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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this article by Boyd was to identify the factors that make ghetto schools succeed or fail.
METHODOLOGY:
Since this article was a review of much of the literature concerning education for the at-risk population, and was not a study, there was no methodology. Actually, this 30-page journal article was a revised and condensed version of a commissioned paper for a conference on "The Truly Disadvantaged" at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois in October 1989.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The author separates the problems of educating the disadvantaged, especially those in inner-city ghettos, into three categories of theories, which were proposed by John Ogbu. These are the institutional-deficiency theory, with its focus on problems within the school system; the developmental-deficiency theory, focusing on the lack of parental teaching of needed skills; and the cultural-discontinuities theory, citing conflicts between the child's culture and that of the school and society being the problem. The content of this article can mostly be based on one of these three theories.
Because of research prior to 1972 which seemed to demonstrate that there was no particular variable responsible for educational outcomes, there was a quest to find schools (outliers) which did succeed with disadvantaged children, and these were studied to find what made these schools effective. The "effective schools" movement followed, demonstrating that for disadvantaged children, school quality was even more important than for the majority of students.
Early efforts at "effective schools" tended to mandate excellence by increasing graduation and testing requirements and standardizing curriculum. Later efforts included restructuring of schools and professionalizing teaching.
The dysfunction of schools is further separated into two possibilities - that of organizational arrangements of the workplace and that of the governance and incentives of the system. Two sociological theories are involved in the processes of organization functioning - the "negotiated order" theory and the "exchange theory." And the "rational choice" theory explains the incentives that foster venturesome behavior.
There are many problems inherent with big city school districts due to pathologic bureaucracies, yet there are no simple solutions. While one large city (Chicago) has recently decentralized and gone to site-based management, another large city (New York) which has been decentralized since 1970, has found this has allowed much corruption and patronage politics.
The effective schools approach has been termed "simplistic," but because of its simplicity, it has found wide acceptance. It defines the following characteristics: a consensus on instructional goals by administration and teachers; emphasis on learning basic and higher-order thinking skills; school environment that is safe and orderly; continuous assessment of both programs and students; and assumption that virtually all children can learn with the appropriate conditions.
Implementation of the effective schools characteristics is complicated by individual differences between children and the variations in the context of operation of different schools.
The "developmental deficiency" theory claims that children arrive at school with differing backgrounds of development in linguistic, social, cognitive and motivational development. Studies designed to teach parents how to help their children succeed in school and in society have been thought successful, such as the Perry Preschool Project. Head Start, though valuable, has been underfunded, with only about 20 percent of eligible children being served. The same is true of compensatory programs such as Chapter 1, which is designed to help disadvantaged children catch up to their grade level.
Cultural discontinuity was found by Ogbu in involuntary minorities such as African Americans. In their development of strategies to cope with exploitation by the majority, such things as school rules, academic success and standard practices became socially not acceptable. The only way to overcome this cultural discontinuity would be by reducing the cultural gap between schools and black children and to ensure equal employment opportunities. This can be extended to other lower-class groups also, those who have been poorly treated by the dominant majority group.
Because of the varying social issues at work in ghetto schools, it is important to use comprehensive approaches to the education of these children. Programs meeting these needs have been developed by James Comer and Henry Levin.
Comer worked with two project schools in New Haven, Connecticut. The goal was to develop bonding of the students to the school. This involved parental interaction, reducing of destructive interaction, and establishing a cohesiveness in management of the school and teaching.
Levin developed "accelerated schools," which emphasize the strengths and abilities of the disadvantaged child, rather than remediation. Objectives are set for each child's performance, there is deep parental involvement, and there is an extended day, with involvement of voluntary college students and senior citizens.
AUTHOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS:
There is a need to assemble "a community-wide combination of broad-based commitment and human resources sufficient to overcome institutional incentive problems and developmental and cultural obstacles." (p.352) Communities need ownership in the problem of at-risk youth, and there needs to be cooperation of schools with other agencies, both public and private. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - At Risk Youth
KW - At Risk Child
KW - At Risk Juvenile
KW - Developmental Deficiency
KW - Institutional Deficiency
KW - Theory
KW - Juvenile Development
KW - Child Development
KW - Youth Development
KW - Senior High School Student
KW - Junior High School Student
KW - Elementary School Student
KW - Urban School
KW - Urban Environment
KW - Sociocultural Factors
KW - Socioeconomic Factors
KW - School Achievement
KW - School Performance
KW - School Failure
KW - Environmental Factors
KW - Social Organization Theory
KW - Family Relations
KW - Parent Child Relations
KW - Literature Review
KW - Low-Income Youth
Language: en |