Street Codes in High School: School as an Educational Deterrent

Abstract

Elsewhere we have documented how conflict between adolescents in the streets shapes conflict in the schools. Here we consider the impact of street codes on the culture and environment of the schools themselves, and the effect of this culture and on the students' commitment and determination to participate in their own education. We present the high school experiences of first-generation immigrants and African American students, distinguishing between belief in education and commitment to school. In an environment characterized by ineffective control and nonengaging classes, often students are not socialized around academic values and goals. Students need to develop strategies to remain committed to education while surviving day to day in an unsafe, academically limited school environment. These processes are sometimes seen as minority "resistance" to educational norms. Instead, our data suggest that the nature of the schools in which minority students find themselves has a greater influence on sustaining or dissuading students' commitment to education than do their immigration status or cultural backgrounds.Measuring differences in academic performance among minority students, especially those between new immigrants and American-born, has become a prominent theme in the field of urban education over the last two decades. One goal implicit in such research is to distinguish between higher-and lower-performing minorities and to link poor performance with unfavorable student attitudes and behaviors in a seemingly causal model. In this study, we seek to "bring the school back in" by measuring how students perceive and experience their school environments. We explore how new immigrant and American-born minority students in one inner-city high school negotiate their commitment to education in a troubled school environment. Interview and observational data indicate that while the teens' social identities as students compete with the "street" identities of some, the school environment draws out the latter more effectively than the former.We posit that what is often labeled as antisocial or undisciplined behavior, as a social problem that students bring into the school, is often a response to an unsafe, "disorganized" school environment (Gottfredson, 1989;Welsh, Greene, and Jenkins,

Schools, Neighborhoods, and Adolescent Conflicts: A Situational Examination of Reciprocal Dynamics

“…Moreover, because our research questions were limited to incidents of violence, we cannot speak to the important question of when and how young men avoid violence, and what role school attachments might play in this process (see Mateu-Gelabert & Lune, 2007). Relatedly, our research suggests that some conflicts were temporally truncated (for instance, in-school conflicts which escalated to violence immediately after school the same day), while others appeared to play out for days, weeks, or even months.…”

“…The nature of our sample and the locales from which it was drawn means we are unable to address whether and how non-delinquent young men can utilize school-based and other resources to disrupt or avoid exposure to violence. Moreover, our focus on youths' conflicts means we cannot speak, more broadly, to how young men negotiate school life (see Mateu-Gelabert & Lune, 2007). Nonetheless, we believe the study raises significant issues that may guide future inquiries into the contexts of school conflicts, 7.…”

School Violent Crime and Academic Achievement in Chicago

“…Perhaps the association between violent crime at school and achievement is really caused by students from disadvantaged neighborhoods bringing the violence they experience around their homes onto school grounds. In this case, the concern is not about the prior achievement levels of students in violent schools, but whether both low achievement and school violence are really just a product of students’ exposure to neighborhood violence and disadvantage (Harding 2010, Mateu-Gelabert and Lune 2007, Sharkey 2010). …”

Violence, Older Peers, and the Socialization of Adolescent Boys in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods

“…“Decent” families compete with peer groups and others with “street” orientations for the attention of adolescents making key decisions about school, crime, and sexual behavior. Parents work to separate their children from neighborhood influences (Furstenburg et al 1999), and schools fail to engage students when teachers interpret their “street” behavior as resistance (Mateu-Gelabert and June 2007). Anderson has been criticized for utilizing his subjects’ cultural categories as analytical categories (Wacquant 2002), but his ethnographic description of competing cultural codes in poor neighborhoods is widely accepted.…”

“…Young men “campaign for respect” on the streets according to a “street code” of informal rules governing masculinity, violence and public behavior (cf. Mateo-Gelabert and Lune 2007). Where victimization is common, young people view a reputation for toughness - created and maintained by posturing and fighting - as a form of protection.…”