244 Crosnoe Goodman and Whitaker 2002). As another example, stigmatized traits can also trigger positive responses, as illustrated by the tendency for a minority of obese youths to become academic stars as a balance to their physical stigma (Crosnoe and Muller 2004; Yeung and Martin 2003). Finally, different demographic groups maintain different standards of physical appearance. Ample evidence suggests that these standards are more forgiving among racial minorities, especially African <strong>American</strong>s, than among whites, a difference that is largely a function of systematic racial differences in socioeconomic status (Crandall 1994; Halpern et al. 2005; Latner et al. 2005). Thus, effectively connecting obesity to psychosocial responses to college enrollment requires the careful consideration of confounding factors, feedback loops, adaptive responses, and racial/class variation. The Importance of Context Having addressed the “why?” question, the next goal is to ask: In what settings is this link between obesity and college enrollment most likely to occur? According to the classic theories underlying this study, local contexts can reinforce or counter negative social messages about some trait that is stigmatized in the general context of <strong>American</strong> society (Goffman 1963). In other words, obesity may pose a social risk for most, but not all, <strong>American</strong>s, and who is or is not at risk is far from random (Cahnman 1968; Crandall 1994; Dejong 1980). This tension between local and general contexts is especially important in regard to young people. Although a mass youth culture exists in the United States (see Greenberg, Brown, and Buerkel-Rothfuss 1993), the valence and intensity of cultural messages vary considerably across specific pockets of this mass culture. As a bounded, identifiable setting of adolescent life, the school is an appropriate unit for considering local contexts of youth culture. Indeed, schools develop complex systems of norms and values, including those related to appearance (Eder, Evans, and Parker 1995). If two schools differ in their cultural assessments of weight, then the consequences of obesity will likely differ just as sharply between these two schools. Following my earlier work with Chandra Muller (see Crosnoe and Muller 2004), the representation of obesity in any given school—what students in that school tend to look like—is a proxy for the stigma of obesity in that school. If obesity makes a student decidedly stand out, then the intensified stigma of obesity in that school will compound the general psychosocial and subsequent educational risks of obesity. If obesity allows a student to fit in, then these general risks will not be as pronounced. Pathways between obesity and college enrollment and their variation across schools are depicted in Figure 1. Obesity triggers internalizing and externalizing responses in adolescence (A1) that, in turn, disrupt the transition to college after high school (A2), net of a host of confounding demographic, personal, and social factors, including race and socioeconomic status. This general phenomenon is likely to be conditioned by differences in the local cultures of schools, with obesity less likely to trigger the problematic responses that are so consequential for college enrollment in schools in which obesity is more common and accepted (B). 1 The Role of Gender Having sketched out a conceptual model hypothesizing answers to the “why?” and “in what context?” questions, the next step is to ask: For whom is this model most likely to hold? Because the main factors in the model are all highly gendered, comparing adolescent girls and adolescent boys is an important tool for answering this “for whom?” question. First, the internalization and externalization of the stigma of obesity (Path A1 in Figure 1) will be more pronounced for girls than for boys. Ample evidence indicates that norms about weight—what is considered “good” or “bad” weight—are stricter and more publicly enforced for girls (Martin 1996; Wardle, Waller, and Jarvis 2002). It is not surprising that obesity appears to have much stronger, more negative, effects on girls, making them more likely to be emotionally distressed, socially isolated, and concerned about their appearance (Ge et al. 2001;
Gender, Obesity, and Education 245 Figure 1. A Social Psychological Model of the Educational Risks of Adolescent Obesity
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