Education and Disadvantaged Children and Young People

Mitsuko Matsumoto, Colin Brock, Mitsuko Matsumoto

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441197146
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Do street children go to school, and if not, why not? What kind of education can be 'meaningful' to young people affected by conflict? The contributors explore groups of children and young people who have no, or very limited, educational opportunities in various contexts, including Vietnam, Ukraine, the UK, the USA, and India. They explore a number of educational initiatives that have contributed to improving the lives of disadvantaged children, drawing on the perceptions and experiences of disadvantaged children and young people themselves. Each chapter contains contemporary questions to encourage active engagement with the material and an annotated list of suggested reading to support further exploration.

Building Relationships to Engage At-Risk Youth: A Case Study of a New York City Public High School		1
Maria Hantzopoulos

Chapter Outline

Dropping out and staying in: A brief review

Humanities Preparatory Academy

Building strong student–teacher relationships: The elements of transformation

Concluding thoughts

Notes

Further reading

References

In 2006, the U.S. public policy think tank Civic Enterprises released the report The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts to bring attention to the increasing dropout rates of high school students in the United States. Though many people were astounded to learn that almost one-third of American public school students do not complete high school, the rates for African American, Latino, and Native American youth were even higher at almost 50 per cent (Bridgeland et al., 2006; 2009). After uncovering and clarifying the circumstances that contribute to dropout rates in their report, the authors urged for multipronged educational policy reforms emanating from national, state, local, and school community levels to address the needs of the youth. Further, while they implored policy makers to keep dropout rates at the center of their reform efforts, they insisted on viewing youth on the verge of dropping out not “as problems to be solved, but as potential to be fulfilled” (p. 20).

Despite these suggestions that multiple and multilevel actors need to be included in school reform, U.S. public educational policy continues to be top-down, as manifested in the proliferating large-scale federal reforms “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” Shaped by rhetoric that demonizes public schools, their teachers, and their students, the discourses surrounding these policies contribute to a notion of “failure” that suggests that public schools are incapable of preparing and educating children. While ostensibly designed to remedy public schools, these reforms, in reality, have been the real failure—their emphasis on “accountability” through high stakes testing on these exams have only exacerbated existing inequities, including dropout rates, in schools (Arbuthnot, 2011; McNeil et al., 2011). By placing primacy on test scores and school performance above all other educational matters, these initiatives create pressure on teachers and schools to prepare their students solely for the tests at the expense of other empirically sound effective pedagogies. Further, these testing policies come with high stakes for both the students and the schools as failure to meet specific achievement targets among students could result in closure, administrative and curricular changes, and/or loss of school funding (see Karp, 2006). Not only do these top-down policies overlook important research about successful approaches to engaging students in school, they also ignore what teachers, students, and school communities say are effective pedagogical practices that redress dropout rates and re-socialize students academically.

There is a plethora of research, however, that shows how concepts such as strong student–teacher relationships, positive school culture, and an engaging academic curricula can improve and address inequities in schooling (Antorp-Gonzalez, 2011; Bajaj, 2009; Bartlett and Koyama, 2012; Bartlett and Garcia, 2011; de Jesús, 2012; Hantzopoulos, 2011a; 2011b; 2012a; 2012b; Rivera-McCutchen, 2012; Rodriguez and Conchas, 2008; Shiller, 2012; Tyner-Mullings, 2012). This chapter builds upon this existing literature, specifically elucidating the importance of relationship-building in addressing inequities in schooling. I draw from two years of ethnographic data collection at a “critical” small high school in New York City (see Hantzopoulos, 2009; Hantzopoulos and Tyner-Mullings, 2012) to shed light on how former and current students make meaning of their experiences at a school, Humanities Preparatory Academy (Prep), which emphasizes strong student–teacher relationships. Drawing from interviews and anecdotal surveys, I demonstrate how the school effectively engaged students academically through these relationships when many of these students were close to abandoning the school project all together.

The chapter advances these current conversations about student–teacher relationships by placing the youth perspective at the center, addressing a gap in the literature that presently does not always pay attention to how students describe and understand these relationships. In particular, I reveal the specific qualities that youth ascribe to their relationships with their teachers and provide a more complete picture about the role that these played in their academic trajectory. While there are several other practices and structures at this school that contribute to the students’ academic re-socialization (see Hantzopoulos 2011b; 2012a; 2012b), I demonstrate in this chapter how the youth viewed these relationships as tantamount to their experience. Thus, I will conclude by stating that macroeducational policies cannot overlook the importance of relationship-building as one of several features in authentic school reform, both as a way to ameliorate schools and to remedy dropout rates.

Dropping out and staying in: A brief review

The subject of school dropouts has been explored from a variety of perspectives, including social, cultural, psychological, and economic variables. Scholars such as Rumberger (2004) have argued that individual factors (i.e., race, socioeconomic status, gender etc . . .) and structural factors (i.e., poverty, community, family, etc . . .) can exacerbate the risk factors for students, increasing the likelihood of dropping out. While these intersecting factors certainly contribute to reasons for dropping out, studies have also shown that there are certain school environmental conditions that increase dropout rates. According to Suh and Suh (2007), one of the main predictors of dropping out of school is a previous suspension history. Based on a large-scale longitudinal study, they found that if students had a history of suspension, the likelihood of that student dropping out increased by 78 per cent (Suh and Suh, 2007; Lee et al., 2011). While student behavior certainly can contribute to disciplinary measures such as suspension, research also shows that the school climate and culture contributes to suspension rates. Scholars such as Fine (1991), Bowditch (1993), and Fergusen (2001) have shown through ethnographic studies the ways in which students—particularly students of color—are, in fact, criminalized in their school environments and perceived as “trouble.” As studies repeatedly show that schools with excessively punitive disciplinary policies and high suspension rates have higher dropout rates (see Suh and Suh, 2007; Christle et al., 2007), many scholars and youth advocates prefer the term “push out” to describe the phenomenon of students leaving school (National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, 2007; New York Civil Liberties Union, 2009).

Several studies also show that the emphasis on high-stakes testing contributes to increased dropout rates, particularly for students of color, multilingual students, and those with diagnosed disabilities (Amrein and Berliner, 2003; Arbuthnot, 2011; Futrell and Rotberg, 2002; Hayward, 2002; Horn, 2003; Katsyiannis et al., 2007; Marchant, 2004; Maudaus and Clarke, 2001; McNeil et al., 2011; Menken, 2008; Vasquez-Heilig and Darling-Hammond, 2008). While they cite a variety of factors that affect students’ performance on theses tests (including cultural biases, language ability, access to supplementary resources, etc . . .), most argue that the unintended consequences of these exams outweigh the benefits. Further, high-stakes testing often works in tandem with zero-tolerance disciplinary measures, and many argue that the two are inextricably linked to create higher dropout rates. As the latter criminalizes students for minor infractions of school rules, the former encourages administrators to push out students who do not improve their schools’ overall test scores (Advancement Project, 2011; American Civil Liberties Union, 2010). Despite documentation of these negative outcomes, over-testing and over-policing in schools permeate the broader school reform agenda in the United States.

Conversely, other studies illuminate certain school practices and structures that can help students stay in school. For instance, these studies illustrate how a positive school culture can lower the suspension rates through prevention strategies that aim to reduce inappropriate behaviors. These strategies include increasing parental involvement in school-based discipline plans, emphasizing student needs in educational planning, and creating a culture of mutual respect (Christle et al., 2004; Mukuria, 2002; Raffaele-Mendez, Knoff, and Ferron, 2002). Moreover, scholars have pointed to the importance of relationships in creating a positive school culture. According to Lesser et al. (2008), moments of feeling cared for by teachers can have a profound impact on whether or not students actually drop out of school. Based on their research that tracked how dropouts prolonged their stay in school, they found that when these students were acknowledged and valued by their teachers, they felt happier and were more willing to stay in school. In addition, several scholars have written about the role that student–teacher relationships play in make the school a welcoming and inviting place, particularly for those that may be “at risk” for dropping out (see Antorp-Gonzalez, 2011; Bajaj, 2009; Bartlett and Koyama, 2012; Bartlett and Garcia, 2011; de Jesús, 2012; Hantzopoulos, 2011b; 2012a; 2012b; Rivera-McCutchen, 2012; Rodriguez and Conchas, 2008; Tyner-Mullings, 2012).

In a recent response article about why students drop out of school, Rodriguez (2010) urges reformers to consider the impact of school policies (such as zero-tolerance, rigid testing, etc. . .) on the creation of a culture of respect and intellectual engagement. While he acknowledges that there is often little that schools can do to mitigate external factors (such as poverty) that contribute to dropout rates, he suggests that schools can undertake some actions that will help students stay in school. In particular, he implores reformers to (1) forge dialogues about school culture, (2) create forums for student voices, and (3) focus on relationships between the teachers and students (p. 19). This runs concordant with the suggestions made by advocacy organizations such as the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative and the New York Civil Liberties Union.

In many ways, Prep, the school where I conducted my research, adopts this multipronged approach to school reform. As I demonstrate elsewhere, there were several processes and structures at Prep, including the transmission of core values, the democratic school structures, and the participatory nature of the school curriculum that contributed to positive student academic and social experiences at the school (see Hantzopoulos, 2011b; 2012a; 2012b). This chapter, however, looks more closely at the role that student–teacher relationships played in this effort, shedding light on the characteristics that contributed to an overall sense of belonging for students, which helped them stay in and succeed in school.

Humanities Preparatory Academy¹

Prep was originally founded as a program in a larger comprehensive New York City public high school that sought to re-engage students who were potentially at-risk for dropping out. The goal of the program was not just to keep them in school, but also to help prepare them for life beyond graduation, including college. Utilizing innovative and democratic pedagogies, intellectually and socially relevant curicula, and personalized approaches to student–teacher relationships, Prep was extremely successful with this population and eventually became an autonomous public school. While the school presently serves a mixed population of those that may have had previous “success” in schools and those that have struggled, it continues to attempt to reach all students “by personalizing our learning situations, by democratizing and humanizing the school environment, and by creating a ‘talking culture,’ an atmosphere of informal intellectual discourse among students and faculty” (School Mission). By constructing an alternative educational environment rooted in democracy, public intellectualism, and caring school practices, Prep presents itself as a place that provides a transformative experience for its students, both within and beyond the sphere of the school. It remains rather small for a New York City high school (under 180 students) and is crammed into two corridors of a larger educational facility.

The school’s demographic composition reflects the racial and economic spectrum ...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Building Relationships to Engage At-Risk Youth: A Case Study of a New York City Public High School
• 2 Schooling for Youth and Community Empowerment and Resilience During and After Violent Conflict
• 3 Change 4 Me? Young Refugees’ and Migrants’ Research on Social Inclusion in London
• 4 Education and Disadvantaged Children in India
• 5 Vulnerable Children in Ukraine and the Educational Response
• 6 The Use of Sports and College Student Role Models to Enhance Educational Outcomes Among Rural Vietnamese Adolescents
• 7 Long-term Social Development through Sports: A Path to Peace
• Conclusions
• Index