Doctoral Dissertation Research: Minority Identity, Resistance, and the Opportunity Structure: The Interplay of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Social Networks

Some scholars have argued that minority youth reject certain ideas and actions perceived to be in the province of white middle class society. Further, their research suggests that an acceptance of 'white' language and behaviors creates dilemmas in the lives of racial and ethnic minorities, with serious social and economic implications. However, researchers have not addressed the question of why many minority adolescents who occupy the same or similar socioeconomic and sociopolitical stratum in U.S. society differ in their behaviors and attitudes about 'acting white.' The proposed dissertation project will analyze (1) how minority adolescent girls and boys differ in their attitudes and behaviors about 'appropriate' ethnic behavior; (2) whether there exist inter-ethnic differences in resistance to 'acting white'; and (3) how differences in social contacts or networks account for individual and group responses to 'acting white.' The study will employ both qualitative and quantitative data obtained from a mixed-gender, inter-ethnic sample of low-income African American and Latino adolescent respondents ages 13 to 18, all residents of government-subsidized housing. Data collection will include in-depth interviews and focus groups, with a subset of youth included in a larger longitudinal study: the Yonkers Family and Community Project (YF&CP) based at Columbia University. This research not only should attract the attention of many social scientists, but also social policy makers interested in racial and ethnic relations, gender, education, and social and economic mobility.