Michigan State University Extension
Diversity and Pluralism - DP130053
12/95/
ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED333067 AUTHOR: Zweigenhaft, Richard L.; Domhoff, G. William
TITLE: Blacks in the White Establishment? A Study of Race
and Class in America.
YEAR PUBLISHED: 1991
NOTE: 207 p.
AVAILABILITY: Yale University Press, 92A Yale Station, New
Haven, Connecticut 06520 ($27.50).
ABSTRACT: This follow-up study of black graduates of A
Better Chance (ABC) concludes that race is a more important
factor than class in the personal and social identity of
blacks. ABC was an innovative program launched in 1963 by
16 independent secondary schools to recruit and prepare
minority group students for entry into exclusive boarding
schools, elite colleges and universities, and ultimately
positions of power and prestige in U.S. society. A
representative sample of 38 black graduates was interviewed
twenty years after graduation about their experiences in
the program and its effects on their interpersonal
relationships and careers. ABC negated the usual
social-psychological dialectic between the powerful and the
powerless by initiating black students into a new social
and psychological identity that overcame the effects of
stigmatization and any inclinations toward an oppositional
identity. Even though class has become more important to
ABC graduates and the fact that they are educated
professionals is central to their social identity, the
importance of race has not diminished. Though they were
more middle class than they had been in style and manner,
they were not less black. Although the ABC graduates have
acquired the education, style, and social connections of
the upper class, they are still excluded from the power
elite of the corporate United States. A description of the
interview sample and the interview questionnaire are
appended. (FMW)
KEY DESCRIPTORS: Black-Achievement; Boarding-Schools;
Educational-Innovation; Questionnaires-; Secondary
Education; Student-Attitudes
KEY DESCRIPTORS: *Black-Students; *Outcomes-of-Education;
*Racial-Identification; *Social-Mobility; *Social-Status
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