| In researching the exceptional academic performance of 31 female and 19 male low socioeconomic college students of color, three distinctly female approaches to exceptional achievement arose from the data. These included the inordinate degree of familial resistance faced by the females and their approaches to that resistance, the value and importance of post-college goals and ambition, and the presence of effective crossgender mentoring relationships. The impact of racial, ethnic, class and gender-based identities in relation to academic performance is also explored. |