Adolescent Boys in High School

A Psychological Study of Coping and Adaptation

James G. Kelly

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351865371
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Sozialpsychologie

Originally published in 1979, the research reported in this volume is based on investigations of how tenth-grade boys cope and adapt to the high-school environment in, specifically, two high schools in suburban Detroit in 1970. In addition to information about the ways that students relate to the high school environment, this volume presents examples of how multiple research methods can be used to investigate the expression of complex person and environment relationships.

This volume has been prepared to illustrate the application of an ecological point of view for research on person-environment relationships. It was hoped that the community psychologist, social psychologist, and school psychologist interested in doing research with adolescents and the high school environment would find the presentation of research methods informative and encouraging. For those readers involved in teaching and administering in secondary education, the volume was an example of how research can illustrate the ongoing personal and social characteristics of students and the high school environment.

I    SETTING THE SCENE

1 The High School: Students and Social Contexts—An Ecological Perspective

James G. Kelly¹

Institute for Social Research
The University of Michigan

Ecology is an ambiguous and spongy word in the behavioral sciences, with multiple and even conflicting meanings. The word can refer to such varied phenomena as citizens working to promote the quality of community life, research on the structure of social settings, community mental health workers studying the prevalence and incidence of various mental disorders, or doing naturalistic research. Ecology may also simply refer to a personal value for studying how social contexts affect our lives.

The work reported in this book is concerned with analysis of the personal preferences and attitudes of adolescent boys and how adolescent boys adapt to the high school setting. There are three unique features of this work that distinguish it from other research. One is that the psychological qualities of two high school environments have been assessed in order to evaluate the effects of the social structure upon individual students. Second, the characteristics of the high school environment and the characteristics of students over three years of the high school period are compared. Third, the research employs a variety of methods to achieve these goals. In planning and carrying out this work, constructs from biological ecology have served as metaphors and analogies for viewing how individuals relate to social environments and, more specifically, how individuals and the environment are interdependent social units (Kelly, 1966, 1968, 1975, 1977; Mills & Kelly, 1972; Trickett, Kelly, & Todd, 1972).

The use of ecological in this volume refers to a conception of the high school as a social institution, which includes places and events, and as a culture that both constrains and helps the socialization of students. In the same way, students are viewed in relationships to the school of which they are a part each day. Both the school environment and the students, then, are interrelated in a process of mutual social development.

Making conceptual leaps from biological to social systems is risky, incomplete, and even implausible. It is the opinion of the authors, however, that a systematic view of how individuals are affected by their social contexts can be enriched by analogies from biological ecology. This volume describes research that illustrates how a particular social environment, the high school, can be viewed as an interdependent social system.

Two criteria have been employed to select both person and contextual variables:

1. Individual difference variables were selected to illustrate a specific social context.

2. Social context variables were selected to illustrate how the context affects different persons.

These two criteria, how persons and social variables are interdependent, have guided this research.

The criteria for the selection of dependent variables in psychological research generally derive from a particular theory rather than from the immediate social context, and the specific variables that are studied are often located inside the body. Only recently have psychological premises included behaviors that are expressed in natural settings uncontrolled by the investigator (Willems & Raush, 1969). The psychological point of view assumes the validity of the theoretical idea and then attempts to verify the theory by assembling empirical facts. Validity is defined in terms of external criteria that are not derived from a social context. Sociological inquiry is equally incomplete, assuming that social organization affects most persons in the same way, i.e., that the consequence of participation in a social setting is the same for everyone.

In contrast to traditional psychological and sociological theories, an ecological perspective affirms that it is important to determine the impact of social settings on individuals and, reciprocally, how persons respond to varied environments. For the work described in this volume, the principle of interdependence is superordinate to the premises of psychological or sociological causation. To specify the conditions in which persons and social settings are mutually related, varied research methods have been employed. Varied methods expand the range of observations that are possible for evaluating relationships between persons and settings.

The high school environment was studied, because the authors believed that an educational setting – particularly one serving adolescents – was particularly appropriate for investigating personal and social adaptation. We assumed that during the high school period students and faculty express a wide variety of responses to school that reveal the diverse ways in which social settings and persons are related. Another important focus for the study was an attempt to specify the varieties of social development during adolescence. Empirical data are available through repeated interviews with students and faculty regarding their views of the school environment, their perceptions of themselves, of each other, and of their school-oriented social interactions. Thus, much-talked-about but little-known “varieties” of adolescent experience are one major focus for the study.

In accordance with our research goals, we selected a group of boys in junior high school and followed them through their high school careers. They were selected on the basis of the first criterion – according to their preferences for exploring (engaging) the school environment. In the spring of 1969, 1,144 eighth-grade boys in junior high schools being served by the study schools were administered a self-report measure of exploration preferences. In the spring of 1970, they were selected according to their high, moderate, or low preferences.

The specific aim of the study was to examine how boys with different needs to explore the school environment adapted to two contrasting schools. We have also assessed the two schools and evaluated how the social interactions and personal satisfactions of students and faculty changed over time. Observed differences in the ways the cultures of the schools developed and the ways boys with different levels of social exploration responded to their school environment provide evidence of how socialization processes functioned in the two high schools.

Longitudinal study is applicable not only to the study of persons but also to the study of social settings. Among other changes, schools may alter their ways of teaching, planning, and controlling students; and such changes affect the kinds of students and faculty who thrive or succumb in any given period of time. How a social environment changes and how persons adapt to the changes are essential topics for a view of the person and the environment. The chapters in this volume report research with multiple methods and a longitudinal perspective. The authors have endeavored not only to describe the adolescent and the high school environment but also to provide a general conceptual framework for conducting person–environment research.

BACKGROUND

This research was stimulated by a deep interest to create knowledge that could be useful for the design of social and community interventions. It is my belief that the design of social and community interventions will be aided by understanding how persons adapt to varied environments.

Initial research on students’ adaptation to a school environment began in the spring of 1965. Preliminary studies carried out in two high schools in Columbus, Ohio, led to the development of several measures of coping preferences in adolescents and to an appreciation of the complexity of varied types of social settings (Kelly, 1966, 1968, 1969). In the fall of 1966, a more formal study was charted with the collaboration of several high schools in the Detroit metropolitan area. After a year of background work and planning, the administrative staff and principals of Wayne Memorial High School in Wayne, Michigan, and Lee M. Thurston High School in South Redford, Michigan, agreed to participate in the Opinions of Youth Study, a longitudinal study of coping preferences of adolescent boys.

In the spring of 1968, with the award of a research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH–15606), the work with high school students and their social context began. In the fall of 1968, a sample of eighth-grade junior high school boys was selected on the basis of the boys’ preferences for exploring the social environment of the high school. Plans were made to follow these boys throughout their high school careers. Studies of the boys while they were finishing the eighth grade are described by Kelly et al. (1971). The work presented in this volume describes in detail the data that were obtained during the 1970–71 school year when the boys were in the 10th grade.

THE CHOICE OF TOPICS: EXPLORATION AND ADAPTATION

Exploratory preference, a measure of individual differences, was selected as a major concept for study, because this concept could be related to how individuals behave in different environments. The intent was to learn about characteristics of students in terms of their level of exploratory preferences in the two high school environments. Of particular interest is to specify how boys with different levels of exploratory preference interact with their high school and how high school environments encourage the expression of different exploratory preferences.

In addition to the broad general objectives of the research, two additional goals were set: (1) to analyze the developmental characteristics of adolescent boys; and (2) to use the research findings whenever possible to recommend improvements in the curriculum and in the social organization of the high school. In addition to describing the correlates of exploratory behavior, the chapters in this volume present characterizations of boys at their grade level and suggestions for the practical use of the research findings.

Adaptation was a second major concept in this research. Whereas exploration focuses upon the students’ preferences for moving the environment, adaptation refers to social processes of how the student and the organization react to the social environment. Adaptation was also selected to clarify how different individuals are affected by their membership in a particular social setting. The work presented in the following chapters focuses on individual differences in levels of exploration and on differences in how the two high school environments responded to the boys.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE METHODS AND APPROACHES TO THE STUDENTS AND HIGH SCHOOLS

The research reported in this volume was conducted in two Midwestern high schools in the early 1970s, but it is important to understand the broader context for this work. Terry Deal and Dwight Roper, in Chapter 2, have summarized the major themes underlying the role of the high school in the United States, focusing upon five functions: sorting persons for future roles in society, training for specific cognitive skills, certification of educational accomplishments, the high school’s custodial role in society, and the role of the high school in socialization for adult roles. Although the research described in this book focuses primarily upon the last function, Deal and Roper have set the scene by providing an historical and sociological commentary on the high school.

The third chapter, by Evie McClintock, reviews the literature on the socialization of adolescents in the high school. This chapter provides a frame for reference in which the teacher, parents, and peers may be viewed as important resources for the socialization of students. It also offers illustrations from the literature of prevailing specific gaps in our knowledge and illustrates how the social system of the high school can be studied via multiple levels of analysis – cultural, organizational, interpersonal, and personal – and how each one of these levels is important to understand the effects of the social order upon individuals.

Chapter 4, by Richard Rice and Marilyn Marsh, reports descriptive data about the Wayne and South Redford communities, as well as data showing similarities and differences among the social characteristics of the faculties and the boys who attended the two schools. In the high school communities, a pivotal issue for the research is the relationship between patterns of adaptation reflected in the high school and patterns of adaptation that emerged from the culture of the larger community. The data presented by Rice and Marsh illustrate consistencies between the analyses of 1960 and 1970 Federal Census data for the school communities as well as consistencies between the census information and the data derived from self-reports of faculty and 10th-grade boys attending the schools.

In Chapter 5, Daniel Edwards summarizes extensive research on the properties of the questionnaire measure of exploration preferences and the status of the exploration concept as an explanatory term. This chapter also reports an empirical analysis of self-reports to assess how the boys perceived their school, in which Edwards used categories derived from the boys’ actual responses to the school to examine individual differences. When the study began, the selection of students for the longitudinal study was based upon a priori assumptions with regard to the salient features of exploratory preferences as a coping style. In the strict sense, we introduced a foreign body into the social organization of the high schools to help define characteristics for effective or ineffective coping. The measuring instrument for exploration preferences was imposed on the boys, and we have subsequently followed the effects of our “divining rod.”

In Chapter 6, Daniel Edwards reports from the same source of data that generated the analysis reported in Chapter 5. In this chapter, however, the self-perceptions of the boys and their perceptions of their peers and the life of the school environment are described. These data provide a clear and comprehensive statement of the social norms of boys in the 10th grade attending the two high schools. The overwhelming features of the data, as Edwards emphasizes, are the variability and the diverse level of responses. Implications of this fact alone suggest a humble appreciation of the complexity in designing educational programs to meet the needs of boys at different levels of personal and social development. The developmental variety of the 10th-grade boys attending these two schools is vivid.

The very low salience of the classroom as a powerful social setting was also quite strong. The classroom as the setting of choice contributed to the negative evaluation of the high school environment in both schools. Seventy percent of the 10th-grade boys say the worst thing about high school is the classroom!

Other data reported by Edwards encouraged us to examine in greater detail the informal social structure of the high school. The startling conclusion we derived from the findings reported in Chapter 6 was that if schools had additional places to learn beyond the classroom, schools could be attractive places to learn. Except for classes, the rest of school life is potentially very satisfying. We need to know more about the informal school environment, for it is these social settings that produce the sources of emotional support for making school not only tolerable but even enjoyable.

In Chapter 6, Edwards has given us ample reason to focus on the informal sources of socialization in the high school. It appears that Wayne Memorial High School helps to increase this informal social process by having more structured social settings available for informal social interaction within the school building; whereas at Thurston, the boys seek such settings outside of school. Data reported in this chapter, along with other findings about school differences, make it possible to conceive of contrasting environments that encourage varied adaptations. This topic is developed further in Chapters 10 and 11 by David Todd and Philip Newman.

Chapter 7 presents an example of our efforts to go beyond the use of a self-report questionnaire in elaborating the personal concerns of the 10th-grade boy. George Gilmore used a structured interview with small groups of students. He selected 6 high, moderate, and low explorer boys – a total of 18 boys at each of the two schools – and analyzed these boys’ responses to the interviewer’s inquiries about their feelings of competence, their perceptions of self-identity, and their satisfactions with the expression of these competences in the high school. Gilmore also reports some provocative findings regarding differences in responses to questions of identity development at the two schools. The work of Gilmore highlights again the uncertainty and diffusion of the identities of the 10th-grade boys and has helped us take a more realistic view of the level of development at these two suburban high schools. Gilmore and Barbara Newman, in Chapter 8, in addition to presenting their reports of research, include a case example of the responses of a high-explorer boy at one school and a moderate-explorer boy at a second school. These case presentations illustrate the additive information about identity and small group behavior that is revealed by the two different research studies.

Chapter 8 presents the work of Barbara Newman, who used a different approach to assess the characteristics of 10th-grade boys. Her work involved half of the sample of boys from Gilmore’s study – three each of high-, moderate-, and low-explorer boys fr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• PART I: SETTING THE SCENE
• 1. The High School: Students and Social Contexts—An Ecological Perspective
• 2. A Dilemma of Diversity: The American High School
• 3. Adolescent Socialization and the High School: A Selective Review of Literature
• 4. The Social Environments of the Two High Schools: Background Data
• PART II: THE BOYS AND THEIR CONTEXT: FIVE APPROACHES TO RESEARCH
• 5. Coping Preference, Adaptive Roles, and Varied High School Environments: A Search for Person-Environment Transactions
• 6. Persons and Environments
• 7. Exploration, Identity Development, and the Sense of Competency: A Case Study
• 8. Interpersonal Behavior and Preferences for Exploration in Adolescent Boys: A Small Group Study
• 9. Exploratory Behavior of Adolescents in a Dyadic, Problem-Solving Situation
• PART III: TWO APPROACHES TO THE HIGH SCHOOL SOCIAL STRUCTURE
• 10. Contrasting Adaptations to the Social Environment of a High School: Implications of a Case Study of Helping Behavior in Two Adolescent Subcultures
• 11. Persons and Settings: A Comparative Analysis of the Quality and Range of Social Interaction in Two High Schools
• PART IV: FEEDBACK, CRITIQUE, AND COMMENTARY
• 12. Observations on the Opinions of Youth Study from the Participating High Schools
• 13. Reflections on a Multi-Method Investigation of High Schools and Their Inhabitants
• 14. Exploratory Behavior, Socialization, and the High School Environment
• Author Index
• Subject Index