Engaging Schools Fostering High School Students' Motivation to Learn (2004) / Chapter Skim
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5. Family, Community, and Peers
5. Family, Community, and Peers
Pages 120-144
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From page 120... ...
They would take advantage of resources and supports for learning in the community and be a positive force in the community for developing an environment that supports positive youth development. Elsewhere in this volume we discuss how schools can expand curriculum offerings by embedding learning opportunities in authentic work envi120
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From page 121... ...
Advocates of school reform initiatives that emphasize families and communities as partners generally view schools as part of a wider social ecology that includes neighborhoods, community organizations, and families (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 20021. They seek to marshal the energy, resources, and support of families and communities to promote learning and positive youth development.
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From page 122... ...
They measured "social integration" using a questionnaire that assessed the extent to which adolescents had an opportunity for nonteacher adult contact, and parents had the opportunity to meet their adolescents' friends and their parents. The undesirable effects of coherent negative messages were just as strong as the desirable effects of coherent positive messages.
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From page 123... ...
, and at least nominal parental involvement has been required in some federally supported educational programs since the mid-1960s through legislation authorizing Title I (Keesling and Melargano, 19831. Parental involvement was listed as a major national educational priority in the 1994 Goals 2000 Educate America Act, as well as in some local legislation, such as the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act.
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From page 124... ...
A more powerful predictor of student performance was the type of parental involvement that drew parents into the school physicallyto attend teacher conferences and school programs such as back-to-school nights and extracurricular activities. Other studies, however, indicate that students who rate their own parents' involvement and encouragement at home as high have higher academic self-concept, greater motivation, and more positive attitudes toward school (e.g., Sanders, 1998; Wiest, Wong, Cervantes, Craik, and Kreil, 2001; Wong, Wiest, and Cusick, 20021.
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From page 125... ...
45) concluded from a review of research: "Teachers' practices to involve families are as or more important than family background variables such as race or ethnicity, social class, marital status, or mother's work status for determining whether and how parents become involved in their children's education." School practices may therefore explain, in part, the relatively low participation rates of parents with children who are most at risk of school failure.
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From page 126... ...
Given the importance of families in adolescents' development, ignoring parents and other adults who have caretaking roles seriously limits the effects of even the most inspired school reform. Most parents want to be involved, and schools that reach out aggressively to parents and reduce obstacles to their involvement amplify their own efforts to improve student engagement and learning.2 Murnane and Levy (1996b)
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From page 127... ...
Involving students in well-organized after-school and summer activities may promote positive attitudes about school shared by groups of students because organized activities are consistent with the values and norms of the school. They can provide a positive social context for youth to demonstrate their competence and experience a sense of belonging; furthermore, participants simply have less time to "hang out" with each other in unsupervised activities where they could develop shared beliefs and attitudes that are different from, and possibly in opposition to, those of the school (Lamborn et al., 1992; McLaughlin, 2000; National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 20021.
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From page 128... ...
The third example illustrates the growing practice of service learning. All three examples address some or all of the principles of engagement described in this volume and they all promote productive links between schools and their communities.
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From page 129... ...
Project GRAD USA Based on an educational collaborative developed at Jeff Davis High School in Houston, Texas, Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) is a national program promoting school-community collaboration and the vertical integration of reform efforts, from kindergarten through college.
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From page 130... ...
The percentage of students who graduate on time has improved, as have standardized test scores. The coordinated educational reform strategy in Davis' feeder elementary and middle schools that was begun in 1993 is gradually increas5Communities in Schools is a national model with local affiliates around the country.
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From page 131... ...
Advocates for service learning focus on four kinds of student engagement: civic engagement, social engagement with the communities they serve, personal engagement with individuals they serve, and academic engagement, which teachers mention as one of their principal reasons for using service learning (Ammon et al., 20021. The evidence on the effects on school engagement, although sparse, is positive.
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From page 132... ...
The Teen Outreach Program that combines structured community service experiences with classroom discussions about careers and relationships has been studied more than most service learning programs. Studies using matched comparison of students in 35 states (Allen, Philliber, and Hoggson, 1990)
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From page 133... ...
Effective programs are school. focused on each youth in a holistic sense; focused on all youth; strengths-based, prosocial, and developmental; responsive to specific youth and neighborhoods; youth-centered; and filled with expanded opportunities to learn from adults in and out of Having reviewed the evidence, the committee is convinced that until all organizations, including schools, see themselves as partners in supporting positive youth development, efforts to increase student engagement in school will have limited success.
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From page 134... ...
Peer influences are as complex and multilevel as the peer social world itself. To better understand how peers affect adolescents' engagement in learning, we review four lines of research on peer cultures, peer crowds, gangs, and friendship groups.
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From page 135... ...
In a study of 10 schools engaged in voluntary detracking, some of the Black students interviewed were apprehensive about taking honors classes because they feared being ostracized by Black peers (Yonezawa et al., 20021. A few reported that Black students called Black peers names like "sellout" or "whitewashed" to deter them from developing relationships with white students.
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From page 136... ...
found in his survey of ethnically mixed suburban schools that more of the Black students than those from any other ethnic group checked "very important" to a question about how strongly friends would agree with the statement, "It's important to study hard to get good grades." In a MetLife (2002) national survey of youth from 7th to 12th grades, more students (64 percent)
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From page 137... ...
As McDill and Rigsby's work suggests, it is likely that the positive effects of high school climates characterized by high expectations and a press for academic achievement are partly explained by the effect of such a climate on students' own values related to learning and achievement and the values their peers
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From page 138... ...
Peer Crowds When given opportunities to interact with peers, adolescents typically choose peers who are similar in clothing, hairstyles, ethnic background, social class, and other attributes, including academic achievement, school engagement, extracurricular activities, and activities outside of school. Collections of friendship groups that share a number of attributes are found across multiple settings.
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From page 139... ...
Academic tracking, for example, makes differences in students' social status highly visible. Tracking can also exacerbate negative peer influences by isolating students with low academic achievement from peers who are academically engaged and value achievement.
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From page 140... ...
Youth who join gangs are typically low achievers in lowstatus crowds those least likely to experience high school as a personally supportive social context in which they fee! valued.
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From page 141... ...
These findings suggest that creating high schools that help students learn in a caring, respectful, and supportive social climate may be the best strategy for preventing gang involvement. Adolescents join gangs to meet social and psychological needs that are not being met elsewhere (Padilla, 19921.
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From page 142... ...
High school students tend to form friendships within their academic track or set of courses Makes, Gamoran, and Page, 19921. The negative effect of friends suggests the importance of avoiding organizational structures and programs that create concentrated groups of acaclemically clisengageci students.
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From page 143... ...
The evidence reviewed in this chapter suggests the value of efforts to improve communication and coordination among adults in the various settings where adolescents spend their time including schools, homes, religious institutions, as well as the various organized extracurricular activities sponsored by schools and community groups. To the extent that adults in these settings collaborate to ensure that the various environments where adolescents interact with each other in the community are inclusive, informed by positive values, and supportive of the healthy development of young people, productive engagement in schoolbased learning is likely to be promoted (Cornell and Klem, 2000; Connell, Gambone, and Smith, 2000; National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 20021.
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From page 144... ...
44 ENGAGING SCHOOLS activities in and out of class that bring together students with different levels of achievement, activities that are based on shared interests rather than academic competence, and in many other ways. Careful attention needs to be given to how class assignments and activities promote student interactions.
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