Marginality in Education

Marginality refers broadly to the placement of individuals outside of the mainstream or dominant avenues of education, politics, economics, and opportunities. The theory of marginality was developed by Robert Park in 1928 to describe the inability of immigrants to become fully part of their new country while simultaneously feeling more and more disconnected from their former country as they adopted aspects of their host country, such as language and values. Park coined the term marginal man and applied it to those immigrants who found themselves on the “margins” between two societies. Later, the theory of marginality was applied more widely to include interracial persons who were depicted as being caught between two or more racial, ethnic, or cultural groups.

Students from underrepresented groups may be marginalized by being treated as outsiders and/or deficient. Such students may be viewed as difficult, hard to understand, or beyond help. As a result, prejudice and discriminatory policies and practices have compounded the inability of marginalized students to fairly and fully access the knowledge, skills, and opportunities needed to develop careers and to adequately participate in the democratic process. For example, marginalized under-represented and non-English-speaking children are routinely misidentified as emotionally, cognitively, or learning disabled and are therefore overrepresented in special education programs not designed to prepare them for college admission.

Equal educational opportunity for underrepresented students remains elusive, as is evidenced by large achievement gaps. Many students are also from low-income families so the marginality they face is compounded. Several scholars have shown the powerful impact marginalization has on educational achievement. Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu found that some academically successful Black students felt the “burden of acting White.” That is, some high-performing Black students borrowed certain behaviors from White mainstream culture as a way to help them succeed academically, while still struggling to maintain Black identities. Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson argue that social marginalization and stigma still play a powerful role in education. They found that, unlike White students, when Black students are reminded of the stereotype that they are less intelligent, they perform more poorly on standardized tests than they otherwise would have.

Race, culture, and assimilation are key sub-concepts of marginality. For Park and other early marginality theorists, assimilation into White mainstream culture, when complete, would mark the end of marginalized groups and individuals in society. From this perspective, marginality is a temporary stage. More recent arguments critiquing the validity and desirability of complete cultural assimilation and the promotion of the melting pot concept question whether marginality will ever disappear from modern American society.