Symbolic Boundaries and School Structure in New York and London Schools

Abstract

This article shows that an ethnically diverse student population leads to blurred ethnic and racial boundaries. Still, students in New York distinguish themselves much more along ethnic and racial lines than do London students. The evidence presented suggests that in addition to national-level differences, traditional British school structure, which provides continuity of peers through the Form Class as well as time for socializing, leads to less emphasis on ethnic and racial boundaries than in the anomic structure of traditional urban American public high schools. It follows that in order to promote ethnic and racial integration among teens, schools should not only serve integrated student bodies but also should maintain structures that present opportunities for students to bridge racial and ethnic boundaries. The study employs ethnographic data from schools in New York and London and 120 in-depth interviews.

China’s Rural Education: Chinese Migrant Children and Left-Behind Children

“…Building on these findings, boundary-focused research in different school types can disentangle how proximity to students of other backgrounds and school structure condition unequal school distribution of material and symbolic resources. Ultimately, this type of research can show how schools act to strengthen or weaken the boundaries (academic and social) among students (Lan 2014); such boundary-focused research on education has potential to engage with the rich boundary work in other national contexts (Carter 2012;Warikoo 2010). The consequent dialogue on how contexts (e.g., institutional, policy) shape boundaries that increase or decrease educational opportunity holds promise for comparing the schooling of second-generation immigrant youths.…”

School climate and ethnic‐racial identity in school: A longitudinal examination of reciprocal associations

“…Schools formally and informally socialize youth about race and ethnicity (Aldana & Byrd, 2015), and the interactions youth experience in school can influence and are influenced by their ERI development (e.g., Nasir & Cooks, 2009;Warikoo, 2010). Such interactions may reflect the school climate, a multidimensional construct that refers to student's perceptions of school norms, values, and shared beliefs that both shape and are a product of social interactions among school staff, teachers, and students in classrooms and in public spaces within the school (Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D'Alessandro, 2013).…”

Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences With Diversity on Elite College Campuses

“…Educational institutions have profound influence over youth well beyond academic teaching. From gender and sexuality norms (Armstrong and Hamilton ; Pascoe ; Thorne ) to styles of political protest (Binder and Wood ), to defining acceptable ways of talking about race (Chase ; Pollock ), to race relations and the cultural meaning of racial identities (Carter ; Tyson ; Warikoo ), schools and universities play a socializing role. Still, while research on the social influence of K–12 education abounds, much of this work in higher education has been done by journalists (see Douthat ; Kadison and DiGeronimo ; Seaman ); or by education scholars with an eye toward specific questions of practice .…”