African Americans and Latinos earn lower grades and drop out of college
more often than whites or Asians. Yet thirty years after deliberate
minority recruitment efforts began, we still don't know why. In The
Shape of the River, William Bowen and Derek Bok documented the benefits
of affirmative action for minority students, their communities, and the
nation at large. But they also found that too many failed to achieve
academic success. In The Source of the River, Douglas Massey and his
colleagues investigate the roots of minority underperformance in
selective colleges and universities. They explain how such factors as
neighborhood, family, peer group, and early schooling influence the
academic performance of students from differing racial and ethnic
origins and differing social classes.
Drawing on a major new source of data--the National Longitudinal Survey
of Freshmen--the authors undertake a comprehensive analysis of the
diverse pathways by which whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians
enter American higher education. Theirs is the first study to document
the different characteristics that students bring to campus and to trace
out the influence of these differences on later academic performance.
They show that black and Latino students do not enter college
disadvantaged by a lack of self-esteem. In fact, overconfidence is more
common than low self-confidence among some minority students. Despite
this, minority students are adversely affected by racist stereotypes of
intellectual inferiority. Although academic preparation is the strongest
predictor of college performance, shortfalls in academic preparation are
themselves largely a matter of socioeconomic disadvantage and racial
segregation.
Presenting important new findings, The Source of the River documents
the ongoing power of race to shape the life chances of America's young
people, even among the most talented and able.