2nd Annual "Youth & Race" Conference:
October 28-29, 2005

Co-Sponsored by: The Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University with additional support from The Robertson Scholars Program

Building on the enormous success of the first Youth & Race coonference in October 2004, this year's 2-day conference, "Acting White," will direct its attention to the acting white stigma, its influence on racial identity formation, academic achievement, and policy implications. Dr. Ronald Ferguson, Economist and Senior Research Associate at the Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard University, will keynote.

The ‘acting white’ phenomenon—the argument that smart black kids are discouraged from working hard and doing well because of the fear that their less successful peers will accuse them of “acting white”—is an idea popularized in 1984 with the work of Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu in Black students’ school success: Coping with the burden of ‘acting white.’ Following its publication, Fordham and Ogbu’s hypothesis emerged as a contentious explanation for the persistence of the educational achievement gap in the post-Civil Rights era. Educational researchers continue to be divided on the validity of the ‘acting white’ thesis. The joint IAAR-Duke AF & AFAM conference brings together educational researchers, policy analysts, and educators to revisit the question of ‘acting white’ more than two decades after the initial publication of Fordham and Ogbu’s research. Conference presenters will examine what new trends are emerging from more recent scholarship on the question. Additionally, the conference will take up the two questions that divide educational researchers and their perspectives on the ‘acting white’ hypothesis: Are individual attitudes and behaviors the main reason for the persistence of the educational achievement gap? Or are structural mechanisms the source of educational outcome disparities? What is the formula for effective schools and effective students?

While this event is free and open to the public, pre-registration is encouraged. For additional information, please contact Jennifer Ramirez, IAAR Program Coordinator, 919.962.6810 or jennifer@unc.edu.