"But is what we give them enough?": Exploring urban small school graduates' journeys through college.
Item
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Title
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"But is what we give them enough?": Exploring urban small school graduates' journeys through college.
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Identifier
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AAI3232019
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identifier
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3232019
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Creator
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Chajet, Lori.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Michelle Fine
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Education, Administration | Education, Secondary | Education, Higher
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Abstract
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New York City's small schools movement began in the mid-1980s with a social justice agenda to offer academically-unscreened low-income students of color an education most-often reserved for the middle-class, one that would prepare them for college. While research indicates that small schools outperform their comprehensive school counterparts, what has not been adequately studied are the experiences of small school graduates in college. This dissertation addresses this gap and, in doing so, speaks to the overarching question of the power and limits of small school reform. By looking across students' secondary and post-secondary experiences, this study illustrates what can, and cannot, happen when a school enacts "institutional agency"; that is, when it has a critique of the social reproductive functions of education and uses its power to redefine traditional educational practices and structures.;Using primarily qualitative methods, with a focus on ethnography, the author studied one small public high school in New York City and its graduates' post-secondary experiences. Central to the graduate follow-up research was a three-year longitudinal ethnography of six students' transition into and through college, complimented by a comprehensive survey that established trends across graduates.;Together the data show that when a small school redefines structures, practice, and relationships, it produces graduates who significantly outperform national averages in rates of college attendance and persistence, and who emerge with an increased desire to continue their learning as well as the skills and confidence to navigate higher education. At the same time, their journeys collectively demonstrate the complexity of implementing a college-for-all mission given the reality of the obstacles low-income students of color face in college; while the gap in who begins higher education has narrowed along race, ethnicity, and class lines, who persists to graduation has not. The dissertation presents implications for small schools, K-16 education, and the political-economic policy that shapes the lives of low-income students of color. Highlighted is the important role secondary schools must play in the struggle for social justice, as well as the need for a web of reforms, most notably within the system of higher education.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
