“Africans Do Not Fail”: Examining the Model Minority Stereotype and Anti-Blackness at a New York City Public School

Abstract

Background/Context:

In recent years, there has been an increase in the use of the model minority label to reference the educational achievement of African immigrant students. Yet, despite the growing image of African immigrants as model minorities, there is little empirical research on K–12 African immigrant students’ academic achievement and the prevailing notion of this group as model minorities. Focusing on West African students and their teachers and counselors, this study examines the perceptions and realities of these students’ academic abilities, academic achievements, and the model minority stereotype at Wilson High School (pseudonym), a predominantly Black New York City public school.

Research Question:

The study explores the following questions: (1) How are West African immigrant students perceived and treated at Wilson High School by the adults whom they interact with the most, specifically teachers and counselors? (2) In what ways, if at all, do these perceptions and treatments align with the model minority stereotype and West African students academic achievement?

Research Design:

Wilson is a high school with about 500 students located in the Bronx, a NYC borough known to be the site of settlement for Western Africans, the largest group of Africans in the United States. For this critical ethnographic study, I spent 10 months at Wilson engaging in data collection, including in-school observations and in-depth one-on-one semi-structured interviews with ten West African students, nine of their teachers, and a school guidance counselor. Data analysis involved an inductive approach to analyzing emerging themes with a specific focus on Carspecken’s reconstructive horizon analysis.

Conclusions/Recommendations:

The first theme in this study reveals that the model minority stereotype best characterized adults’ perceptions of West African immigrant students (WAISs) at Wilson even though WAISs’ grade point averages contradicted these perceptions. Second, in this mostly Black school, teachers and counselors believed that African culture promoted high educational aspirations, whereas American culture, particularly African American culture, encouraged oppositional attitudes toward educational success. Third, perceptions of African youth as model students afforded them symbolic capital and beneficial treatment at Wilson. The themes found in this study highlight the complex ways in which the model minority stereotype influences adults’ perceptions and treatment of African students, which shapes African students’ school experiences. This article recommends that further exploration of the racialization of African immigrant students include an emphasis on their growing positioning as model minorities.