Abstract
The concept of marginality dates back to the works of Robert E. Parks and Everett V. Stonequist. Stonequist suggests that a marginal “man” is an individual who toils between two distinct cultures, often experiencing discontent, alienation, and maladjustment.1 Parks asserts that:
One of the consequences of migration is to create a situation in which the same individual—who may or may not be a mixed blood—finds himself striving to live in two diverse cultural groups. The effect is to produce an unstable character—a personality type with characteristic forms of behavior. This is the “marginal man.” It is in the mind of the marginal man that the conflicting cultures meet and fuse. It is, therefore, in the mind of the marginal man that the process of civilization is visibly going on, and it is in the mind of the marginal man that the process of civilization may best be studied.2
One ever feels his twoness….
—W. E. B. Du Bois, The Soul of Black Folks
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Notes
Everett V. Stonequist, The Marginal Man: A Study in Personality and Culture Conflict (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937).
Robert E. Parks, “Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” American Journal of Sociology 33, no. 6 (1928): 881.
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, 3rd ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 45.
The concept of marginality has been addressed and expanded upon by a variety of scholars including the works of Robert E. Parks and Everett V. Stonequist. For example see, David Riesman, “Some Observations Concerning Marginality,” Phylon 12, no. 2 (1951), 113–127
Peter A. Johnson, “The Marginal Man Revisited,” Pacific Sociological Review 3, no. 2 (1960): 71–74
Dorothy Nelkin, “A Response to Marginality: The Case of Migrant Farm Workers” British Journal of Sociology 20, no. 4 (1969): 375–389
Jung Y. Lee, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995); Billie Davis, “Marginality in a Pluralistic Society” http://www.psichi.org/pubs/articles/article_145.asp (accessed October 8, 2008); Ghana S. Gurung and Michael Kollmair, “Marginality: Concepts and Their Limitations,” http://www.nccr-pakistan.org/publications_pdf/General/Marginality_OnlinePDF.pdf (accessed October 7, 2008).
Aaron V. Cicourel, “In Living in Two Cultures,” United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (Great Britain: Unesco, 1982), 17–66.
See the following references for additional information on oscillating migrant laborers: Sharon Stichter, Migrant Laborers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
Sharon Stichter, Migrant Labour in Kenya: Capitalism and African Response 1895–1975 (Great Britain: Longman Group, 1982)
Francis Wilson, Migration Labour in South Africa (Johannesburg: The South African Council of Churches, 1972).
For a review of literature that examines the psychological impact of biculturalism, see Teresa LaFromboise, Hardin L. K. Coleman, and Jennifer Gerton, “Psychological Impact of Biculturalism: Evidence and Theory,” Psychological Bulletin 114, no. 3 (1993): 395–412.
For additional information on types of capital see Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital” in Handbook for Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. J. G. Richardson, 241–258 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986).
Ibid., 242.
Ibid., 258. Bourdieu also expands on symbolic capital in: Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Routledge, 1984).
Kimberly Torres, “’Culture Shock’: Black Students Account for Their Distinctiveness at an Elite College,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31, no. 1 (2008): 1–23.
Some additional scholars not mentioned in chapter 2 include the following: Mark A. Chesler, Amanda E. Lewis, and James E. Crowfoot, Challenging Racism in Higher Education: Promoting Justice (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005)
William E. Sedlacek, “Black Students on White Campuses: Twenty Years of Research,” Journal of College Student Development 40, no. 5 (1999): 538–550
Michael J. Cuyjet, “African American Men on College Campuses: Their Needs and Their Perceptions,” New Directions for Student Services 80 (1997): 5–16
Anthony R. D’Augelli and Scott L. Hershberger, “African American Undergraduates on a Predominantly White Campus: Academic Factors, Social Networks, and Campus Climate,” Journal of Negro Education, 62, no. 1 (1993): 67–81
Walter R. Allen, Edgar G. Epps, and Nesha Z. Haniff (eds.), College in Black and White: African American Students in Predominantly White and in Historically Black Public Universities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
For research that provides insight into areas ranging from achievement prediction, degree attainment, academic performance, and social support networks for Black students, see the following: Chalmer E. Thompson and Bruce R. Fretz, “Predicting the Adjustment of Black Students at Predominantly White Institutions,” Journal of Higher Education 62, no.4 (1991): 437–450
Walter R. Allen, “The Education of Black Students on White College Campuses: What Quality Are the Experiences?” in M. Nettles (ed.), Towards Black Undergraduate Student Equality in American Higher Education, 57–86 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988).
Aaron V. Cicourel, “In Living in Two Cultures,” United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (Great Britain: Unesco, 1982), 17–66
Robert Miles, Racism and Migrant Labour (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1992)
Mamphela Ramphele, A Bed Called Home: Life in the Migrant Labour Hostels of Cape Town (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993)
Patrick Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant laborers in Mozambique and South Africa, c. 1860–1910 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994).
One of the most comprehensive studies funded by the NCAA provided insightful data regarding the experiences of Black athletes at PWIs. See the following resource: American Institute for Research, “Report #3: The Experiences of Black Intercollegiate Athletes at NCAA Division I Institutions,” Studies of Intercollegiate Athletics (Palo Alto, CA: Center for the Study of Athletics, 1989).
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Random House, 1947), 7.
I define acculturation as adapting to a new cultural setting but maintaining your original cultural traditions, etc.—becoming bicultural; while assimilation is adopting a new culture and losing your previous cultural identity.
Harry Edwards, Sociology of Sport (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1973).
Mike Fish, “Where is the Justice?” The Atlanta Journal-Constisution (1997, March 2): E8–E9.
Allen Sack, Sport Sociology: Contemporary Themes (Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt, 1979)
James Michener, Sports in America (New York: Random House, 1976).
D. Stanley Eitzen and George H. Sage, Sociology of North American Sport, 3rd edition (Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 1986), 122.
Wilbert M. Leonard, “The Sport Experience of the Black College Athlete: Exploitation in the Academy,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 21 no. 1 (1986): 44.
Sack, Sport Sociology; Michener, Sports in America.
Robert M. Sellers, Gabriel P. Kuperminc, and Andrea S. Waddell, “Life Experiences of Black Student-Athletes in Revenue Producing Sports: A Descriptive Empirical Analysis,” Academic Athletic Journal (1991): 21–38; Ralph Wiley, “A Daunting Proposition,” Sports Illustrated (1991, August 12): 27–25; Richard Lapchick, Five Minutes to Midnight: Race and Sport in the 1990s (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1991)
Othello Harris, “African-American Predominance in Collegiate Sport,” in Racism in Collegiate Athletics, ed. R. C. Althouse and D. D. Brooks, 51–74 (Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology, 1993).
Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity.
Harry Edwards, “A Dual Challenge for College Sports: Demographic and Cultural Pluralism Must be Concurrent,” NCAA News (1993, March 10): 4.
R. A. Schermerhorn, “Power as a Primary Concept in the Study of Minorities,” Social Forces 35 (1956): 53–56.
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© 2010 Billy Hawkins
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Hawkins, B. (2010). Chapter Six The Sociocultural Environment of Predominantly White NCAA Institutions: The Black Athlete as Oscillating Migrant Laborers. In: The New Plantation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230105539_7
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