Oppositional culture
Oppositional culture, also known as the "blocked opportunities framework" or the "caste theory of education", is a term most commonly used in studying the sociology of education to explain racial disparities in educational achievement, particularly between white and black Americans. However, the term refers to any subculture's rejection of conformity to prevailing norms and values, not just nonconformity within the educational system. Thus many criminal gangs and religious cults could also be considered oppositional cultures. Background This theory relates to a larger generalized topic of race and intelligence. According to this theory, minority students underachieve intentionally in school and in standardized testing due to a fear of being stereotyped as acting white. Acting white refers to activities and attitudes associated with white middle-class Americans. Adherence to white norms in African American communities represents a betrayal of black normative culture. Spurred by the pre-existing theories including the culture of poverty and the effects of urban decay, oppositional culture emerged in the late 1970s as a theory to explain the education gap. The principal researcher of this idea, anthropologist John Ogbu, details the principal mechanisms and causes for oppositional culture in his books, Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb: A Study