Interviewing and the importance of listening

Originally posted at www.21stcenturyscholar.org

Have you ever read a Henry James novel? I have, as an undergraduate in an American lit class. I, along with 20 or so of my peers, read Portrait of a Lady. James—the brother of psychologist William James—is known for long, descriptive passages and a focus on the minutiae of life and consciousness. You can imagine, for a group of 20-year-olds with the attention spans of hummingbirds, the novel was a tough sell.

In one class, during a discussion of the book, the professor said something I think about often: “We should all have the ability,” he argued, “to sit quietly on a bench and observe.” How much do we miss, he wondered, when we live a life of constant motion?

Be still. Watch. Listen. Contemplate. 

In a well-known article, “On Seeking—and Rejecting—Validity in Qualitative Research,” Henry Wolcott makes a similar point about interviewing: “Talk little, listen a lot.”

As a qualitative researcher, I have the unbelievable privilege of listening to people’s life stories. A few weeks ago, I met with a second-generation Latino teenager who lives in a low-income neighborhood in New York City. He wants to go to college. He will be the first in his family to attend a four-year university. He is an exceptional young man; however, his grades and test scores don’t completely represent that. He worries that he won’t get into a college.

During the interview, we talked about his family. He has an unstable home life, having lived with several relatives. As a follow-up question, I asked, “Is that tough?” He looked at me for a few seconds. His face changed, almost imperceptibly. He had the look of someone who knew, if he spoke, he would cry. I imagined, as a 17-year-old young man, he didn’t want to do that. He nodded. I nodded. And, we both looked away. I paused for about thirty seconds to give us both time to recompose and then redirected the interview.

I don’t know if I could ever truly represent those few thick moments and the moments afterwards when neither of us spoke. I don’t pretend to know what the student felt or thought. In time, I might have a better idea. But, I know for that moment I, at least partially, grasped a depth of emotion and significance that participants do not always reveal.

Life tends to be full of constant motion. Sometimes people want their stories heard, and it’s the researcher’s job to listen.

Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Originally posted at www.21stcenturyscholar.org

The realities and perils of the school-to-prison pipeline have been well documented. Scholars like Michelle Alexander and Victor Rios have illustrated the ways in which discriminatory practices and policies criminalize young men of color. And yet, despite all of the data that demonstrate the need to improve public policies and available opportunities, little changes.

Last week, Harvard’s debate team lost to a group of prison inmates. The results spotlighted the positive outcomes of Bard College’s prison initiative, a college program to provide liberal arts education to inmates. In comparison to statewide recidivism rates of around 40%, less than 2% of participants in the Bard initiative have returned to prison.

The news supports recent research that highlights the benefits of education for prison inmates. RAND, for instance, conducted a meta-analysis of studies. The researchers concluded that prisoners who participate in prison education are 43% less likely to return to prison after release and are 13% more likely to be employed. They also note, “The direct costs of providing education are estimated to be from $1,400 to $1,744 per inmate, with re-incarceration costs being $8,700 to $9,700 less for each inmate who received correctional education as compared to those who did not.” From an economic perspective, what more do policymakers need to know?

Education reforms have to address the school-to-prison pipeline. Too many young men grow up in neighborhoods where they are punished for their race and class. Consider a few facts: As of 2010, black men were six times as likely to be imprisoned as white men. The Center for American Progress found that, while people of color constitute 30% of the population, they make up 60% of imprisoned individuals. Considering disciplinary measures in education, including suspensions and expulsions, scholars have widely documented the disparities between white students and black and Latino students.

Too many young men have already been punished. More than one out of three prisoners have less than a high school education. They encounter the compounding problem of not having the skills to enter the workplace and having sanctioned stigmas as criminal offenders—for right or wrong. It is our job to answer a critical question: Do we want to use the prison system to further alienate young men of color—tacitly agreeing with current bad practices and policies—or do we want to help them become better individuals and productive members of society?

The answer seems straightforward.

Indiana, Duke, Yik Yak, and the purpose of education

Originally posted at www.21stcenturyscholar.org

The news has been full of lamentable examples of bigotry and discrimination.

The governor of Indiana signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, legislation that permits businesses to discriminate on the basis of religion—a restaurant, for instance, could refuse service to a gay couple. The politician posed the law as a moral argument; and yet, any logical person recognizes how wrong the legislation is. Either he didn’t think or care about the signals such a decision sends to a gay teenager who lives in a small town in Indiana and struggles with identity issues.

At Duke University—just before the men’s basketball team won its fifth national championship—a student hung a noose from a tree. A few weeks earlier, a group of white men shouted racist chants at a black woman as she walked on campus. The examples illustrate that universities are not safe or inclusive places for many students. Would you feel safe as a black woman walking home from class at Duke? 

Sadly, the bigoted and discriminatory acts are occurring on campuses across the country. Yik Yak, a social media platform, permits users within a particular geographic range to post anonymous “Yaks.” Think about a bathroom stall or dormitory bulletin board where anyone can write anything, even the most racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. Only Yik Yak knows the identities of users. Universities have requested the names and emails of offenders; the social media company—citing a privacy policy that guarantees complete anonymity, except for cases that involve the law—has not complied.

The inappropriate uses reveal where we are as a society. Some critics argue platforms like Yik Yak should not be permitted on campuses. I’m not sure censorship addresses the real issue. Bigotry and discrimination, however masked, are insidious. Sure, cyber bullying exists, but what happens in dorms and on campuses everyday. Have you heard the language of some students as they walk to class? Even if the social media platform didn't exist, people would still find venues and ways to express hate speech and commit violent acts, whether physical or symbolic. Duke illustrates that.

What’s the purpose of education? In No Citizen Left Behind, discussing the importance of civic education, Meira Levinson writes, “Part of the beauty of democracy, when it functions effectively and inclusively, is its ability to create aggregate wisdom and good judgment from individual citizens’ necessarily limited knowledge, skills, and viewpoints. To exclude citizens from this process is to diminish the wisdom that the collectivity may create” (p. 49). Examples like Indiana, Duke, and Yik Yak illustrate uncritical and intolerant responses to deeply rooted and complex issues. They are indictments of our current educational system and one-dimensional approaches to reform.

Standards, assessments, and school choice are important issues. We need to improve graduation rates and prepare students for college and career. But, we also have an obligation to nurture young men and women to be caring, healthy, and empowered citizens. That point is too often absent from public discourse. If we are serious about allaying intricate and enduring issues like intolerance and discrimination, policymakers have to widen the scope of educational reforms. Inclusivity is a precondition—not an accidental byproduct—of successful teaching and learning. Otherwise, instances like Indiana, Duke, and Yik Yak will continue.

Horatio Alger lives! Blame and the culture of poverty

This post was originally published on January 21, 2011.

Horatio Alger, a 19th century author, wrote novels about poor, downtrodden boys who go from rags to riches. They succeed due to dogged toil. The story is ingrained in the fabric of mainstream America. Fathers tell their sons, “If you work hard, you can make it.” That’s the American dream.

The rags to riches story works in concert with the culture of poverty argument. It goes something like this: a group of people develop a set of beliefs, actions, and perhaps excuses that inhibit them from succeeding in life. Over 40 years ago, when Oscar Lewis introduced the concept and Patrick Moynihan’s report popularized it, some parts of academia reacted strongly. William Ryan, in his book Blaming the Victim, retells a comedic sketch where Zero Mostel acting as a senator from the South wonders about the origins of World War II. At the end of the skit, the senator booms out, “And what was Pearl Harbor doing in the Pacific?” Ryan uses this to illustrate his point: the culture of poverty blames individuals for being the victims of unfair and deleterious structural conditions.

The culture of poverty often evokes two responses. First, some believe the culture of poverty is absolutely wrong and become indignant. Second, others believe the culture of poverty is absolutely right and become indignant. I worry that both sides, being so emotionally charged, are hindering us from having meaningful conversations about how to improve the conditions of economically impoverished people. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your opinion, there is no right answer.

The culture of poverty is a flawed concept, not because it doesn’t exist but because it is too simple. As Sharon Hays, a sociologist at USC, points out in her book Flat Broke with Children, to assume that there is a culture of poverty is neither wrong nor the whole story. Why is it outrageous to think that a young African American male or Latino has developed a series of behaviors to cope with his bleak surroundings? The school experiences and reactions of Primo and Caesar in Philippe Bourgois’ In Search of Respect provide an excellent example of this. What is wrong is to assume that there is only one culture of poverty and that it applies to all. Culture is not abstract. It is everywhere but also mutable and embedded in context.

At the same time, there is a common refrain among academics: culture and poverty are back and open to research (see the May 2010 issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science). While that is true, scholars also know that the culture of poverty has remained a popular shibboleth among mainstream America. Moving forward, academics must not only create a more appropriate vocabulary to explore and describe multiple cultures of poverty but also to communicate the import of understanding the myriad cultural and structural conditions that lead to the generational reproduction of poverty.

Dr. King, Civil Rights, and Education

This blog was originally published on January 18, 2011.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said that education is the civil rights issue of our time. While provocative and well-intentioned, the Secretary’s sentiment isn’t entirely true. That is not to say I disagree–education is part of the issue–but to target education as the last stand for civil rights is short-sighted. Poor education outcomes are a symptom of insidious, far-reaching, and unequal conditions and government policies.

We now live during a time when the distribution of wealth is astoundingly unequal. Not only do the top one percent control the majority of wealth in the United States, but the top decile of the top one percent, according to scholar David Harvey, are accumulating capital at unprecedented rates. Relatedly, spatial segregation occurs in cities across the United States, a result of changing labor markets as well as government sanctioned initiatives and policies such as freeways and redlining that have caused unfair conditions for specific groups based on race, class, and gender. Couple grotesque class inequality with segregation and government retrenchment regarding key civil rights issues such as education, housing, healthcare, and job opportunities and a more complex picture of the conditions causing poor education outcomes arises.

Since Dr. King’s famous speech, we have progressed. We have laws that ban segregation and discrimination. More people believe in equality and justice for all, so much so that an African American won the popular vote in a presidential election. And yet, as Dr. King noted, progress is not linear: “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.” Just this year, anti-gay bullying led to the suicides of multiple teens; Arizona enacted stringent immigration laws that have endangered the basic human rights of both documented and undocumented immigrants; a proposed inter-faith mosque and community center to be built in Manhattan caused a groundswell of opposition and anti-Muslim animosity; and, despite comprising a minority of the population, African Americans and Hispanics occupied the majority of prison cells across the country. Indeed, our generation faces new challenges to overcome in order to achieve civil rights and social justice for all. Racism, classism, and sexism have transformed, becoming sometimes overt, sometimes covert, but just as pernicious.

Let’s celebrate the accomplishments of Dr. King and fellow civil rights activists, but also acknowledge that the dream is unfulfilled and we have work to do.

The problem with education jargon

This blog was originally published on October 19, 2010.

Language is a contradiction. It both liberates and constrains. Consider a toddler learning English. Her understanding of and command over the world expands as she learns words like food, mom, and dog. Similarly, an art student’s perception of space changes as he learns about concepts such as line and plane. But, language also restricts. As much as a toddler’s notions of the world expand as she learns new words, she also limits herself. When she observes a dog, she tries to categorize it. Is it an Australian shepherd or a collie or, maybe, a mutt? Likewise, when she grows up and tells their partner “I love you,” is she adequately conveying the emotion she feels? Just as important, does the parter understand love the same way she does?

In education, reformers face a similar conundrum. In our attempts to identify social groups and create conditions for equity and diversity, we often wrongfully categorize students and perpetuate our own biases. The use of ostensibly aseptic terms to describe historically marginalized students is at an all-time high, and a greater awareness of and skepticism towards the words we use is necessary by all.

Words like “at-risk” and “underprivileged” are seemingly innocuous; yet, they carry with them the imprint of hegemony, a term defined by Antonio Gramsci as meaning the process during which subordinated classes consent to their own domination from the ruling class. At-risk, for instance, victimizes students, whereas a term like underprivileged may ignore the cultural assets of a students family, favoring instead the lack of resources they ought to have in comparison to students from a dominant class. Think about a ninth-grade student who recently arrived from El Salvador with her mother, who makes $15,000. It is easy to see how such conditions may contribute to labeling the student as at-risk. Yet, such a stance ascribes poor educational outcomes to the student and her family and ignores the strengths of her family and culture.

As I said earlier, language is a contradiction. Words like underprivileged acknowledge inequities and argue for the redistribution of resources; but they also serve to reproduce institutional prejudices. These terms are the result of the political correctness movement. We successfully removed race and ethnicity from our vocabularies, and I am afraid we have created an even more malicious, insidious system for domination and oppression.

Toward a public scholarship

I originally posted this blog on April 29, 2010.

“The issue now is not simply to promote ourselves better,” writes Craig Calhoun, an acclaimed sociologist and president of the Social Science Research Council, “but to ask better social science questions about what encourages scientific innovation, what makes knowledge useful, and how to pursue both these agendas, with attention to both immediate needs and long term capacities.” Calhoun’s incitement to social scientists to make research more useful and more public is critical and timely.

The education landscape is changing. Whether the change is a fad or true reform, the fact remains that in three years school districts and universities will have undergone drastic alterations. Now is the time for academics to become more involved, to communicate and collaborate with various audiences. Yes, a spirit of intellectual curiosity and discovery is critical to scholarship. I’m not arguing for that to end. Instead, I am arguing for education research to become more public and better designed to answer pressing social questions and inform public policy. There is no reason why research design cannot serve multiple ends.

Social science scholarship has not always been this way. It used to be progressive, just as concerned with social movements as scholarship. But I fear we’ve lost a bit of our edge in an effort to gain legitimacy from our big brothers and sisters in the hard sciences. After all, in two years when I go on job talks, faculty will want to see publications rather than outreach. That is a shame, but it is also something we can improve.

This week is an important week for educators. It is the American Education Research Association’s annual gathering, the largest assembly of education academics. During this week, I hope we can all find some time to reflect on the ways in which we may better create public scholarship.

The promise (and peril) of Promise Neighborhoods

I originally posted this blog on June 28, 2010.

Geoff Canada has quickly become a popular example of the charismatic, transformational leader necessary for positive educational change. His vision of the potential of one neighborhood is nonpareil and extraordinary. His non-profit organization, the Harlem’s Children Zone, which provides a comprehensive suite of services to children and families within a 100 city block radius in Harlem, is ending generational poverty. Over the past several years, Canada has been featured in multiple newspapers, in a book written by Paul Tough, on segments for 60 Minutes and CNN, and even in an American Express commercial.  In fact, Canada and HCZ have been so successful that President Obama, using non-profits and higher education institutions as local implementers, wants to replicate the model in communities across the United States.

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods Program is to improve the outcomes of children through a continuum of “cradle-through-college-to-career” services. Of note, applications for the first stage, the planning grant, which provides a year of funding in order to develop an implementation plan, were due yesterday.

Promise Neighborhoods provides an opportunity to catalyze sustainable place-based reform; however, tremendous obstacles exist. Canada, for instance, estimates a program similar to HCZ will cost approximately $35 million. Even with matched funding from philanthropic organizations, organizations are not likely to achieve that amount. Other challenges include the politics of policy design, implementation, and evaluation, as well as the involvement of community stakeholders. Yet, the trend to fund community-specific  initiatives, while not new (see the Community Action Agencies established with the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 as part of President Johnson’s Great Society), is essential to improving the lives of historically marginalized populations. Even though limitations certainly exist, Promise Neighborhoods represents an acknowledgment of the multidimensional aspects of education and community building. It may also represent, I hope and believe, an important shift in policy design.

An insider perspective: Why education is going to improve

A few weeks ago, the Boston Celtics lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. Doc Rivers, one of the best leaders of individuals in the world, sat at the podium. He organized a team effort to nearly beat a superior team. On television, there could not have been a gaudier setting. On the left column, ESPN advertised the upcoming television program, a banner of upcoming events. On the bottom, a ticker highlighted sports scores. On the table next to him, there was a Gatorade. And behind him, a banner advertised the NBA. After he spoke, the network cut to the Kia postgame show. For a lot of people, this television program represents some sort of Orwellian dystopia. It portends a corporate future where individualism no longer exists.

What do I think? Funders fund change. Gates, Broad, and any other number or philanthropies, keep doing what you are doing.

What I am talking about is a concept in innovation called the next adjacent possibility. Those people need to move out of the way. In case I have not been clear enough, the connections to education ought to be fairly obvious. Schools of education are being renamed. Neighborhood schools are becoming charter schools. Content is becoming privatized. Is this Sodom and Gomorra? Nope, it’s change.

I am sick of either / or distinctions, and so is my generation. There are times to be polite and indirect and there are times to be harsh and direct. I think we’ve reached former. If you are the old guard, you are impending progress.

Education 2012: Will politicians make campaign promises that matter?

“Yes, we can,” exclaimed Senator Barack Obama after winning the presidential primary in South Carolina nearly four years ago. The slogan signified hope and change for a country that desperately needed it. By alluding to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, it also hinted at a promising new future for the working class and working poor, particularly among Latinos and African Americans. 

Four years later, the national tenor has changed. Obama—with little help from Congress—has been unable to translate rhetoric into practice and, sometime during the last four years, hope has given way to prostrate frustration. The Great Recession has not gone away. Unemployment and poverty have risen. We now have the Tea Party and Occupy movements. Both seem like something more than fads. And, as Republic candidates stump across the nation, President Obama’s two promises—hope and change—have become punching bags. 

What about the state of education over the past four years? Although President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have had some successes, the failures have mounted, especially in the last year. Both Race to the Top and Promise Neighborhoods have offered glimpses of innovation; however, budget cuts have threatened both initiatives. Despite asserting more control over education policy than any other administration, Obama has not reauthorized No Child Left Behind. Moreover, incremental reforms like value-added evaluations, national standards, and school choice have dominated policy discussions while foundational issues like the lack of educational funding, link between poverty and education, and need to innovate the pre-K-16 pipeline remain unresolved and under-discussed. Until policymakers address the critical issues, educational inequality will continue to increase.

Politicians are especially vague about educational issues. As Tyack and Cuban point out in Tinkering toward Utopia, the reason has to due with the similarities between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Since everyone agrees that better education is important, there is little political incentive to stray from the status quo. From Clinton to Bush to Obama, education reform has sounded remarkably different but looked remarkably similar. 

Where does that leave education in the coming year? Ron Paul wants to nix the Department of Education. Newt Gingrich wants to replace janitors with students. And, Rick Santorum wants to include creationism in the curriculum. However, aside from a few outliers, the candidates vary little. Mitt Romney, the most likely to win the Republican nomination, is nearly identical to Obama regarding education. 

Accountability ought to be shared. It’s time to ask more of President Obama and the Republican Candidates. If education is the engine that drives economic prosperity and social equality, then it is fair to ask politicians to provide an instruction manual. By now, everyone knows we need 21st century learners and schools to support them. Unfortunately, that sort of talk rarely leads to tangible results like percentage increases in graduation and college-going rates. How will the presidential candidates improve education over the short- and long-term? What concrete steps will they take to provide equitable education for all students? These are the questions to answer and the promises to make.

Race, research, and justice: Why Trayvon Martin matters to me

Some of my most vivid memories as a high school teacher are of police. Police cars patrolled the neighborhood. They parked in front of the school and at nearby intersections. In school, police officers walked the hallways. Out of school, they walked the streets. 

Police were ever-present in the neighborhood. That is the context in which my students lived. What does it do to a teenager to be under constant surveillance? What effect does being guilty until proven innocent have on a human being? 

As a teacher and researcher, I have been fortunate to interact with thousands of amazing African American and Latino/a men and women. As a result, my life has been have enriched beyond measure. My experiences have also allowed me to address my own biases and stereotypes and question how I have benefited from white privilege and how I reproduce it. After all, growing up in a suburb of Washington D.C., rarely did I see a police car patrolling my neighborhood.

I am a white male who conducts research with African American and Latino teenagers. That is not a footnote to what I do; it is the topic sentence. Certainly, in terms of trustworthiness of research, I have to consider how my race, class, gender, and age affect the data I gather. Does a 17-year-old black male respond differently to me than someone of a different race or class? 

Considering the research that I produce, I have a social responsibility to ensure that my interpretations and representations do not perpetuate stereotypes or injustices. How is what I write different than, what Robin D. G. Kelley calls, the “ghetto ethnographies” of the 1960s?

These are not incidental questions and, given the history of race relations in the United States, they are important to ask and answer, even if asking is uncomfortable and the answers are unclear.

I write today as someone who mourns the loss of Trayvon Martin and hopes his family finds peace. 

I write because race relations in the United States are complicated, and we need to talk about them more often, more candidly, and more respectfully. 

I write because Trayvon reminds me of my own brother, who was shot and murdered a week after his sixteenth birthday. Due to a lack of evidence, the police never apprehended the murderer even though most knew who committed the act. No other event has influenced my life more. Everyday, I wonder what David thought about during his last moments and, as my graduation and wedding approach, I miss him even more. 

Finally, I write because, unlike Trayvon Martin, my brother was presumed innocent. 

Why, even in death, do select groups including the media continue the prejudiced criminalization of African American males?

Justice for Trayvon