Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Peer Pressure
Peer pressure was seen by teachers and parents as a factor in creating individual
differences in academic achievement, particularly the differences among racial and
ethnic groups. Compared to schools in affluent communities, there were more re-
ports of negative peer pressure and labeling of students who performed well aca-
demically in inner-city schools. Parents, teachers, and students reported that nega-
tive peer pressure was applied to such students. For example, an African-American
boy in the honors math course at King reported being ostracized by his African-
American friends for ‘acting white.’
Several parents and educators talked about similar negative peer pressure against
high-achieving African-American students. One high school math teacher at Hamil-
ton High School made the following observation:
There is a pretty strong pressure by all accounts for minority kids in high-abil-
ity classes. There are kids that are telling them that they are acting white. That
goes on a lot.
An African-American mother also recognized the existence of such peer pressure,
since her son was the only African-American male in the accelerated math class
at King. Her son also confirmed that fellow African-American students chided him
by calling him a ‘‘smart white boy.’’ ‘‘It’s really bad,’’ he said, ‘‘when I don’t let
my basketball friends copy off of my homework.’’ The situation with his friends
bothered him a lot, the student confessed, but he added, he still wanted to do
well in school and make something of himself.
At East Middle School in East City, a teacher explained how she believed that one
African-American student in her class was deliberately underachieving so that he
would not alienate his peers:
I have a student who could have gone into my second-period class very easily
and done the work. But because he is in an afternoon class and he is with
some other black students, he tends to do less, much less than he is capable

---

92
of doing. He doesn’t want to do better than the other black students in that
class.
Peer pressure at Uptown High School. 
Peer pressure against academic perform-
ance was a frequent topic of discussion during our interviews at Uptown High
School. The school is located in one of the poorest areas in Metro City and is
an ethnically diverse urban school, a port of entry for many recent immigrants
to the Metro City area. Uptown prided itself on having students from over 40
countries, but the majority were African-Americans, Hispanics, and Vietnamese.
Academic achievement followed racial and ethnic lines. The children of recent im-
migrants from Vietnam, Russia, and India performed better in classes at Uptown
High than those from other racial and ethnic groups. Vietnamese students, in par-
ticular, performed well. In fact, Vietnamese students comprised most of the stu-
dents taking advanced-placement chemistry and calculus classes and the honor roll
at Uptown High contained mostly Vietnamese surnames.
Although Vietnamese students struggled in other subjects that were more focused
on English language skills, according to the college counselor at Uptown High,
the typically scored above the 95th percentile in math and science. But they
scored below the 25th in English on the college entrance examinations. Inciden-
tally, the counselor added that these low English scores were not an obstacle to
Vietnamese students being accepted at major national universities.
In interviews with students and teachers, we were told that Vietnamese students
at Uptown, along with students from India, were referred to by other students
as ‘‘geeks’’, a term similar to ‘‘bookworm’’ but with a more derogatory connota-
tion.
A computer-science teacher at Uptown High explained this pattern:
Here at Uptown, it is the Asian and Indian kids who get labeled as ‘geeks’.
I guess it is because they are more willing to let it happen. The kid who is
born in the United States has figured out by the time he gets to high school
how to avoid that label, to look disinterested, to look like ‘‘I don’t care even
if I really do.’’ One of the things they say that is too bad that happens to our
immigrant kids is that they do get Americanized, so they figure out that if you
want to avoid getting that label, don’t raise your hand, or if the teacher says
something good about you, try to figure out a way to make her take it back.
According to one student, any sign of positive commitment to school can bring
on the ‘‘geek’’ label at Uptown. A Filipina girl in her senior year at Uptown High
indicated that any student taking calculus in the 12th grade is labeled as a ‘‘nerd’’

---

93
and even average students who show an interest in school are given the undesir-
able label by some students.
Although she was not in the calculus class and in fact was taking vocational math,
this Asian American student said that she was also labeled a ‘‘nerd’’ because she
‘‘does her work.’’ Her resistance to the peer pressure was clear. She said, ‘‘I take
being called a nerd as a compliment.’’ These observations suggest that even aver-
age students at Uptown who exhibit positive commitment to school are negatively
labeled by peers.
Peer pressure in the suburbs. 
While the labeling of students as ‘‘nerds’’ and
‘‘geeks’’ was a common theme at Uptown High School, an inner-city high school,
references to these phenomena were less frequent at the suburban high schools
we visited. The high-achieving students we interviewed at Hamilton High School
reported being ignored by lower-achieving students. The same was true at other
suburban schools, such as Springdale High School.
However, at Vanderbilt Middle School, located in the affluent community of Roll-
ing Hills, a high-achieving student reported his group of academically-oriented
friends felt negative peer pressure. ‘‘They pick on us, call us nerds and stuff, but
we don’t care, we really don’t care,’’ he said. ‘‘They used to tell this joke about
me,’’ he continued. ‘‘What’s the difference between Rob and a dictionary? Rob
walks, that’s the difference.’’
On the other hand, students who were performing at average levels at Vanderbilt
Middle School reported pressure from their peers to do well academically. This
was not reported at any of the other schools in the sample. A female student with
an average academic record at Vanderbilt explained how her friends were think-
ing about high school classes: ‘‘Most of my friends want to be in the top level
or the second from top, because it will be good for them to be challenged.’’
While academic work was valued in affluent communities, such as Rolling Hills,
athletic ability might have been more highly prized at this school and others, as
one mother living in Lakeside suggested:
The greatest value, even in this community, is placed on sports. You see tre-
mendous competition and there are children in this town, fourth-graders, who
are on the ice practicing hockey at six in the morning. Even at this young age,
that’s how the kids are separated—by sports achievement.
This mother added that the push for athletics does not come from the schools
but from the parents. In fact, many of the sports programs in Lakeside are commu-

---

94
nity-based programs, including hockey, baseball, and softball. Consequently, peer
pressure among students against academic performance and for athletic perform-
ance probably has its origins in the values of the community’s adults.
In sum, peer pressure among students discouraging high academic performance
was a frequent topic of discussion in the schools we visited. Frequently, academi-
cally serious students were called ‘‘geeks’’ or ‘‘nerds.’’ Students in affluent com-
munities also reported peer pressure to do well academically. It may be that the
greater opportunities for college available to these high-achieving students posi-
tively influence students’ attitudes toward school in affluent communities. There
is also evidence that athletics, and not school, are the most highly valued activity
among many adults and students in all communities.