Signithia Fordham

Biography

"Professor Fordham was a Visiting Fellow in African & African-American Studies at Yale University from 1988-1989 and the first Presidential Fellow in the Afro-American Studies Program at Princeton University from 1991-1992. Before coming to Rochester last fall, she taught at Rutgers, UMBC and UCONN. Before coming to Rochester last fall, she taught at Rutgers, UMBC and UCONN. A North Americanist, Professor Fordham conducted field research from 1981-1984 in a public high school in Washington, DC. Support for her research was provided by grants from the Spencer Foundation, NSF, and the OERI (formerly the NIE). Her ethnography Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity and Success at Capital High was published by the University of Chicago Press (1996). Her other primary publications include: ""Black Students School Success: Coping with the Burden of Acting White"" (with John Ogbu [1986]); ""Why Can't Sonya (and Kwame) Fail Math"" (2000). ""Speaking Standard English from Nine to Three: Language Usage as Guerrilla Warfare at Capital High"" (1998), ""Those Loud Black Girls: (Black) Women, Silence, and Gender ""Passing"" in the Academy"" (1993)."

Research Interest

Anthropology