The three Rs of academic achievement: Reading, 'riting, and racism

Using vocational choice and social dominance theories as theoretical frameworks, the authors examined the effects of ideology/ role congruency on differential institutional rewards. The authors reasoned that congruents (i.e., individuals high in antiegalitarianism in hierarchy-enhancing [HE] social roles and low in antiegalitarianism in hierarchy-attenuating [HA] roles) would receive higher institutional rewards than would incongruents (i.e., individuals high in antiegalitarianism in HA social roles and low in antiegalitarianism in HE roles). Furthermore, it was predicted that one's continued exposure to the university environment would increase the probability of being a congruent. The authors used a large sample of university students, with grade point average as the operationalization of institutional reward. Role was defined as the students' major, and antiegalitarianism was defined by a classical racism scale. As expected, (a) everything else being equal, congruents received higher grades than did incongruents, and (b) the probability of being a congruent increased with university experience.