A survey of more than 90,000 black, white and Hispanic high school and junior high school students from 175 schools in 80 American communities found that those black students whose grade-point average reached 3.5 or higher had fewer friends of their own race than blacks with lower grade-point averages. Such negative reactions by fellow black students to those among them who were higher achievers in school have been characterized as a rejection of those who were stigmatized as “acting white”— that is, behaving in ways that were equated with disloyalty to their race.
An empirical study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that having a higher percentage of black schoolmates had a strong negative effect on the educational achievements of black students— especially high-ability black students. Another study, of ability-grouping in general, found that educating students among others of similar ability levels improved the academic performance of high-ability students— and especially high-ability minority students.
Such patterns have by not means been confined to blacks or even to the United States Among Hispanic American students, those with a grade-point average of 4.0 averaged 3 fewer friends of their own ethnicity than did white students with a 4.0 grade-point average. Similar negative reactions to educational achievements among their peers have been found among Maoris in New Zealand, Burakumin in Japan and the white underclass in Britain.
Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, pg.167
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