Creating a culture of academic success in an urban science and math magnet high school

Abstract

This paper reports on a 3-year study of a half-day urban magnet high school founded upon a desire to provide rigorous science, math, and technology experiences to students who would not otherwise have access to such educational opportunities. Using the theoretical lens of how a model of an educated person gets culturally produced within the school setting, I attended to: (1) the institutional construction of preferred student identity, (2) ways in which students in the school both took up and transformed this identity, and (3) how these student initiatives played a role in gradual institutional shifts in student expectations. Four constructs---learning, achievement, resistance, and success---were found to play significant roles in how the qualities of an educated person were negotiated through practice in attempts to create a culture of academic success in science and mathematics. These findings have implications for teaching and learning in other urban school settings.

Secondary Student Perceptions of Factors Effecting Failure in Science in Portugal

“…They paint a picture of a multifaceted system that reflects the complexity of the problem of academic success or failure in secondary schools. These results are in general conformity with previous studies (Buxton, 2005(Buxton, , 2003Yore, Anderson, & Shymansky, 2005): There is no single factor identified through which educational professionals can expect to effect change. To the contrary, a constellation of factors must be addressed in any program designed to create environments for maximizing learning success.…”

“…Reasonable lab conditions, good school organization, and even details such as classroom decoration can be an important element in improving student interest and achievement in science. For example, schools can portray positive images (through posters, news stories, video presentations, student projects and awards) that present science careers as attainable, and scientific knowledge as pertinent and contributing to a better life (Buxton, 2005;Hammond, 2001;Zacharia & Barton, 2004).…”

Differential school contextual effects for math and English: Integrating the big-fish-little-pond effect and the internal/external frame of reference

“…Such schools are important educational policy tools, as they tend to draw in children from disadvantaged backgrounds. One of the advantages of themed schools in both the United States and Germany has been to provide a university pathway that is catered to the needs of students from disadvantaged and/or minority backgrounds (Buxton, 2005;Gamoran, 1996;Giffin et al, 2007;Köller et al, 2004). Given that such disadvantaged youth are less likely to enter university (for a review see Checchi, 2006), themed schools represent one educational program that may help to reduce educational inequality.…”

The Impact of an Engineering Design Curriculum on Science Reasoning in an Urban Setting

“…Peer influences that associate male racial/ethnic minorities with opposition to school culture (Graham et al 1998) may lead students to engage in classroom behaviors that negatively affect their achievement (Lundy 2003) and that may contribute to this result. When a classroom culture recognizes students' desire to be respected by their peers ) and maintains high academic expectations for all students (Buxton 2005), gender differences are less likely.…”