'In a sea of White people': An analysis of the experiences and behaviors of high-achieving Black students in a predominantly white high school

This study is an in-depth qualitative investigation of the achievement ideology and adaptive behaviors that nine high achieving Black students develop and employ to navigate the process of schooling at an upper class, predominantly White, suburban public high school to maintain school success and a positive racial self-definition. This study seeks to address gaps in existing literature by examining (1) how successful Black students' perceive differences, if any, in values, expectations, and behavioral norms between classroom, social, and extracurricular domains in the school context, (2) how these students describe and understand their behaviors within and across these domains, (3) how students' perceptions of the three domains inform their behavioral choices, and (4) whether they see these domains as fundamentally different, if at all, along racial and/or social class lines.; Findings from this study indicate these nine students' perceptions of race and racialization by White peers and teachers inform the behaviors they employ to exist in and successfully navigate the school context. These students develop behavioral strategies for navigating the process of schooling and resisting racism as a structural barrier to success. The development of these adaptive resistant behavioral strategies is informed by an ideology that these students embody, connected to the interrelatedness of racial and achievement self-conceptions. I argue that these students possess a critical consciousness about the role race plays in their lives and school experiences, particularly as a potential barrier to their success, and they develop a critical race achievement ideology---fostered by parents, teachers, community members, and school interactions---that facilitates positive attitudes and beliefs about schooling and their ability to overcome racism as a barrier to their success. These students do not view schooling or achievement as White property and do not reject their racial identity in order to be successful in school; instead, they see school achievement as a human trait that is attainable in the context of being Black. These students situationally racialize and de-racialize achievement and the task of achieving as a way to academically motivate themselves and also preserve their self-definitions as Black high achievers. They believe that they can be Black (however they construct Blackness) and be successful.