Background

John Ogbu was born on May 9, 1939, in Onicha, Ebonyi State, Nigeria.

Education

John Ogbu attended Hope Waddell Training Institute and Methodist Teachers' Training College. Then, in 1961 he came to the United States to study at the Princeton Theological Seminary before switching to anthropology and attending the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1965, a Master of Arts in 1969, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1971. Ogbu also studied at the Africa Writing Center in Zambia.

Career

As a young student at the Methodist Teachers College in his homeland, John Ogbu taught Latin, geography, and math there for two years. In 1961 Ogbu came to the United States. After education, he worked as an ethnographer for a year in Stockton, and then he joined the faculty at Berkeley in 1970, becoming a full professor of anthropology in 1980. Ogbu taught there until 2003.

Additionally, John Ogbu was a writer. He was the author of several books about education, including The Next Generation: An Ethnography of Education in an Urban Neighborhood, Minority Education and Caste: The American System in Cross-cultural Perspective, and Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Engagement, the last of which gained him considerable attention in the media.

Achievements

• John Ogbu was well known as a writer, anthropologist, and educator. He taught at the University of California for more than thirty years. He was also known for his theories involving race, intelligence, and how race and ethnic variations influenced educational and economic accomplishment. Additionally, Ogbu was a holder of the Margaret Mead Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology in 1979 and the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association in 1998. Besides, he was elected Chancellor's Professor at the University of California and became a Fellow of the International Academy of Education in 1997.

Works

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• book

  • Black American Students in An Affluent Suburb

    (John Ogbu has studied minority education from a comparati...)

    2003
  • The Next Generation 1974
  • Minority Education and Caste 1978
  • Cultural Models and Educational Strategies of Non-dominant Peoples 1991
  • Minority Status and Schooling 1991

Views

For more than three decades, John Ogbu argued that the educational achievement gap couldn't be explained solely by income differences or racial discrimination. It was also rooted in deeply entrenched cultural attitudes. A fundamental key to understanding how well students do, Ogbu argued, that it depended on whether they were "voluntary minorities," immigrants who chose to come to the United States, or "involuntary" or "caste-like" minorities - blacks and Latinos born in the United States. He believed that "involuntary minorities" often adopted an "oppositional identity" to the mainstream culture. Many rejected behaviors they identified as "acting white," which included doing well in school and speaking standard English. These attitudinal differences had a direct impact on students' behavior in school, Ogbu theorized. For example, black and Latino students often viewed tests like the Scholastic Assessment Test as obstacles established by the power structure to keep them down. Immigrants viewed the same tasks as just barriers that they needed to overcome to get ahead. Consequently, Ogbu was also an advocate of using Ebonics to help teach African Americans.

Connections

John Ogbu was married to Marcellina Ada Ogbu. The two had five children, Elizabeth, Nnanna, Grace, Cecilia, and Christina Ogbu.

Wife:

Marcellina Ada Ogbu

Daughter:

Elizabeth Ogbu

Son:

Nnanna Ogbu

Daughter:

Grace Ogbu

Daughter:

Cecilia Ogbu

Daughter:

Christina Ogbu