The Environment”: Power, Pedagogy, and American Urban Schooling

The Urban Review, Vol. 31, No. 4, 1999

"The Environment": Power, Pedagogy,and American Urban Schooling

Clarissa Hayward

Drawing on participant-observation research conducted in one core urban and one afflu-ent suburban public school, the author argues that critical educational theorists shoulddevote more attention to differential structural constraints on pedagogic choice. Teach-ers at the urban North End Community School make pedagogic choices that reinforcesocial hierarchies. They do so, in part, in order to enable their students to manage aseries of risks and dangers associated with concentrated urban poverty. The evidencepresented suggests that changing the role power plays in urban public schooling re-quires changing not only the choices individual teachers make, but also educational andother institutional constraints on pedagogic practice.

In the three decades since the publication of Equality of Educational Oppor-tunity (Coleman et al., 1966), most research on inequality in American publiceducation has been dominated by questions of "what" and "how many." Educa-tional researchers have focused, that is, on identifying the determinants of keyeducational "outputs," in particular, variables statistically associated with highstandardized test scores and other quantifiable measures of achievement.

Work in critical educational theory, by contrast, emphasizes "how" ques-tions. How, for example, are student subjectivities produced and maintained inthe classroom? How does schooling reproduce, naturalize, and legitimize socialhierarchies? How are members of marginalized social groups oppressed throughboth the formal and the hidden curriculum, and how do they resist oppressivepedagogic practices? Significant differences separate early critical reproductiontheories of schooling (for example, Apple, 1971, 1979; Keddie, 1971; Young,1971; Bourdieu, 1976; Carnoy and Levin, 1976); later resistance theories (forexample, Giroux, 1981, 1983; Apple, 1982, 1986; McLaren, 1985, 1989); andmore recent "critical postmodern" accounts (for example, Aronowitz and

Clarissa Hayward is an assistant professor of Political Science at Ohio State University.Address correspondence to Clarissa Hayward, Ohio State University, Department of Political

Science, 2140 Derby Hall, 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1373; e-mail: [email protected].

331

0042-0972/99/1200-033l$16.00/0 © 1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

332 THE URBAN REVIEW

Giroux, 1991; Giroux, 1988a, 1990; Gutierrez and McLaren, 1995; McLaren,1995). But the views of researchers contributing to this literature converge on atleast two points of agreement. The first is the explanatory claim that schoolscan, and often do, function as political "sorting mechanisms," reproducing andlegitimizing social hierarchies by helping produce, privilege, and naturalizedominant forms of knowledge and subjectivity. The second is the normativeclaim that "critical intellectuals" should work to transform power relations inschools by enabling marginalized students to give voice to and to criticallyanalyze their experience, and by providing them with "a language of possi-bility" that might inform and promote the transformation of social inequalitiesand injustices.1

My principal aim in this paper is to make the case for supplementing the"how" questions that preoccupy critical educational theorists with "why" ques-tions, specifically, with questions about why teachers and other adults in partic-ular schools make pedagogic choices that reproduce, rather than problematizeand transform, social hierarchies. I use microlevel analysis of power relations inone core urban fourth-grade classroom to illustrate the ways in which structuralinequalities might constrain pedagogic choice, and to develop the hypothesisthat the postwar restructuring of American metropolitan governance, in the con-text of 19th-century educational institutional arrangements, helps shape ped-agogic practice in ways that are reproductive of political, economic, and socialhierarchies.

The argument proceeds as follows. First, I briefly describe research I con-ducted in two fourth-grade classrooms, one in the core urban North End Com-munity School, which is the focus of my analysis, and the other in the affluentsuburban Fair View Elementary, which I use at several points in the paper forcomparison.2 Next, I outline patterns in pedagogic practice at North End, whereteachers adopt what some term an "authoritarian" approach to discipline,3 pre-sent knowledge as information children should absorb in order to win rewardsand avoid punishment, and define the responsible student as the child whoauthors a successful future by being accountable to those in positions of author-ity. In the third section, I consider student responses to the classroom experi-ence at North End, arguing that teachers there fail to cultivate and activelydiscourage the development of competencies, attitudes, values, and beliefsneeded for effective democratic citizenship, high-paying and relatively autono-mous work, and a sense of the self as worthy of social recognition and respect.I then address the "why" question posed above. I argue that these pedagogicpatterns are, in part, a reasoned response to social problems associated withconcentrated urban poverty, problems to which teachers at North End refercollectively as "the environment." Although "the environment" is socially con-structed and amenable to change via collective action, North End teachers rea-

"THE ENVIRONMENT" 333

sonably perceive it to be beyond their immediate control. Therefore, rather thanengaging in what are likely to be futile efforts to change it, they manage it, byteaching what they call "survival skills" and a series of what they at timesacknowledge to be social myths about individual responsibility. The argumentsuggests that critical educational theorists' exhortations to teachers to assumethe role of "transformative" rather than "hegemonic" intellectuals should besupplemented with a more direct engagement in the debates about institutionaland policy reform that are, at present, dominated by researchers who study thedeterminants of academic achievement.

I. INTRODUCTION: OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH

From September 1993 to June 1994, I spent one full school day each weekworking as a participant-observer and a volunteer assistant to North End fourth-grade teacher Veronica Franklin. Franklin, a 25-year veteran at North End,moved to Connecticut from Mississippi in the late 1960s and has lived withinwalking distance of the school ever since. As a participant-observer, I tookdetailed field notes describing lessons and other activities in this classroom, aswell as in other classrooms in the school, which I visited. I also took notes oninformal interaction and conversation among teachers and other staff members.I supplemented my participant observation by collecting short written studentresponses to open-ended questions about learning, school rules, and personalaspirations, and by conducting semistructured, face-to-face interviews withFranklin and ten other North End faculty and staff members. During the sameperiod, I spent 1 day per week as a participant-observer and a volunteer assis-tant to fourth-grade teacher Monica Segal in the predominantly white, affluent,suburban Fair View Elementary. Here, as at North End, I supplemented myresearch by observing other classrooms in the school and conducting staff inter-views and student surveys.

A comparison of student and professional staff racial and ethnic composi-tion, poverty status, and Mastery Test performance in Connecticut publicschools, the North End Community School, and Fair View Elementary fol-lows (Table 1). North End, with a 55% minority professional staff, a studentpopulation that is nearly 100% minority, a poverty rate of about 80%, andrates of academic achievement that rank in the bottom 5% statewide, is notatypical of public schools in core sections of older American cities. NorthEnd and Fair View are not, however, meant to be representative of publicschools in the contemporary United States. My aim in considering in tandemwhat might reasonably be characterized as limit cases is to illustrate and tohighlight the differences that structural inequalities can make for teachers andstudents.


TABLE 1.Race and ethnicity, poverty, and achievement at North End and Fair View1

State of Connecticut North End2 Fair View2

Professional staff race and ethnicityBlackHispanicWhite

4.02.4

93.3

52.03.0

45.0

0.00.0

100.0Student race and ethnicity

BlackHispanicAmerican IndianAsian- AmericanWhite

13.511.80.32.4

72.0

90.09.00.00.01.0

1.02.00.02.0

95.0Students qualifying for free or

reduced-price meals 29.0 80.0 1.0Connecticut Mastery Test, Grade 4, met state goal for

ReadingWritingMathematicsAll three tests

47.746.359.328.3

3.010.010.00.0

80.060.090.050.0

Source: Connecticut State Department of Education 1995-1996 Strategic School Profiles.'Values are expressed as percentages.2Approximate values.

II. PEDAGOGY: OBSERVATIONS FROM VERONICAFRANKLIN'S CLASSROOM

In the discussion that follows I contrast three broad patterns in pedagogicpractice at the North End Community School and Fair View Elementary. Ifocus on approaches to discipline, definitions of school knowledge, and mes-sages about individual responsibility.

"Classroom Management"

The emphasis on discipline and obedience to authority at the North EndCommunity School is, if not completely surprising to an observer familiar withethnographic accounts of the schooling of the poor and the working class, none-theless striking. From the moment Franklin's fourth-graders enter the schoolbuilding in the morning until the moment they line up to leave for home in theafternoon, they are monitored and barraged with a series of reprimands andpunishments for rule violations. Almost without exception, rules at this school


are made and enforced by authorities (the principal, the teachers, and other staffmembers), and students are required to obey without questioning. When adultspresent rules to children or admonish them for failure to obey, they almostnever make reference to any purpose rules serve, or any reason for students toobey beyond the avoidance of punishment or the procurement of rewards. Thefollowing excerpt from my field notes describes a typical incident of disciplineat North End:

As the students are seated [in the cafeteria] they talk to each other excitedly, creatinga high-pitched noise. Then [school disciplinarian] Reverend Johnson enters. "Handsup in the air! Put your hands up!" he says several times, loudly. He calls individualstudents by name, instructing them to put their hands in the air. Johnson announcesthat the children will not eat lunch if they do not obey him.

Disciplinary practice at North End contrasts sharply with that in Segal'sclassroom and at Fair View Elementary generally, where penalties and publicreprimands are rare and students are actively engaged in both creating andenforcing rules. Teachers frequently explain how particular rules promote stu-dents' interests in creating an environment conducive to learning. Again, anexcerpt from my field notes describes a typical incident of discipline:

Mark, returning from using the computer in another classroom, stops suddenly andannounces that he "accidentally printed in another teacher's classroom." Segal repliesthat Mark has broken "a very giant rule, because he interrupted someone else's teach-ing." She tells him to write a note apologizing to the teacher in whose classroom heprinted his work. . . . When Mark returns from delivering his note, Segal explains tothe class that students should print their work in their own classroom, so that thesound of the printer does not disrupt another class's lesson.

School Knowledge

At North End, knowledge consists of bits of factual information (such asmathematical symbols and concepts) and the rules that order facts and governtheir use (such as procedures for performing mathematical operations). Theteacher functions as the keeper of knowledge: She alone controls access to itand judges whether children have acquired the facts and learned the rules shetransmits. Consider the following exchange between Franklin and Tesha, afterTesha laughs at a classmate who made a mistake when instructed to count aloudby 10s:

Franklin turns to Tesha and tells her to count by 20s. Tesha grins but says nothing."See, you can't do it," the teacher announces. Tesha says, "No, I just don't want to."Franklin replies, "If you don't show me, you can't."


The above exchange illustrates not only North End teachers' self-definition asthe sole legitimate judges of student knowledgeability, but also a central ele-ment in their understanding of the proper attitude of the learner. Franklin ob-jects to Tesha's claim that she can count by 20s, but chooses not to, because inrefusing to demonstrate her knowledge as required by the teacher, Tesha out-steps her role as a student. At North End, the good student not only acquiresknowledge, she also demonstrates knowledgeability in the ways her teacherrequires. Franklin, like others at North End, demands an intellectual obediencethat parallels the obedience she requires to rules of conduct. She praises andrewards students who absorb information and demonstrate their knowledge-ability in ways she requires, and she corrects and punishes those who demon-strate ignorance, make statements unrelated to the lesson, or attempt to initiateinquiries that, although germane, she herself has not introduced. An additionalparallel between pedagogical and disciplinary practice is the near-total absenceof discussion of why students should learn specific facts or skills. Not onceduring the course of the school year did I observe Franklin encourage studentsto discuss or to reflect upon the purposes her assignments served. Only rarelydid she offer reasons for completing schoolwork, and these focused exclusivelyon "getting it right," winning rewards (such as good grades), and avoidingpunishment.

At Fair View, by contrast, Segal, like most of her colleagues, actively en-gages students as knowledgeable and competent participants in school learning.Several times a week, for example, her fourth-graders work independently tocompose original stories, meet with classmates who make suggestions for revi-sion, revise their writing, and only then "edit" with an adult. Here learning isdefined in terms not of not mastering facts and rules, but of analyzing conceptsand statements and devising problem-solving strategies. Segal rewards withpraise and positive attention students who pose original questions or demon-strate independent or rigorous analytic thinking. Her pedagogy further departsfrom Franklin's, in that she makes clear to students the purposes school activ-ities and assignments serve. In classroom discussions, she explains the purposeof schoolwork as developing skills and competencies conductive to effectivelearning and as attaining extrinsic ends, in particular, future academic and pro-fessional success.

The Responsible Student

"Responsibility" is a central theme in Franklin's classroom, where thisteacher communicates to her students three interrelated, yet analytically distinct,messages about individual responsibility. First, she stresses in classroom les-sons, and in group and one-on-one discussions, that responsibility is a desirablepersonal characteristic. The responsible student fulfills the obligations associ-


ated with being a student; she acknowledges, accepts, and consistently acts tofulfill her teacher's requirements and expectations.

The second message is that responsibility is a natural fact. By virtue of hercharacter, talents, and capacities, combined with the choices she makes abouthow to use them, Franklin teaches her students, the individual child is the au-thor of her future, responsible for the outcomes her actions cause. In a typicalexchange, Franklin attributes academic failures to students' unwillingness towork to develop their intellectual talents and capacities. "You know what reallybothers me?" she scolds her class. "You people don't want to learn. You havethe ability, but," and at this point the students, familiar with their teacher'scomplaint, chime in, "you don't use it." Students are responsible for the nega-tive consequences of their actions. They are capable of meeting their goals andfulfilling their aspirations, if only they make the appropriate choices.

The third message about responsibility Franklin communicates to her stu-dents is that they should "take responsibility," in the sense of blame for per-sonal shortcomings and failures. In order to correct one's deficiencies andthereby improve one's future, one must own up to one's failures to meet expec-tations and fulfill obligations. Every day after she takes attendance, then, Frank-lin calls the names of her students, one by one, requiring each to state publiclywhether or not she completed her homework. If the answer is no, Franklin asks,"Why not?" Invariably she rejects as unacceptable the explanation the studentoffers. "No excuses, " she scolds one typical morning. "You are responsible."

In Segal's classroom, responsibility is, similarly, a central concern. But thisteacher tends to make the claim you are responsible in significantly differentcircumstances. Here responsibility is not a matter of accountability so much asself-sufficiency: to be responsible is to "take charge," to "do for oneself," to bevested with a sense of ownership in the process of working, as well as in whatone produces. Segal gives students the message you are responsible in contextsin which she also grants them a significant measure of control over their work,defines them as competent and knowledgeable classroom participants, and re-quires them to decide for themselves how to attain given ends. Responsiblecharacter and conduct are defined not as willing obedience and the ability tofulfill the expectations of others, so much as self-motivation and self-disciplinein the absence of direct supervision.

III. POWER: STUDENT RESPONSES TO THECLASSROOM EXPERIENCE

Below I outline patterns in student responses to the classroom experience atNorth End. Drawing on participant observation and student survey data, I sug-gest that pedagogic practice at the school shapes children's behaviors, attitudes,


values, and beliefs in ways that contribute to the reproduction and reinforce-ment of political, economic, and social hierarchies.

Making and Evaluating School Rules

Students at the North End Community School are not encouraged to, nor dothey tend to, deliberate about the ends school and classroom rules serve or thefit between those ends and the means employed to attain them. Even protestsagainst school regulations and discipline are restricted in patterned ways: Theycenter almost exclusively on the facts of individual cases of alleged wrongdoingand perceived lapses in the impartiality of the administration of punishment.Rarely, if ever, do they involve critical assessments of the content or effect ofrules with reference to desirable ends or a standard of reasonableness.

At Fair View Elementary, by contrast, students regularly take part in deliber-ating about and making rules. Throughout the year, I observed consistently highlevels of participation in class discussions about rule making. What is more,they participate with apparent ease. Meetings geared toward devising rules tendto proceed smoothly in Segal's classroom. For example, when a matter onwhich students disagree comes to a vote, almost without fail, winners and losersaccept the outcome with equanimity.

Further support for the hypothesis that student responses to disciplinarypractice vary systematically between the two schools can be adduced from writ-ten responses to questions about the purpose and fairness of rules, which Iposed to the universe of fourth- and fifth-graders at North End and fourth-graders at Fair View.4 The first question, "In school we have rules, like 'Don'trun in the hallway.' Why do you think we need rules?" was worded to suggestclear purposes for school rules: to prevent harm to students and promote theirsafety and well-being, and to promote order and prevent disorder in the school.At both schools the largest group of students answered with reference to harmor order. At North End, however, a significantly larger group, 38%, comparedwith 15% at Fair View, offered circular explanations of the purpose rules serve,for example, "So you can follow them"; explained their function in terms of thebad character of children, for example, "We need rulefs] because kids are badand they don't give respect"; or offered no explanation, for example, "I don'tknow why."

I followed this question with one asking students to evaluate the fairness ofrules at their school: "Are the rules at [North End/Fair View] fair? Why?" AtFair View the majority, 65%, answered with reference to students' well-being,for example, "I think the rules at Fair View are fair because they have to dowith our safety and us learning." At North End, more than half offered noexplanation or explained only with reference to trust in the judgment of authori-ties or the effectiveness of rules at producing conformity to a behavioral norm,


for example, "Yes, they are fair rules. To let you know that you have to followrules." North End students who offered no explanation for their judgment oranswered with reference only to trust in authorities or the effectiveness of rulesat producing conformity were, disproportionately, students who accepted rulesas fair. At Fair View, by contrast, where only 26% fell into this category, theytended to judge rules to be unfair, for example, because they did not trust in thejudgment of authorities: "Most of them. [Some are not fair] because sometimesyou have to do exactly what the teacher says but I think I do better doing thingsmy way." At North End, almost half of the students who judged rules unfairexplained with reference to the inconsistent enforcement of discipline, for ex-ample, "No because if one person talking to the other person and the teachergets one of the persons and the other one do not get in trouble that's not fair."Only 20%, compared with 65% at Fair View, made reference to student well-being in response to this question. Only 5%, compared with 18% at Fair View,referred to a standard of reasonableness. (For a breakdown of student responsesto questions about school rules, see Table 2.)

Clearly, the above is not a causal argument; limits to my data prevent mefrom advancing one. It seems likely, for example, that a range of extraschoolfactors excluded from my study, such as disciplinary practice in families, con-tributes to systematic differences in student attitudes toward rules and authorityat North End and Fair View. Yet it is a plausible hypothesis that patterneddifferences in pedagogic practice contribute to the differential development ofattitudes, beliefs, values, and competencies needed for effective participation inmaking and critically evaluating collective rules and norms.

Learning and Working

Like her strategies for classroom management, Franklin's teaching tech-niques fail to generate perfect student compliance. Instead, her fourth-gradersexhibit a range of responses, from near-total embrace of the role of the learneras their teacher defines it to occasional outright refusals to comply with herdemands. Most of the time, the majority of Franklin's students fall betweenthese extremes, practicing less directly confrontational forms of resistance, suchas performing assigned tasks incompletely or with deliberate carelessness. Con-sider Jaclyn's reaction to the frustration she experiences while trying to com-plete a science assignment, described in the following excerpt from my fieldnotes:

Jaclyn, working on a science worksheet, asks me to check it for her several times.Each time, she has almost all of the answers wrong. She says, "How can I get thisright?" and then writes on the top of her paper, "I hate science."


TABLE 2.Beliefs About School Rules'

North End(n = 55)

Fair View(n = 78)

"In school we have rules like, 'Don't run in the hallway.' Why do you think we needrules?"

Prevents disorder/ensures orderExplicit reference to fostering environment conducive

to learningPrevents harm/ensures well-beingNo explanation or circular explanationExplanation with reference to bad conduct and

character of children

18.2

0.043.627.3

10.9

30.8

10.356.412.8

2.6

"Are the rules at [North End/Fair View] fair? Why?"Answers with reference to well-being of studentsSpecific reference to freedom — the rules leave

enough unregulatedReference to a standard of reasonableness — the

rules provide appropriate means to reachingdesirable ends

No explanationTrust in the judgment of authoritiesInduces conformity to a behavioral or attitudinal

normAnswers with reference to decision-making

processesAnswers with reference to enforcement

Yes

14.5

0.0

1.823.67.3

11.0

1.811.0

No

5.5

0.0

3.67.33.6

0.0

0.014.5

Yes

55.1

10.3

9.06.40.0

2.6

3.83.8

No

10.3

0.0

9.015.4

1.3

0.0

0.00.0

Source: Survey of the universe of fifth-graders at the North End Community School and fourth-graders at the Fair View Elementary School.'Values are expressed as percentages. Values may total more than 100% because some responsesfall into more than one category.

Jaclyn's response is typical in that, although she defies her teacher by express-ing contempt for the knowledge she instructs her to acquire ("I hate science"),she accepts her implicit contention that the purpose of schoolwork is to "get [it]right." Student resistance to instruction at North End takes the form of (total orpartial) withdrawal from classroom activities, rejection of school knowledge asirrelevant, and refusal to perform assigned tasks. But even children who risk


punishment by openly defying their teacher stop short of contesting her judg-ments about what counts as valid knowledge and which purposes schoolworkserves.

By contrast, Segal's students tend to be actively engaged in classroom activ-ities. During lessons and class discussions, almost all are attentive almost all ofthe time, and there is a relatively high level of participation, even enthusiasm.Fair View students, further, demonstrate that they regard themselves as knowl-edgeable and competent participants in classroom learning, participants whoshould understand and, at times, question intellectual authority. For example,during a science lesson, when Segal states that black holes are extremely dense,Corey raises his hand and asks, "How do they know that?" Rather than accepthis teacher's authority or that of the text, this boy questions, and apparentlybelieves that he should understand, how scientific truths have been determined.

Differences in student responses to school learning are reflected, as well, inwritten answers to questions about its significance. The majority of fourth- andfifth-graders at North End answered the question "What is the most importantthing you learned this year?" by naming either a subject (for example, "Ilearned math") or an isolated fact or rule (for example, "I learned my time tablebecause I had only new [known] my 2 throw [through] my 4.") The secondmost common response was to name a rule of conduct, for example, "The mostimportant thing is to coroll [control] my altutude [attitude]." At Fair View, bycontrast, most named an integrated set of facts or cognitive, personal, or inter-personal skills, or an insight into the self or the social world, for example, "Themost important thing I learned this year is how to solve problems," or "Ilearned about analyising [analyzing] books." Only 31% named an academicsubject or an isolated fact or rule, compared with 60% at North End. And only4%, compared with 18% at North End, named a behavioral norm or rule ofconduct.

When asked to explain why what they named is important, the majority ofstudents at both schools made reference to utility: They suggested that whatthey identified as the most important thing they had learned was useful to themnow or would be useful in the future to attain some individual or collectivegood. At Fair View, however, a larger percentage named a specific use for whatthey learned, for example:

This most important thing I learned this year was to be neat and orgainized [orga-nized]. Neatness helps me because every thing is easyer [easier] if your [you're] neat.Because you'll be able to get things done quickly and well.

More than half of those who answered with reference to utility, or 32% of thetotal of Fair View fourth-graders, fell into this category. At North End, bycontrast, less than a third of those who answered with reference to utility, and


only 18% of all respondents, named a specific use. The majority simply statedthat what they had learned was useful or made reference to a general context inwhich it might become useful, for example, "The most important thing I learnis divison [division]. [It] is important because it's a lot of problem to do withit." What is more, at North End, 29%, compared with only 18% at Fair View,offered no explanation of the importance of what they had learned or explainedonly with reference to avoiding punishment, procuring rewards, or fulfillingrequirements determined by those in authority, for example, "Math & Reading.Because They are important that we do them." (For a breakdown of studentresponses to questions about school knowledge, see Table 3.)

My data suggest that Franklin's pedagogic practices encourage student re-sponses that range from near-perfect compliance to the outright rejection of

TABLE 3.Beliefs About School Knowledge1

"What is the most important thing you learned this year?"Isolated fact(s), rule(s), technique(s) or subject matter(s)Integrated set of facts or cognitive skillsRule of conductSocial or interpersonal skill(s)Personal trait(s)Truth(s) about the self or the social worldDoes not name most important thing learnedOn the grounds that everything learned in school is im-

portant

"Why is it important?"Utility — simply statesUtility — draws specific significanceSelf-improvementTo promote the well-being of others or the worldBecause it is true or morally rightBecause it is fun to learnTo avoid punishment, win rewards, or fulfill requirements

or expectationsNo explanation

North End(n = 55)

60.010.918.29.13.61.81.8

0.0

38.218.27.33.60.05.5

18.210.9

Fair View(n = 78)

30.838.53.8

11.510.310.37.8

6.4

26.932.1

5.17.75.16.4

10.37.7



school knowledge, refusal to complete assigned work, or withdrawal fromclassroom activities. They fail to encourage, and in some ways actively discour-age, the development of attitudes, values, and competencies needed for rela-tively autonomous professional work, such as self-motivation and self-disci-pline. The evidence suggests that Franklin's pedagogic practices may contributeto the reproduction of economic hierarchies, by shaping students' perceptionsof what knowledge is and why one acquires it in ways that foster habits, beliefs,attitudes, and behaviors—including forms of resistance—appropriate for low-status, low-paying work directed and controlled by others.

Being Responsible, Taking Responsibility

As might be expected, given that Franklin and others at North End givestudents few opportunities to "be responsible" and little incentive to "take re-sponsibility" (that is, given the constant and close supervision at the school andthe frequency of reprimand and punishment), the messages they communicateto students fail to produce conformity to standards of responsibility as account-ability. Rather than consistently "being responsible" to school authorities, themajority of Franklin's students resist fulfilling expectations when it seemslikely that they can do so with impunity. Pandemonium breaks out when theteacher steps out of the classroom to speak with another adult in the hall, forexample, and when a substitute takes her place few students complete even afraction of the assigned work. Nor do Franklin's students, generally, "take re-sponsibility" as their teacher exhorts them. Instead, they tend to deny allega-tions and lodge counteraccusations of fellow classmates when reprimanded forviolating school rules.

North End students do, however, exhibit three patterned responses to lessonsabout responsibility. First, when Franklin draws their attention to individualfailures to conform to behavioral and attitudinal requirements or to meetacademic expectations, they tend to join her in denouncing the deviant. Thusthey shout, with apparent enthusiasm, the name of the class "bad boy"—"Booker!"—on the many occasions when their teacher asks who they think hasfailed to meet a given requirement. This apparent devaluation of actors who failto conform to standards of responsibility extends, often, to intrasubjective judg-ments. Even Booker tends to be self-critical when he fails to fulfill require-ments and expectations. He announces, for example, in the wake of a minoracademic failure, that he is "dumb" and "stupid," and on more than one occa-sion he openly endorses Franklin's censure of his classroom conduct.

Not only do Franklin's fourth-graders tend to accept her definition of dis-crepancies between the self and the responsible student as deficiencies, but theyalso identify these as the source of a host of difficulties ranging from immedi-ate inconveniences to more significant and long-term problems. In the view


TABLE 4.What North End and Fair View Students Would Change About School1

North End(n = 55)

Fair View(» = 78)

"If you could change one thing about [North End/Fair View] or your classroom, whatwould you change? Why?"

Student conduct or attitudesPhysical plant/maintenance/resourcesRules, organization of classroom and school dayLess work or more trips or specialsTeachers, staff, administratorsPedagogical approachNothingDon't know or no answer

30.925.516.47.39.10.0

12.75.5

3.824.417.921.8

1.35.1

24.42.6

ource: S urvey of the universe of fifth-graders at the North End Community School and fourth-graders at the Fair View Elementary School.'Values are expressed as percentages. Values may total more than 100% because some responsesfall into more than one category.

of many North End students, the bad character, bad attitudes, and bad actionsof children at the school are the cause of its most pressing problems: its lack ofphysical safety, for example, and its poor academic standing. In response to thequestions "If you could change one thing about [North End/Fair View] or yourclassroom, what would you change? Why?" almost a third at North End, com-pared with only 4% at Fair View, answered with reference to the "badness" ofstudents. For example, "I would change all the bad kids. If I don't they wouldstart trouble." (For a breakdown of student response to this question, see Table4.)

What is more, North End students tend to draw a strong causal connectionbetween, on the one hand, the degree to which the individual conforms to stan-dards of responsibility as accountability and, on the other, what the future holdsfor her. Their responses to the questions "What is a goal you have—somethingyou hope you'll do in the future? Do you think you'll reach your goal? Why?"departed from Fair View students' answers primarily in their emphasis on ac-countability as a means to fulfilling aspirations. Almost a quarter of North Endrespondents, compared with only 3% at Fair View, stated that they wouldachieve their goals because they met attitudinal and behavioral expectations andrequirements, for example, "My goal is beging [being] a hiar [hair] dresser,lawyer, nurse. Yes [I think I'll reach my goal]. Because I don't do bad thing."(For a breakdown of student response to this question, see Table 5.)

Lessons about responsibility at the North End School encourage students,


TABLE 5.Goals and Aspirations'

North End(n = 55)

Fair View(n = 78)

"What is a goal you have — something you hope you'll do in the future? Do you thinkyou'll reach your goal? Why?"

Agency/effort aloneAccountabilityPersonal talent, characteristic, desirePractice or other specific steps takenEvidence from current performance and/

or past achievementBecause of factors external to me (e.g.,

personal contacts, luck)No answer or no reason

Yes12.722.130.916.4

3.6

5.55.5

Maybe or no0.00.01.80.0

0.0

1.83.6

Yes21.82.6

25.69.0

16.7

2.62.6

Maybe or no1.30.05.10.0

0.0

6.49.0


first, to view failures to measure up to standards of responsibility as deficien-cies that are the source of a range of personal disappointments and social prob-lems, and second, to define self- and social respect in terms of accountability.They help deflect criticism from structural sources of inequalities to individualfailures to measure up to standards set by those in positions of authority. Andthey reinforce social hierarchies of status based on respect, by teaching studentsthat success and recognition are accorded to those who have good character andmake good choices.

IV. PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES: THE TERRAIN OFPEDAGOGIC CHOICE

Arguments by other ethnographers of schooling that are consistent with mine(for example, Anyon, 1980, 1981, 1997; Bowles and Gintis, 1976; Carnoy andLevin, 1985; Michelson, 1980) suggest that the patterns outlined above areneither anomalies nor simple artifacts of personality or teaching style. Why,then, do these patterns obtain? In the discussion that follows, I draw on partici-pant observation and interview data to make the case that Franklin and hercolleagues made pedagogic choices that may disempower their students in thelarger democratic public sphere, in the capitalist workplace, and in dominantsocial networks, in part because they reasonably perceived these choices as


empowering in the local context of what some teachers at the school term "theenvironment."

"The Environment"

Teachers at North End used this phrase, "the environment," as shorthand forthe local effects of what is, by now, a familiar story to students of Americanurban politics. In the city in which North End is located, as in many olderAmerican cities, the postwar shift from an economy based primarily on manu-facturing to one centered on service sector jobs polarized the occupationalstructure, producing at once high-paying managerial and professional jobs and aproliferation of clerical and low-paying, low-status service jobs. This polariza-tion mapped onto 20th-century demographic shifts, themselves driven by publicdecisions. The incorporation of suburban municipalities with restrictive zoningregulations, the architectural construction and geographic location of publichousing projects, and tax policies favoring homeowners over renters, in thecontext of a history of instititutionalized racial discrimination in housing andlending, helped fuel the exodus to the suburbs of the white middle and workingclasses, while confining in declining urban cores southern black and Latinomigrants. Hence the disproportionately adverse effect of the shift to a servicesector economy, and of the growing mobility of capital, on residents of oldercentral cities (Fainstein, 1995; Feagin, 1994; Jackson, 1985; Massey andDemon, 1993; Squires, 1994).

Consider census data from the North End neighborhood.5 Here a relativelysmall proportion of working people hold managerial or professional jobs: about17%, compared with 31.5% for the state of Connecticut as a whole, and about55% for the Fair View tracts. Workers are disproportionately concentrated intechnical, clerical, sales, and nonprofessional, nonmanagerial service jobs;roughly 55% of employed persons hold such jobs, compared with the statewide44.7% and about 38% in the Fair View tracts. The unemployment rate is about8%, although it is only 5.4% statewide and about 2% in the Fair View tracts.Labor force participation rates are lower in the North End than in Fair View andthe state as a whole. Median family income, median household income, and percapita income are each less than half the state average and less than one-quarterthe Fair View average. The poverty rate of about 28% is roughly four times therate for the state and eight times the Fair View rate. Significantly fewer resi-dents of the North End tracts have high school and bachelor's degrees than doresidents of the state and the Fair View tracts. The tracts are roughly 90%black, although only 8.3% of Connecticut's residents, and less than 1% of resi-dents of the Fair View tracts, are African-American. (For a comparison of occu-pational structure, unemployment, labor force participation, income, povertystatus, educational attainment, and racial and ethnic composition, see Table 6.)


TABLE 6.Socioeconomic Characteristics of North End and Fair View in

Comparative Perspective

Connecticut North End2 Fair View2

Occupation of employed persons 16 years and over'Managerial/professionalTechnical/sales/clericalService occupationsAgriculturePrecision production/craft/repairOperators/fabricators/laborers

31.533.211.5

1.211.211.5

17.028.027.0

<1.010.019.0

55.032.06.0

<1.03.03.0

Unemployment and labor force participation of persons 16 years and over1

UnemployedLabor force participation

5.469.0

8.063.0

2.068.0

Income and poverty statusMedian family incomeMedian household incomePer capita incomePersons below poverty level1

Families below poverty level'

$49,199$41,721$20,189

6.85.0

$22,500$18,000$10,000

28.026.0

$95,000$83,500$45,500

3.51.5

Education of persons over 25 years'High school graduateCollege graduate

79.227.2

57.510.0

94.061.0

Race and Hispanic origin'WhiteBlackHispanic

87.18.36.2

7.090.04.0

96.0<1.0

2.0

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (1990).'Values are expressed as percentages.2Approximate values for census tracts which roughly define school neighborhoods.

To understand the impact these economic and demographic changes have onthe North End Community School, one must consider them in the context of theAmerican tradition of local control over public schooling and the constitutionalinterpretation of the role of states in providing education. The U.S. Constitutionimplicitly grants authority over education to state governments, but a strongtradition of local control extends back through the common school movementof the mid-19th century to predate the republic itself. By the time of the Ameri-can Civil War, the majority of American states had established public schoolsystems, which were largely funded and administered by local towns. When,during the progressive education movement of the late 19th and early 20thcenturies, these were centralized, bureaucratized, and professionalized, the re-


suit was the contemporary institutional framework for American public educa-tion: a system of state-governed local school districts funded in large part bylocal property taxes.

A series of twentieth century constitutional decisions established the limitsof what states must do, and what they may do, in providing schooling: theSupreme Court ruled that the due process clause of the 14th Amendment pro-tects the right of families to opt out of the public education system by sendingtheir children to religious or nonreligious private schools (Pierce v. Society ofSisters, 1925). It ruled that, although de jure racial segregation is unconstitu-tional (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954), de facto racial segrega-tion is not (Keyes v. Denver School District, 1972), and that desegregation ef-forts may not exceed the boundaries of a segregated district, absent proof thatthe cause of segregation was action by another district or by the state (Millikenv. Bradley, 1974). The Court ruled as well that there is no state duty to equalizeeducational resources among school districts, even when the structure of localfinance, in the face of sizable fiscal inequalities between cities and suburbs,results in gross inequalities in educational spending (San Antonio IndependentSchool District v. Rodriguez, 1973).

Even in those cases in which state supreme court rulings held legislatures torelatively activist roles in equalizing educational opportunity and reducing ra-cial and ethnic isolation, the basic system of socioeconomic segregation thatresulted from the mapping of 20th-century economic and demographic shiftsonto 19th-century institutional arrangements remained intact. Most states with"foundation" or "equalizing-formula" programs failed to eliminate funding dis-parities, much less to raise spending levels in cities to meet greater student needthere, because wealthy districts continued to fund schools at a relatively highlevel based on property tax revenues. Nor were progressive financing formulassufficient to halt or to reverse the growing concentration of poverty, poverty-related social problems, and low academic achievement in predominantly mi-nority urban schools. In Connecticut, for example, in 1977 the state supremecourt ruled the local property-tax-based school finance system unconstitutional,on the grounds that it denied children from poor districts educational oppor-tunity equal to that available to children from wealthy districts (Horton v. Mes-kill, 1977). In 1996, the court further ruled that de facto racial and ethnic seg-regation in public schools violates the state constitution (Sheffv. O'Neill, 1996).Yet the state maintained its 1909 definition of school district boundaries alongmunicipal lines (Connecticut General Statutes, Sections 10-240) and its legalrequirement that children attend schools in the districts in which they live (Con-necticut General Statutes, Sections 10-184).

Parents with financial resources, and especially white parents with financialresources, can relocate out of cities and send their children to public schools inthe suburbs, which are inaccessible to the children of the poor as well as to


many working-class and middle-class African-Americans. They can move torelatively affluent city neighborhoods and send their children to local publicschools there. They can exit the public school system altogether, by sendingtheir children to private schools. Children of the urban poor, by contrast, and inparticular blacks, Latinos, and others constructed as nonwhite are required bylaw to attend the only educational institutions available to them: physicallydeteriorated and financially strapped urban public schools. Socioeconomic seg-regation relegates them to schools in which faculty as well as students areconfronted with a range of social problems statistically associated with concen-trated urban poverty. Although data are not available on the census tract orindividual school level, my research suggests—and city-, state-, and national-level data support this inference—that the North End school and the surround-ing neighborhood are the sites of a range of social problems statistically associ-ated with concentrated urban poverty. These include public health problems,such as high rates of HIV and AIDS infection;6 relatively high rates of crime,including violent crime;7 and high rates of victimization,8 arrest, and incarcera-tion.9

"The environment," then, means, to North End teachers, low family in-comes, high rates of unemployment, and low educational attainment. It means,as well, social problems associated with concentrated urban poverty, includingpublic health problems such as high rates of HIV infection, teen pregnancy andsingle parenthood, and high rates of violent crime, victimization, and incarcera-tion. In the sections that follow, I suggest that "the environment"—althoughitself the product of and amenable to change by human action—plays an impor-tant role in constraining pedagogic choice at the North End School. By present-ing teachers with problems not encountered at Fair View, and with a restrictedrange of possibilities for responding to these problems, "the environment"shapes pedagogic practice in ways that help reproduce political, economic, andsocial hierarchies.

Problems

Every Fair View Elementary classroom teacher I interviewed named as herprincipal pedagogic goal or goals enabling students to succeed academically inthe short and long term (78%), teaching children to enjoy learning (56%), and/or helping them to become independent learners (44%).10.11 "School success" isthe central theme in these teachers' reflections on their pedagogic respon-sibilities. Fourth-grade teacher Risa Hanson is typical:

[My principal goal is] preparing [my students] for middle school and trying to getthem to ... be self-reliant and to become independent learners. I think it's your job asan educator ... to teach them that learning is fun.


How to help students succeed academically was a frequent topic, as well, inFair View teachers' conversations with each other, for example, over lunch inthe faculty room. Challenges they identified in their classrooms were, withoutexception, perceived as obstacles to enabling students to succeed academically,in particular, time constraints and the demands made by Fair View parents,whom some characterized as intrusive and insufficiently respectful of teachersas professionals."

At the North End Community School, by contrast, 90% of the classroomteachers interviewed defined the greatest challenges they faced in the classroomin terms of problems posed by "the environment": social problems associatedwith concentrated urban poverty (30%); insufficient parental support, viewed asthe product of these larger social problems (40%); and/or the perceived localhegemony of what some termed "street values," that is, students' propensity toengage in activities devalued and punished by dominant social institutions(50%). In conversations with each other, and in the interviews I conducted,North End teachers suggested that, absent their intervention, many studentswould fall prey to dangers posed by "the environment." They offered as evi-dence stories about former students who had become parents before finishingmiddle school, students who had dropped out of school, former students whowere incarcerated, former students who had been murdered. And they pointedto children "on the street" while still in elementary school. Reverend Johnson,for example, told me that some North End students "[ran] drugs [for localdealers] from first [grade] up." By North End teachers' accounts, problemsposed by "the environment" are significant not only because they interfere withacademic achievement, but also because they present serious threats to chil-dren's well-being.

Possibilities

Many North End teachers framed their reflections on problems they faced inthe classroom with reference to structural sources of inequality. Franklin, forexample, explaining that some North End students work for drug dealers andthat some are "in serious trouble" by the time they reach sixth grade, suggestedthat the root of the problem is "the environment." For kindergarten teacherSusan Miller, the cause of her students' most pressing problems is "the distract-ing social environment." For special education teacher Marilyn Winters, it is "asocioeconomic difference" separating them from middle-class children. Socialpower, these teachers' comments suggest, shapes Franklin's pedagogy by defin-ing the immediate problems she needs to address. It does so, as well, by limit-ing what she might reasonably hope to accomplish in responding to these prob-lems.

Veronica Franklin and her colleagues at North End described to me a two-


pronged pedagogic response to problems posed by "the environment." First,because they judge that most of their students are already exposed to seriousrisks and dangers, they aim to help children manage "the environment" byteaching what some term "survival skills," that is, basic competencies that en-able children in North End to survive day to day. "Survival skills" includeknowing how to prepare food for oneself when left home alone and being ableto read supermarket circulars, compare prices, and count change. They include,as well, the capacity, in Reverend Johnson's words, "to grasp right from wrong"and the disposition "to do right" and thereby to avoid potentially serious risks.Franklin, then, in the conversation to which I alluded above, after articulatingher concern about a life-threatening danger her fourth-graders face in the formof the temptation of jobs working as lookouts for drug dealers, comments onthe importance of teaching the children in her charge that "there is a right wayto do things." Teaching students to "grasp right from wrong" is not, for adultsat North End, principally a matter of helping them develop the capacity tocritically evaluate rules. Rather, it is the more urgent matter of getting them inthe habit of obeying school authorities, in order to provide short-term protectionagainst harm.

North End teachers do not believe, however, that "survival skills" will en-able students to thrive in "the environment" in the long run. Simultaneously,then, they aim to steer children away from "the environment" by enabling andinspiring them to thrive in the workplace and the academic institutions thatregulate access to it. Many emphasized the importance of clarifying for studentsthe content of dominant norms. Johnson explained succinctly, "In order to dealwith society, you got to know what society's calling for." They stressed, inparticular, the importance of teaching respect for property rights and teachingchildren to conform to social norms in peer interaction. And they emphasizedthe need to motivate children by convincing them that success is rewarded tothose who hold high aspirations and work to realize them. According to fifth-grade teacher Yvette Smith, "It's very important that I try to teach them aboutlife ... to start setting some goals. . . . And believe that you can becomeanything you want to become."

Of the North End teachers I interviewed, 90% named as their principal ped-agogic goals teaching "survival skills" (60%) and/or teaching children to be-lieve that individual choice is decisive in determining one's future (30%). Onlyhalf made any mention at all of academic skills or success, and only oneteacher at the school (or 10%, compared with all respondents at Fair View)defined her pedagogic goals exclusively in terms of academic success.

Interview and participant-observation data suggest that North End teachersdo not themselves believe that the only, or even the most important, factordetermining whether students "become [what they] want to become" is whetherthey follow rules and make judicious choices. Thus Smith announced, over


lunch in the faculty room, that adults at North End need frequently to remindthemselves that "what goes on at this school is not the fault of the students."Her comment elicited expressions of agreement from Franklin, as well as theother teachers present. Nonetheless, Smith, Franklin, and many of their col-leagues regard as a critical part of their job teaching North End students that"there is a right way to do things" and that this "right way" offers, to all whochoose it, unlimited opportunities, possibilities, and rewards.

V. CONCLUSION

Intensive participant observation enabled me to catalog patterns of interac-tion at North End and Fair View that, based on discrepancies between teachers'accounts of their pedagogic practices and what I observed in their classrooms, Ibelieve I would not have captured had I relied solely on the "official stories"available from interviews and surveys. But the depth of my method limits itsbreadth, leaving open the question of whether my observations are generaliz-able to other urban schools. The extent to which the pedagogic patterns docu-mented above obtain in public schools in other core urban neighborhoods is animportant question for further research.

Yet the basic hypothesis my data suggest—namely, that so-called authori-tarian pedagogic practices may be, at least in part, reasoned responses to highlyconstrained pedagogic environments—has implications for the critical analysisof the role power plays in schooling. Some critical educational theorists empha-size changing pedagogic choice as a means of changing power relations inschools. They exhort teachers to politicize the social production of knowledgeand subjectivity by decentering authority in the classroom (Giroux and Simon,1989; Aronowitz and Giroux, 1991; Giroux and McLaren, 1991); to help stu-dents develop the emancipatory elements of their oppositional practices(Giroux, 1983); and to take on the role of "transformative intellectuals," helpingstudents think critically about social injustices and providing them with "hope-ful images" (Simon, 1992) and a "language of possibility" (Giroux, 1986, 1990)that promote emancipatory struggles. Asking the "why" question, however, pro-duces an analysis that points to limits to what might be accomplished wereFranklin or some other "transformative intellectual" to "politicize the pedagogi-cal" (Giroux, 1988b) at North End. Changing pedagogic choice, by itself,would do little to ameliorate the problems associated with concentrated urbanpoverty and racial discrimination that define "the environment."

In emphasizing pedagogic choice, too many critical theorists of schoolingleave debates about institution-level school reform to those who ask the "what"and the "how many" questions that dominate social scientific research on edu-cation. If pedagogic patterns that trouble students of power relations in schoolsare themselves linked to educational and other institutional arrangements, then


those concerned with how power shapes pedagogy need to study the effects ofand engage in public debates about specific institutional reforms.

Although the analysis above does not yield clear policy recommendations, itdoes suggest that changing power relations in schools requires not only attempt-ing to influence local pedagogic practices, but also reshaping educational andother public institutions. That is, those who would inform strategies for chang-ing schooling in emancipatory ways should engage in research and debatesabout both educational and urban economic and political institutional design.Examples of educational institutional change include those instituted in Chicagoas a result of the Chicago School Reform Act of 1998; the recent charter schoolreforms in Philadelphia (see Fine, 1994); and the wide variety of "schoolchoice" plans currently in place or under consideration in particular U.S. statesand school districts. Students of critical pedagogy should investigate whetherand how these institutional designs affect relations among teachers, students,and other actors in schools. If "the environment" or an analogous set of con-straints defines salient problems for adults in Chicago, Philadelphia, or sites ofurban choice plans, do these forms of restructuring enable them to devise strate-gies that depart significantly from the authoritarian practices at North End?Students of urban schooling should ask, as well, how restructuring noneduca-tional public institutions, such as municipal zoning laws or federal tax andhousing policies, can help challenge the reproduction of social hierarchies inspecific educational contexts.

NOTES

1. For overviews of the critical educational theory literature, see Giroux and McLaren (1991) andAronowitz and Giroux (1993, Chap. 4).

2. The names of schools, students, and faculty and staff members are pseudonyms. As a conditionfor access to the classrooms I studied, I agreed not to disclose these identities.

3. That is, they prescribe and enforce rules, which they require children to obey unquestioningly. Iplace authoritarian in quotation marks to distance myself from the label's implicit claim thatsuch disciplinary approaches constrain and punish, while so-called progressive approaches,emphasizing self-regulation and self-control, do not. See Delpit (1988).

4. I questioned 133 students total: 55 at the North End Community School and 78 at Fair ViewElementary. Fair View ends at fourth grade.

5. Although census tracts do not map exactly onto either neighborhood definitions or schoolassignments, I estimate data for the North End neighborhood by averaging data from the tractin which the North End Community School is located and an adjacent tract that is close to theschool and similar in its demographic characteristics.

6. The year before I conducted my research, a second-grader at North End died of AIDS. InVeronica Franklin's classroom alone, two students' parents had recently died of AIDS. Al-though AIDS infection data are not available at the neighborhood or school level, AIDS casesreported in Connecticut are disproportionately concentrated in urban areas—including the cityin which the North End School and neighborhood are located—and, within cities, among racialand ethnic minorities. Thus, although only 3.04 cases of AIDS per 1,000 persons were reported


in the state from 1981 through June 1998, 6.10, 15.24, and 14.11 cases per 1,000 persons werereported in Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven, respectively. AIDS cases are even moredisproportionately concentrated among African-Americans in Connecticut's cities. There are12.00, 17.40, and 24.61 known cases of AIDS per 1,000 African-Americans in Bridgeport,Hartford, and New Haven, respectively. (Source: State of Connecticut, Department of PublicHealth, AIDS Epidemiology Program).

7. The FBI, in its Uniform Crime Reports, codes as violent crimes homicide, rape, robbery, andaggravated assault. In Veronica Franklin's classroom alone, one child's parent had been mur-dered, and at least one child had been raped. Violent crime data are not available on the censustract or school level. However, rates of violent crime are significantly higher in each of Con-necticut's major cities—including the city in which North End is located—than in the state as awhole. Homicide rates from 1993 to 1996 average only 5.58 per 100,000 persons for the stateas a whole, but 34.57, 26.58, and 19.89 for Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven, respectively.Rape rates average 23.95 per 100,000 persons for the state, but 44.04, 78.62, and 92.40 forBridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven. Robbery rates average 179.33 per 100,000 persons forConnecticut, but 794.04, 1005.73, and 933.51 for Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven. Andaggravated assault rates average 223.55 for the state, but 626.91, 970.33, and 1014.94 forBridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven (U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investi-gation, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997).

8. Victimization data, published by the U.S. Department of Justice, are based on surveys, ratherthan police reports, and therefore are believed to provide a more accurate estimate of victimiza-tion rates for crimes that tend to be underreported, such as rape. Victimization data show,consistently, that urban residents and African-Americans are, disproportionately, the victims ofviolent crimes. From 1987 to 1992, for instance, urban residents were on average 58% morelikely to be victims of violent crime than were suburban residents, and African-Americans were47% more likely to be victims of violent crime than were whites (U.S. Department of Justice,1994).

9. On many occasions throughout the year that I studied the North End Community School,teachers discussed former students, and parents of current students, who were incarcerated.Although incarceration data are not available at the census tract or individual school level, ratesin each of Connecticut's major cities—including the city in which North End is located—aremore than three times the rate for the state as a whole. In July 1998, the Connecticut Depart-ment of Corrections confined 2,115, 2,637, and 2,301 men and women from Bridgeport, Hart-ford, and New Haven, respectively, or 1,533, 1,981, and 1,247 persons per 100,000 1996 popu-lation, compared with 15,909 persons, or only 486 per 100,000 1996 population, for the state asa whole. In other words, although Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven's total populationsmade up only 12% of the state's, 44% of state prisoners were from these three cities (Connecti-cut Department of Corrections; Gaquin and Litman, 1998, p. 858). Participant observation andinterview data suggesting high rates of incarceration in the predominantly black North Endneighborhood are supported, further, by the disproportionately large number of African-Ameri-cans in Connecticut state prisons. In 1994, black persons in Connecticut's state prisons wereincarcerated at more than 17 times the rate of white persons: 2,250 per 100,000 population,compared with 130 per 100,000 whites (U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statis-tics, 1996).

10. At both schools, I requested interviews of all administrators and classroom teachers (not includ-ing gym, music, and other "specials" teachers) and interviewed all who were willing to grantinterviews, a total of 12 out of 16 at North End School and 10 out of 26 at Fair View.

11. These answers were given in response to the questions "How would you describe your respon-sibilities as a teacher? What are your major pedagogic and professional goals?"


12. Teachers named these problems in response to the question "What are the greatest challengesof your job?"

REFERENCES

Anyon, Jean (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Education 162 (1):67-92.

Anyon, Jean (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry 11: 3-42.Anyon, Jean (1997). Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform. New

York and London: Teachers College Press.Apple, Michael (1971). The hidden curriculum and the nature of conflict. Interchange 2: 27-

40.Apple, Michael (1979). Ideology and Curriculum. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Apple, Michael (1982). Education and Power. London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Apple, Michael (1986). Teachers and Texts. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Aronowitz, Stanley, and Giroux, Henry (1991). Postmodern Education: Politics, Culture, and So-

cial Criticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Aronowitz, Stanley, and Giroux, Henry (1993). Education Still Under Siege, 2nd ed. Westport, CT:

Bergin & Garvey.Bourdieu, Pierre (1976). The school as a conservative force: Scholastic and cultural inequalities. In

Roger Dale, Geoff Esland, and Madeleine MacDonald, eds., Schooling and Capital: A Sociologi-cal Reader, pp. 110-117. London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Bowles, Samuel, and Gintis, Herbert (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reformand the Contradictions of Economic Life. New York: Basic Books.

Brown v. Board of Education ofTopeka (1954). 347 U.S. 483.Carnoy, Martin, and Levin, Henry (1976). The Limits of Educational Reform. New York: McKay.Carnoy, Martin, and Levin, Henry (1985). Schooling and Work in the Democratic State. Stanford,

CA: Stanford University Press.Coleman, James, et al. (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington, DC: U.S. Govern-

ment Printing Offices.Delpit, Lisa (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people's chil-

dren. Harvard Educational Review 58(3): 280-298.Fainstein, Norman (1995). Black ghettoization and social mobility. In Michael Peter Smith and Joe

R. Feagin, eds., The Bubbling Cauldron: Race, Ethnicity, and the Urban Crisis. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press.

Feagin, Joe (1994). A house is not a home: White racism and U.S. housing practices. In RobertBullard, J. Eugene Grigsby III, and Charles Lee, eds., Residential Apartheid: TheAmerican Leg-acy. Los Angeles: CAAS Publications.

Fine, Michelle, ed. (1994). Chartering Urban School Reform: Reflections on Public High Schoolsin the Midst of Change. New York and London: Teachers College Press.

Gaquin, Deidre, and Littman, Mark S., eds. (1998). 1998 County and City Extra: Annual Metro,City, and County Data Book. Lanham, MD: Bernan Press.

Giroux, Henry (1981). Hegemony, resistance, and the paradox of educational reform. Interchange12: 3-26.

Giroux, Henry (1983). Theory and Resistance in Education. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.Giroux, Henry (1986). Authority, intellectuals, and the politics of practical learning. Teachers Col-

lege Record 88: 22-40.Giroux, Henry (1988a). Border pedagogy in the age of postmodernism. Journal of Education 170

(3): 166-181.


Giroux, Henry (1988b). Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life: Critical Pedagogy in the Mod-ern Age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Giroux, Henry (1990). Rethinking the boundaries of educational discourse: Modernism, postmoder-nism, and feminism. College Literature 17 (2/3): 5-50.

Giroux, Henry, and McLaren, Peter (1991). Radical pedagogy as cultural politics: Beyond the dis-course of critique and anti-Utopianism. In Donald Morton and Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, eds., Textsfor Change: Theory/Pedagogy/Politics, pp. 152-186. Urbana and Chicago: University of IllinoisPress.

Giroux, Henry, and Simon, Roger I. (1989). Popular Culture: Schooling and Everyday Life.Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Gutierrez, Kris, and McLaren, Peter (1995). Pedagogies of dissent and transformation: A dialogueabout postmodernity, social context, and the politics of literacy. In Barry Kanpol and PeterMcLaren, eds., Critical Multiculturalism: Uncommon Voices in a Common Struggle. Westport,CT, and London: Bergin & Garvey.

Horton v. Meskill (1977). 172 Conn. 615.Jackson, Kenneth. (1985). Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New

York: Oxford University Press.Keddie, Nell (1971). Classroom knowledge. In M. F. D. Young, ed., Knowledge and Control: New

Directions for the Sociology of Education, pp. 133-160. London: Collier-MacMillan.Keyes v. Denver School District (1972). 413 US 189.Levine, Daniel, and Lezotte, Laurence (1990). Unusually Effective Schools: A Review and Analysis

of Research and Practice. Madison, WI: National Center for Effective Schools Research andDevelopment.

Massey, Douglas, and Denton, Nancy (1993). American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making ofthe Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

McLaren, Peter (1985). The ritual dimensions of resistance: Clowning and symbolic inversion.Journal of Education 167 (2): 84-97.

McLaren, Peter (1989). Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations ofEducation. Toronto: Irwin.

McLaren, Peter (1995). Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture Opposilional Politics in a Post-modern Era. New York: Routledge.

Mickelson, Roslyn (1980). The secondary school's role in social stratification: A comparison ofBeverly Hills High School and Morningside High School. Journal of Education 162: 83-112.

Milliken v. Bradley (1974). 418 U.S. 717.Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925). 268 US 510.San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973). 411 U.S. I.Sheffv. O'Neill (1996). 238 Conn. 1.Simon, Roger (1992). Teaching Against the Grain: Texts for a Pedagogy of Possibility. New York:

Bergin & Garvey.Squires, Gregory (1994). Capital and Communities in Black and White: The Intersection of Race,

Class, and Uneven Development. Albany: State University of New York Press.U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (1994). Criminal Victimization in the United

States: 1973-1992 Trends. NCJ-147006. Washington, DC:U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (1994). Uniform Crime Reports for the

United States, 1993. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (1995). Uniform Crime Reports for the

United States, 1994. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (1996). Uniform Crime Reports for the

United States, 1995. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.


U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (1997). Uniform Crime Reports for theUnited States, 1996. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Young, M. F. D. (1971). An approach to the study of curricula as socially organized knowledge. InM. F. D. Young, ed., Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education,pp. 19-46. London: Collier-Macmillan.

The Environment”: Power, Pedagogy, and American Urban Schooling

Documents

Transcript of The Environment”: Power, Pedagogy, and American Urban Schooling