparity between them and
the dominant whites seem not to be bearing any significant
fruits. These circumstances have been documented by Welch
and Hodges as well as by many other authors.
The concerns among minorities are wide ranging, from
large scale issues related to political, economic, and legal
matters to the smallest details of social life. Education
has been identified as an important mechanism through which
the existing disparities between majority and minority
groups may be bridged. The success of education in remedying
these disparities has thus far been limited, however.
It is within this context that Welch and Hodges examine
and take issue with the construction of academic identity
among African American adolescents. Academic identity is
one of the important factors that facilitates or impedes
students' academic achievement in school and their eventual
admission into college. The main argument advanced by Welch
and Hodges is that, among other factors, academic identity
constitutes a significant influence on the academic
achievement of African American students and students from
other minority groups. Concern with such other factors as
students' lack of preschool preparedness, unequal
opportunities in school, and cultural deprivation has kept
educators from paying adequate attention to students'
formation of academic identities. Educators have tended to
stress the social factors affecting disadvantaged youths to
the exclusion of the psychological factors also at play in
the lives of Black adolescents.
Welch and Hodges concentrate on the psycho-social
development of disadvantaged African American adolescents by
first drawing from their own personal and academic
experiences in US educational and socio-political
institutions. The major focus of the inquiry, however, is on
the experiences of selected adolescents who participated in
a university-sponsored enrichment program in English and
foreign language, which was linked to their high school
English and foreign language classes.
The authors address the following research questions:
How do African American adolescents construct the meaning of
the concepts, "scholarship" and "scholar?" Does the way they
construct these meanings overtly affect their performance in
school (e.g., their GPAs, ACT/SAT scores, position in
class)? Does it covertly affect the construction of their
identities?
Deeply rooted convictions as well as shared experiences
as African Americans and as educators motivated Welch and
Hodges to carry out the study, which involved action
research within the context of a project called EXCEL
(Encouraging Excellence in Children Extends Learning).
Central to the study were the experiences within and outside
of school that shaped African American adolescents' views of
themselves as scholars. The authors found that, as
participants in the public school system, African Americans
and other minority students felt like "outsiders on the
inside."
In Chapter one, "Education and Equal Opportunity: The
Failed Promise," Welch and Hodges provide background
information relevant to their study. They describe the
status of education in America in general and discuss how
the US system of education fails to address the problems
faced by minority children—African Americans in particular.
The authors explain that efforts by the government to
improve disadvantaged students' access to education and
performance in school are not new. Some such initiatives
have been in place for as long as 40 years. In all that
time, however, little has been realized. The disparity in
academic achievement between disadvantaged students and
their advantaged counterparts has been growing and continues
to grow. This situation persists and even worsens despite
the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling and the
1964 Civil Rights Act, both of which tried to outlaw
segregation in schools and to give all children equal access
to education.
The fact that poor results persist despite all that has
been done has led some educators to question the concept of
equality itself. Educators, in fact, debate the very
meaning of "equality." Does it refer to equal inputs of
school resources? Or does it refer to equal educational
outcomes? Equality is, in fact, difficult to assess in the
context of a capitalist economy. Capitalism creates
circumstances in which the playing field is not level,
favoring those with more resources and power over those
without. Social equality might be unattainable under such
circumstances.
Welch and Hodges conclude the first chapter by
discussing the failure of the US educational system to alter
socio-economic and power imbalances between African
Americans and whites. The authors attribute this failure to
the ineffectiveness of the approaches thus far used by
schools. Educational initiatives have emphasized social
factors, such as poverty and cultural values, at the expense
of psychological factors. According to the authors, few
educational efforts have endeavored to mediate the way that
African American students construct their identities.
Chapter two is entitled, "Precollege Enrichment for
African American Adolescents and the Construction of
Achievement Identities: Is There a Relationship?" In this
chapter Welch and Hodges explore possible ways to socialize
African American students so that they will choose to devote
themselves to academic success. Such socialization is
necessary, Welch and Hodges contend, in order to assure
students' academic and social survival in the hostile
culture of the public schools and the discouraging everyday
world of inner-city neighborhoods. In school African
Americans face deprecation and insults from teachers and
classmates. At home they observe the experience of
relatives—dropouts and frustrated graduates alike—who are
unable to get jobs despite adequate qualifications.
Under such conditions, success is almost impossible to
achieve. Welch and Hodges argue, however, that African
Americans need to alter such conditions by developing the
capacity for self-motivation and by forging positive
academic identities. Precollege enrichment programs often
overlook this important need, thereby leaving African
American students vulnerable to the hostile environment of
the schools. As a consequence, many African American
students fail to achieve, and many drop out of school.
As a way to illuminate the relationship between
precollege enrichment experiences and students' formation of
positive academic identities, Welch and Hodges contrasted
typical enrichment programs with project EXCEL. Studying
the project through action research that was based on the
principles of critical and symbolic interactionism, the
authors sought to understand the meanings, expectations, and
motivations through which students came to interpret the
academic experience. Focusing on two cases in particular,
the authors found that it was possible for some students to
embrace a personal definition of scholarship and to use that
definition to frame and then to achieve academic goals.
Other EXCEL students, however, believed that intellectual
potential was a more important determinant of their future
academic success than was their actual academic achievement
or their motivation to succeed. This belief interfered with
such students' ability to imagine themselves in the role of
"scholar."
In Chapter three, Welch and Hodges elaborate on one of
the EXCEL findings, which they term, "The Lana Turner
Syndrome." This syndrome is characterized by the
expectation held by some disadvantaged students that their
admission to college will depend upon their being
"discovered." To these students, academic potential is
hidden. In the case of the lucky few, hidden potential is
miraculously discovered by college admissions officers.
Students who subscribe to this interpretation also believe
that, as long as there is a chance of being discovered,
there is no need for them to demonstrate their ability. For
such students, overt demonstrations of their academic
achievement or of their motivation to succeed are virtually
useless. Using the work of Foucault to interpret "The Lana
Turner Syndrome," the authors show that this syndrome has
contradictory effects. While it tends to limit students'
access to post-secondary educational opportunities, it also
offers them a way to care for themselves and to resist
oppression within the hostile world of schools.
Chapter four, "Diffusing the Rumors of Inferiority:
Creating a Climate of Excellence for Inner City, College-
Bound Students," focuses on the way that classroom climate
shapes the educational experiences of disadvantaged
students. The authors believe that it is important to study
classroom climate in order to shed light on the causes of
African American students' underachievement. The analysis of
climate in this chapter is based on the classroom
experiences of the EXCEL students of 1990-1991.
According to the authors, the interaction among the
members of a classroom has an important influence on the
classroom climate, which, in turn, can be either detrimental
or conducive to the academic achievement of disadvantaged
students. Welch and Hodges note that various factors
influence classroom climate. Important among these are: the
teacher’s educational philosophy, the emotional tone of
interpersonal relationships, the strategies used to manage
students' behavior, and the techniques used to organize
instruction. The authors caution, however, that the
associations between teacher behavior and student
achievement are complicated; causal relationships are
difficult to document. Moreover, the authors note that,
even when such relationships are clearly identified, such
"process-product relationships do not translate directly
into prescriptions for teaching practice" (p.97).
Acknowledging these cautions, Welch and Hodges still
maintain that such research offers important lessons for
practice. They are particularly supportive of two findings:
(1) the finding that the amount of time spent on an academic
task influences the amount of learning that takes place and
(2) the finding that students learn better when they can
relate new knowledge to prior experiences and knowledge.
After discussing other instructional practices that hold
promise for disadvantaged students, the authors conclude the
chapter by explaining how important it is for teachers to
engage all students in experiences that work to dispel the
myth that Black students' academic abilities are inferior to
those of whites.
In Chapter five, "Equal Access to Excellence: Shifting
the Center and Reconstructing Knowledge," Welch and Hodges
situate their analysis of African American students'
academic identity formation within the broader discussion of
school reform, particularly as that discussion addresses the
question of equal educational opportunity. Attending to the
complexities and the contradictions of reform efforts, Welch
and Hodges note,
The previous discussions of identity construction and
the dilemmas inherent in educational reform and
restructuring are replete with countertensions which we
have thus far suggested serve to silence important
issues and criticisms as surely as they elicit calls
for change. It is clear that policymakers thinking
about long-range plans can not confine themselves to a
unidirectional approach but must, instead, consider how
individual actors, that is, teachers, parents,
politicians, and the community at large, construct
meanings of schooling and the role of education. (pp.
117-118)
Despite evident understanding of the circumstances that
conspire to restrain African American students' formation of
positive academic identities, Welch and Hodges are hopeful.
The current interest in the context of minority education,
according to the authors, is a step in the right direction.
But the authors believe that true reform will depend upon a
long-range, collaborative, and multi-dimensional effort.
Overall, Standing Outside on the Inside offers a
critical analysis of the way that schooling in the United
States treats (and often mistreats) disadvantaged students,
particularly African Americans. Providing both an
historical and a contemporary vantage, the authors
demonstrate how African American and other minority students
are trapped within a system that marginalizes them,
regardless of their abilities and potential.
Welch and Hodges have managed to give a rich account of
the problem, and have, in the process, raised good questions
regarding what should be examined in order to remedy the
apparently worsening situation for African Americans and
other minority students. But they have not offered
definitive solutions. Some readers may find this omission
to limit the usefulness of the book. The authors, however,
have made it clear that, in their view, there is no
prescription that will "cure" the problem. Still, by
citing Freire at the end of the book, Welch and Hodges
affirm the value of inquiry and critical pedagogy in
"unveiling opportunities for hope" on behalf of
disadvantaged adolescents (p. 127).
About the Reviewer
Richard Nyirongo
Richard Nyirongo has interests in the context of educational
administration, specifically the socio-economic, cultural,
and political context of educational administration in Sub-
Saharan Africa. He is also interested in minority education
in the United States. Nyirongo was a secondary school
teacher and Lecturer at the University of Malawi; a
Malawian, he received his Bachelor of Education degree from
the University of Malawi and a Master of Education degree
from Ohio University, where he is currently a doctoral
student in educational administration.
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