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Abstract
Some members of ethnic minority groups respond to identity threat in ways that are detrimental to their school career, while others persist despite an unwelcoming school environment. It was hypothesized that ethnic and national identities, as combined in "separated," "assimilated," or "dual identity" strategies, moderate consequences of identity threat for minority school performance and that the adaptive value of different identity strategies depends on the intergroup context. Random samples of Turkish Belgian young adults (N = 576) were interviewed about their school performance (i.e., high, middle, or low success) and past experiences of discrimination in school as an indicator of identity threat. Results revealed that Turkish Belgians with "separated" or "assimilated" identity strategies were less likely than "dual" identifiers to disengage from school when perceived threat was high. Conversely, dual identifiers were most successful when perceived threat was low. Implications of the up- and downsides of dual identity for minority school performance are discussed.
Keywords
discrimination, identity threat, dual identity, school performance, acculturation
International studies of minority school performance have documented a persistent educational disadvantage of the children of immigrant workers in European societies (Heath and Brinbaum 2007; Marks 2005). As members of disadvantaged minority groups that are typically devalued in the eyes of the majority population, they have to cope with pervasive negative stereotyping and discrimination (Hagendoorn 1995; Zegers de Beijl 2000). Although there is little hard evidence unking discriminatory treatment in school to minority school failure (Heath, Rothon, and Kilpi 2008), minority experiences of ethnic discrimination have been related to more frequent school disengagement and/or to lower grades (Eccles, Wong, and Peck 2006; Wong, Eccles, and Sameroff 2003). Moreover, "stereotype threat" experiments have demonstrated that situationally induced negative stereotypes of low academic ability have debilitating effects on the academic performance of stereotyped group members, such as African American students (Steele, Spencer, and Aronson 2002). On the whole, experiences of unfairness, exclusion, or negative stereotyping may induce identity threat in members of devalued minority groups, which would in turn affect minority performance (PurdieVaughns et al. 2008). Identity threat is thus seen to arise whenever situational cues convey the (implicit) message that one's group identity is devalued in a particular setting (Branscombe et al. 1999a).
When an intergroup setting is seen to pose...