Jerusha Conner

Student Engagement in an Independent Research Project: The Influence of Cohort Culture

Student engagement is widely viewed as an important antecedent to learning and achievement; however, research finds that engagement declines sharply as students advance through school. Graduation projects and senior projects have been endorsed by practitioners and researchers for their rigor, content-area depth, and promise to engage students in advanced academic work. This study explores whether or not International Baccalaureates extended essay realizes this promise and whether its effectiveness as a vehicle for engaging students is influenced by school or programmatic factors. A phenomenon called “cohort culture” helps to explain differences in students’ engagement levels. Cohort culture refers to the attitudes, values, and practices that students in a particular group negotiate through interaction with one another and in reaction to the requirements and expectations placed on them by their institutional context. For the students in this study, it was not only the characteristics of the task, the expectations of their teachers, and the features of the program and school that promoted or impeded engagement; it was also their peers’ reactions and responses to the assignment. Teachers and administrators who are interested in promoting engagement should consider the ways in which they either reinforce or challenge a cohorts culture: examining the assumptions they make about certain cohorts or classes, how they communicate and convey these understandings to their students, and how these messages may in turn influence student attitudes and behaviors.

Nonacademic Effects of Homework in Privileged, High-Performing High Schools

This study used survey data to examine relations among homework, student well-being, and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper middle class communities. Results indicated that students in these schools average more than 3 hr of homework per night. Students who did more hours of homework experienced greater behavioral engagement in school but also more academic stress, physical health problems, and lack of balance in their lives. To better understand the role homework played as a stressor in students’ lives, the authors explored students’ qualitative descriptions of their experiences with homework. The discussion addresses how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement, and well-being.

Very Powerful Voices: The Influence of Youth Organizing on Educational Policy in Philadelphia

Nationally, youth organizing groups have been gaining traction in their push for education reform; however, little research has considered how policymakers view their efforts. This study examines how 30 civic leaders in one under-resourced urban school district perceive the influence of a youth organizing group on educational policy decision making over a 15 year period. Results indicate that the group is widely recognized for having accomplished significant policy changes at school and district levels, including influencing the policy process in four key ways: insisting on accountability, elevating the role of student voice, shaping the agenda, and asserting themselves as powerful political actors.

New Media and the Power of Youth Organizing: Minding the Gaps

As the gulfs between low-income and more affluent youth widen, researchers and practitioners continue to search for effective means of closing gaps in academic achievement, digital participation, and civic engagement. This article examines how youth organizing offers a bridge across these divides. We consider how one youth organizing group, The Philadelphia Student Union, integrated new media into its core functions and how the student members experience these tools. Drawing on extant research, we argue that when situated within an organizing framework, new media tools can help to promote the digital literacy, academic achievement, and civic engagement of low-income youth of color, who have otherwise limited opportunities to contribute to the civic life of their communities.

Lessons that Last: Former Youth Organizers' Reflections on What and How They Learned

This study examines the learning outcomes and learning environment of a youth organizing program that has been effective in promoting individual as well as social change. Drawing on interviews with 25 former youth organizers from the program, this study explores the lessons that stay with them as they transition to young adulthood and the factors they believe facilitated this lasting learning. Results show that the learning outcomes and the features of the learning environment that the participants identify reflect key tenets of Freirean critical pedagogy. As young adults, the participants indicate that they continue to draw on the critical thinking, introspection, communication, and interpersonal skills they developed as youth organizers, and they highlight the value of relevant content, an open atmosphere for discussion and debate, and peer education in promoting such durable learning. The relevance of critical pedagogy to the learning sciences is discussed.

Orchestrating Effective Change: How Youth Organizing Influences Education Policy

Although research demonstrating the effectiveness of youth organizing for educational reform has expanded rapidly in the last two decades, the field remains substantially undertheorized. This article outlines a theoretical framework, based on 30 interviews with leading figures in education reform, that illuminates how a youth organizing group has achieved significant influence in the Philadelphia School District. The framework identifies three broad dimensions of effective youth organizing work and highlights 11 sets of paired strategies that have been useful in building the group’s power and efficacy. The framework showcases the complexity and artistry of sustained, successful youth organizing.

Valuing but Not Liking School Revisiting the Relationship Between School Attitudes and Substance Use Among Urban Youth

Research has found strong linkages between adolescent substance use and attitudes toward school. Few studies of this relationship, however, consider the different dimensions of students’ school attitudes, separating perceptions of the importance of school from the quality of students’ affective experiences therein. Using a sample of 301 urban adolescents, evenly divided into substance users and nonusers, this study examines the relationships between these two dimensions of school attitudes and substance use. Findings highlight a subset of adolescent substance users who see school as the most important place in which they routinely spend time and who differ significantly from other users, but not from nonusers, in their expressed satisfaction with school. Results also call attention to the ubiquity of urban adolescents’ dissatisfaction with their teachers, showing such dissatisfaction as unrelated to their rates of substance use. Implications for school reform, dropout prevention programs, and future research are discussed.

Perpetuating Privilege: Students’ Perspectives on the Culture of a High-Performing and High-Pressure High School

Abstract The present study used focus group data to explore students’ perceptions of the culture of their upper-middle-class high school. Although students described a high-pressure school with negative physical and psychological consequences, they valued the social and educational advantages this context conferred. They also simultaneously faulted and appreciated parents’ efforts to maintain the schools competitive climate and status. The discussion addresses how stakeholders work to sustain a culture of privilege, despite costs entailed.

How Many Teachers Does It Take to Support a Student?: Examining the Relationship between Teacher Support and Adverse Health Outcomes in High-Performing, Pressure-Cooker High Schools

Although considerable research has demonstrated the importance of supportive teacher-student relationships to students’ academic and nonacademic outcomes, few studies have explored these relationships in the context of high-performing high schools. Hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of 5,557 students from 14 different high-performing high schools reveals that students who believe more of their teachers care for them and students who have an adult confidant within the school fare significantly better in terms of academic anxiety, internalizing symptoms, and physical problems related to school stress than their less supported counterparts. Results also show that having support from more teachers may be a stronger protective factor for students in these schools than having a close relationship with a single adult in the school. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Pawns or power players: the grounds on which adults dismiss or defend youth organizers in the USA

ABSTRACT Over the last two decades, youth organizing has emerged as an important strategy for social change, particularly within education policy; however, the ability of youth to influence policy is limited by the tendency of adults in positions of power to find reasons to distrust, discredit, or otherwise ignore them. This paper draws on interviews with 31 adult civic leaders in one American city to discern their views on a particular youth organizing group, Philadelphia Student Union (PSU), and to uncover the grounds on which they either dismiss or defend its work. Findings show that the tendency to doubt or deny the voices of youth organizers is not concentrated within any one institutional setting; that the most common reason for doubting or distrusting SFEs work is the belief that adult organizers manipulate the youth members; and that every reason adults offer to dismiss the youth organizers can be matched by a different reason other adults give to defend them, their work, and their place in the policy sphere. Implications for youth organizing groups, their adult allies, policy-makers, and the field are discussed.