and in case you’re wondering – I claim to have been misrepresented.

Nicholas, take another look at the Fryer and Torelli study — I don’t think the data supports your interpretation.

If ‘black culture’ placed a negative value on academic achievement then you’d expect the effect to be strongest in schools with fewer cross-ethnic friendships — schools where black students were less likely to form friendships with white and hispanic students. In these schools you’d expect that black students would be more firmly in the grip of ‘black culture.’ But this isn’t what Fryer and Torelli found.

In this paper Fryer reports that "Black and Hispanic students with a GPA above 3.5 actually have fewer cross-ethnic friendships than those with lower grades". Why would high achieving black students have fewer non-black and friends if ‘black culture’ was to blame? And why this finding:

Blacks in less-integrated schools (places with fewer than expected cross-ethnic friendships) encounter less of a trade-off between popularity and achievement. In fact, the effect of acting white on popularity appears to be twice as large in the more-integrated (racially mixed) schools as in the less-integrated ones. Among the highest achievers (3.5 GPA or higher), the differences are even more stark, with the effect of acting white almost five times as great in settings with more cross-ethnic friendships than expected. Black males in such schools fare the worst, penalized seven times as harshly as my estimate of the average effect of acting white on all black students!

And what about the finding for segregated schools. Fryer says that "acting white is unique to those schools where black students comprise less than 80 percent of the student population. In predominantly black schools, I find no evidence at all that getting good grades adversely affects students’ popularity." If this was about conformity with ethnic culture wouldn’t the effects be most intense in segregated environments?

Your interpretation of the findings suggests that policy makers should try to integrate black students into the mainstream culture — to try to persuade them to stop being so ‘black’. It seems to me that Fryer’s interpretation leads in the other direction. He argues that the underlying cause is that other black students fear that high achieving students will will no longer identify with the group’s interests and the black identity will erode.

If you accept Fryer’s interpretation the best solution is to take steps to strengthen group cohesion — to make sure that high achieving students retain their black identity. The answer is more black culture rather than less.

A quick read of the articles suggest that the thesis as originally articulated (by an anthropologist) rests on something called “cultural ecology theory” – some are sceptical of that. Others point out that there is empirical evidence that this differs according to income, and that Black girls are read out of the picture as research tends to focus on Black boys (the former do much better at school), and some query – again on the basis of their own empirical studies – whether or not it captures all Black peer groups.

Anyway, I’m not saying the phenomenon doesn’t occur. Just that we shouldn’t accept it uncritically and should be open to empirical evidence that modifies it, and look to possible flaws in the theoretical assumptions.

As to my own experience, I went to primary school in a middle class Brisbane suburb in the 70s which was as far as I recall 100% white and almost entirely Anglo/Scottish in ethnicity (all the kids with Irish surnames went to the Convent!). My mum moved when I started high school to what was then a more working class suburb, and the High School I attended had a couple of Indigenous students, and significant populations of Italian and Vietnamese kids. The Vietnamese kids weren’t at all integrated into the school culture, and people used to dislike the fact that they did well at maths. As to “toughs”, there wasn’t any ethnic difference as far as I could see. The whole school ethos was very blokey and the pinnacle of achievement was to be on the A Grade Rugby League team. So there was certainly that phenomenon happening. I managed to bridge the divide in Grade 11 by starting to go out to nightclubs with some of the footballers and demonstrating that I could outdrink them. This made up for my lack of sporting prowess and my surfeit of academic prowess. So I had a very good social life in Grades 11 and 12.

I have no experience of black culture at school, but I know about the ‘toughs’ at school. My own experience is that there is a significant element of bravado regarding low academic achievement.