Negotiating their futures:
Ethnographic research informing K-16 college policies
and practices through urban youth’s eyes
Michelle G. Knight
Assistant Professor of Education
Teachers College, Columbia University
A paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the
Association for the Study of Higher Education,
Sacramento, California, November 21-24, 2002
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[Thinking about college in 10th grade] brings more headaches ….Like which one
[college] to choose. There’s a lot. Like I am trying to get a good score on the
SAT. That is giving me a headache. And then, the Regents aren’t helping either.
And then that’s it …and what they expect you to have to go [to college]. (Mario,
Puerto Rican male1):
We don’t use words that are in the dictionary? We make up our own words. You
get so used to talking like that you talk like that in class. You talk to your friends
like that. You get used to talking like that in general. My mother knows that I talk
like that ever since I was little. But if it is something like real professional like
when I go to my job core meeting, I change my ghetto language to proper
English. (Selena, Puerto Rican female)
Mario and Selena are 10th grade students who are daily negotiating their futures while
attending Denver High School. Like their peers, they candidly share who and what is influencing
their understandings and decisions about going to college. In many ways they are making
meaning of and negotiating the multiple dimensions of their identities and K-16 college going
policies and practices in their multiple worlds of school, work, peers, extracurricular activities,
and family (McDonough, 1997). For example, 23 of the 25 youth in the study are involved in
paid work or extracurricular activities and all of the youth participate in an ever increasingly
complex testing culture. Yet, there is little data on how youth's perspectives and their
negotiations of college-going processes in their multiple worlds effect how they identify and
utilize institutional and interpersonal structures within K-16 college reform efforts.
Many studies analyzing college-going processes have been limited to surveys,
1
All names used throughout the article are pseudonyms.
2
longitudinal questionnaires, or qualitative methods to research youth’s college aspirations and
choice during their senior year only (McDonough, 1997; Horvat, 1996). They have been
extremely helpful in understanding college choice and access to postsecondary institutions but
they fail to specifically address how Black and Latino/a youth are making sense of and daily
negotiating college-going processes as early as the 9th and 10th grade. Moroever, the exclusive
reliance on outcomes has begun to yield to more recent research of quantitative and qualitative
assessments to examine student’s processes in K-16 efforts (Nora, 2002).
In order to better understand how ethnographic research can inform previous research on
college preparation and current K-16 policies, structures, and practices, I examine the role of
youth’s agency and their interpretations and negotiations of college-going processes in the 9th
and 10th grade in this article. Important goals of this ethnographic study utilizing feminist
theoretical lenses are: 1) to draw attention to the interplay between the City University of New
York’s (CUNY) state level college admissions policies and the daily lives of poor and working
class, Black and Latino/a college-bound youth in and out of school contexts; 2) to illuminate how
youth employ their agency in interpreting and negotiating college-going processes; and 3) to
recommend more equitable K-16 policies, structures, and practices to facilitate youth’s access to
CUNY senior and junior colleges. To support these goals, I conducted research with 25 poor and
working class, Black and Latino/a youth negotiating CUNY admissions policies, the
multidimensionality of their lives, and K-12 institutional and interpersonal structures within
college-going processes during a two-year period.2
2
The research reported in this article was made possible by grants from The Small Research Grants Program of the
Spencer Foundation and The National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship. The data presented,
the statements made, and the views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.
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In the following sections, I first provide a brief overview of the conceptual framework of
K-16 college preparation reform efforts in K-12 schools and after school programs. I then outline
the changes in CUNY’s admission policies ball before discussing the context of the study and the
methodological framework. This study’s findings suggest three encompassing themes of K-16
reform efforts that 10th grade poor and working class, Black and Latino/a urban youth negotiate.
These include: 1) challenging negative perceptions and expectations of urban college bound youth, 2) “passing” academic coursework, and 3) connecting varied testing cultures. I define
youth’s negotiations as the ways in which they utilize their agency to interpret, critique, utilize,
and change institutional and interpersonal structures such as the peer structure in and out of
school contexts. Thus, the study seeks to inform both those who shape youth policy and those
who work directly with youth in urban areas such as researchers, policy makers and educators to
improve youth’s educational experiences, promote high school graduation, and provide more
equitable access to, retention within, and graduation from a range of postsecondary institutions.
College Preparation and Youth’s Perspectives in School Reform Efforts
Increasing demographic shifts and policy changes in college admissions and remediation,
and a high-stakes testing culture have evoked debates at the national, state, and local levels over
promoting access to postsecondary institutions. Many argue that these postsecondary policy
changes will promote excellence for all youth. Yet, others contend that these policy changes
perpetuate inequitable K-16 structures and limit access to four-year campuses and college
degrees for poor and working class, Black and Latino/a youth from urban communities. This is
especially important as students like Mario and Selena who represent these populations continue
to be underrepresented at higher education institutions relative to their representation in the
traditional college-age population (Gandara, 2002; Nettles, Perna, & Freeman, 1999). To create
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more equitable structures for postsecondary access, schools have begun to reform their policies
and practices, but they now must move towards understanding the multidimensionality of
students’ identities and lives in multiple worlds. The analyses of youth’s negotiations of K-16
college reform efforts can inform and shape policies, practices, and structures to promote
retention in high school and more equitable access to postsecondary institutions. Therefore, this
review blends three lines of research on college preparation: 1) K-16 school-centered reform
efforts, 2) college preparation programs, and 3) youth’s perspectives on school reform efforts.
K-16 school-centered reforms focused on college preparation are few in number
(Gandara, 2002; Jones, Yonezwa, Ballesteros, & Mehan, 2002; Knight, Bentley Ewald, Dixon, &
Norton, 2002; McClafferty & McDonough, 2000). However, some of these reforms ask that
schools and others within the broader culture make changes over what Oakes, Quartz, Lipton,
and Ryan (1999) call technical, cultural, and political dimensions at play within schools.
Changes to technical dimensions of institutional and interpersonal structures such as those
relating to organizational, pedagogical, and assessment strategies, teacher student relationships,
and resource distribution are viewed as vital to the reform process. For example, curricular,
pedagogical, and organizational strategies have been created to prepare students to increase
scores on SAT, ACT, and Regents exams in order to meet more stringent college entrance
requirements. Yet, analyses of equity-minded school reform efforts reveal the interconnectedness
and disparities between cultural dimensions of the norms, beliefs, and values about poor and
working class and or ethnic minority college-bound youth and the political dimensions of the
distribution of resources operating within local school contexts and postsecondary institutions
(Oakes, Roger, Lipton, & Morrell, 2002; Oakes, Quartz, Ryan & Lipton, 1999). These three
dimensions, the technical, cultural, and political, are inextricably linked and must be viewed in
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tandem to understand the complexity of K-16 reform efforts to assist those most drastically
effected by changing college policies such as those in New York, California and Texas.
Similarly, the literature on restructuring college preparation programs for urban students
also highlights increased access to college when situated within technical, cultural, and political
dimensions of reform efforts. Researchers of college preparation programs have also pointed out
the necessity for the technical structures supporting a college-going culture, youth’s collegebound identities, financial assistance, peer/study groups, high quality teachers, and a curriculum
and pedagogy that facilitates the acquisition of academic capital or rigorous academic training,
and family involvement (Gandara, 2002; Jun & Tierney, 1999; Knight & Oesterreich, 2002;
Tierney & Hagedorn, 2002). Additionally, understanding youth’s negotiations of test preparation
and acquisition of academic problem solving skills are identified as imperative to widening
access to and achievement for traditionally underrepresented youth within postsecondary
institutions, including Black and Latino/a youth from under resourced urban communities
(Hagedorn & Foley, 2002). However, any type of menu or “cookie cutter” approach to technical
aspects of programs focused on college preparation is simply not enough (Jun & Tierney, 1999).
This approach leaves unexamined the cultural dimensions, such as the enacted beliefs, norms,
and student diversity operating within after school college preparation programs, and how they
shape curriculum, pedagogy, educational resources, and organizational policies. For example,
teaching strategies emphasizing students’ cultural backgrounds in college preparation programs
are essential for achieving success (Gandara, 2002, Tierney, 1999). Additionally, reflective
systematic evaluation of the technical, cultural, and political dimensions operating within college
preparation programs can support the increased improvement of specific organizational policies,
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structures, and practices by maximizing the program’s resources to successfully support urban
youth’s college access (Gandara, 2002; Tierney, 2002).
Unsurprisingly, the perspectives of youth in systemic school-wide reform efforts have
been missing from much of the literature on school change. Corbett and Wilson (1995) suggest
that the “under-representation of students’ voices in research and reform is more substantive and
practical and has to do with a mostly unexamined, generalized ascription of subordinate status to
the student role” (p. 6). Yet, recently, the importance of youth’s interpretations of schoolcentered reform efforts and those of youth-based organizations has become increasingly
significant (Cook-Saither, 2002; Heath & McLaughlin, 1993; Wilson & Corbett; 2001). There is
also a growing thread of K-16 college preparation research examining youth’s understandings of
the intersections of state college admissions policies, the realities of their daily lives in multiple
worlds and the influence of college-going processes (Jones & Yonezwa, in press; Knight &
Oesterreich, 2002; Knight, Bentley Ewald, Dixon, & Norton, 2002).
Youth are making meaning of and responding to changing college admissions policies
and institutional and interpersonal structures of systemic school-wide college focused reforms.
For example, the perspectives of student inquiry groups support previous college preparation
research in understanding the role of teachers’ lowered expectations and the rigor needed for
curricular and pedagogical practices for low-income and/or students of color in order to create
more equitable school policies and practices in the midst of reform (Jones, Yonezwa, Ballesteros,
& Mehan, 2002; Jones & Yonezwa, in press). These student inquiry groups provided a way for
researchers and students in collaboration to critique and act upon the ways teachers’
constructions of students and their curricular and pedagogical practices hindered teacher-student
learning relationships and more specifically students’ educational experiences.
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CUNY Admissions Policies
Policy formulation and implementation is situated within historical, economic,
sociopolitical, and cultural forces (Marshall, 1997). Presently, the City University of New York
(CUNY) enrolls 350, 000 students in the 17 undergraduate colleges, 11 senior colleges and 6
community colleges, throughout the five boroughs of New York. Historically, CUNY has held a
distinctive role within the community of institutions with open admission policies since 1970
with its emphasis on access at the baccalaureate level as the nation’s largest municipal university
system. This emphasis has provided opportunities for the poor, working class and ethnic
minorities to access four-year colleges at a much higher rate than other state open admissions
policies focusing on access to community college (Lavin &Weiniger, 1999a, 1999b).
However, the CUNY Board of Trustees resolved in 1998, “that all remedial course
instruction shall be phased-out” of the CUNY senior colleges. After the discontinuation of
remediation, any student who had not passed all three Freshman Skills Tests in essay writing,
reading comprehension, and mathematics, and had not met other admission criteria, including
mandated SAT scores, would not be able to enroll or transfer into the CUNY senior colleges
(Hershenson, 1998). These changes in the open admissions policy of CUNY primarily work
against New Yorkers from working class, poor, and immigrant backgrounds (Lavin & Weiniger,
1999a, 1999b). Implementing these changes would “shift 30% of White [applicants] out of
senior CUNY institutions and into community colleges, [and] more than half of Asians, Blacks,
and Hispanics [applicants] will be diverted to the latter” (Lavin & Weiniger, 1999a, p. 4).
The CUNY trustees have created two exemptions to the passing of the three achievement
tests. First, students are exempt if they score 500 or more on each section of the Scholastic
Aptitude Test. Second, students are also exempt if they score 75 or higher on the New York State
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Regents examinations in English and math (Lave & Weininger, 1999b). Currently, students may
begin taking the achievement tests as soon as they have been accepted to a senior college. They
must pass the three tests before they can register. If they do not pass the three tests, they are
automatically referred to one of the community colleges. The changes in achievement test
requirements and remediation policies in CUNY’s admissions requirements highlight the
importance of effectively identifying policies and practices preparing students for access to and
entry into postsecondary education at the baccalaureate level.
Study Context and Methodological Framework
To better understand youth’s negotiations of college-going processes in and out of school
contexts through 9th and 10th grade, two questions guide the study. First, who and what
influences poor and working class, Black and Latino/a youth’s understandings of college-going
processes? Second, how do poor and working class, Black and Latino/a youth negotiate these
influences on their college-going processes? The research team conducted the ethnographic
study from 2000-2002 at Denver High School, a comprehensive public high school engaged in
college-focused reform efforts in New York City. To inform their college policies, structures,
and practices around disparities in facilitating college access across two of the nine houses within
Denver High School, administrators agreed to support the research and chose the two houses, B
and J house, that would participate in the study.
Denver High School has a population of 3500 students comprised of at least 70%
African-American and Latino/a students from under resourced urban neighborhoods. Forty –
three percent are males and 57 % are females. Over 80.5 % of the student population is eligible
for free and reduced lunch. The primary study participants are 25 youth from the two houses that
send the majority of students to CUNY. Thirteen of the youth are male and 12 are female.
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Seventeen are Black, Ghanaian, and Jamaican and 8 are Puerto Rican and Dominican youth who
were selected by a community nomination process in 9th grade (Ladson-Billings, 1994). The
process involved asking 9th grade teachers, counselors, administrators, parents, students, and
security guards in the school to create a list of up to ten college- bound students who they believe
are involved in multiple worlds such as work or extracurricular activities after the first two
months of school.
The four-member research team, consisting of the professor and three graduate students,
engaged in the following data collection procedures from 2000-2002.
9TH GRADE COHORT (2000-2001)
10TH GRADE COHORT (2001-2002)
 27 youth interviews
 32 interviews of 9th grade
counselors/teachers
 22 youth in 6 focus group interviews
 27 youth observed in their classrooms
 24 youth co-researcher interviews of
family members.
 Weekly school-wide observations of
college fairs, parent association meetings,
student award ceremonies, the testing
culture, and extracurricular activities, to
better understand the broader school
culture and college going processes.
 Collection of written documentation about
the stated goals and objectives of schoolwide college focused reform processes.
 25 youth interviews (2 students moved)
 21 interviews of 10th grade
counselors/teachers
 21 youth in 5 focus group interviews
 25 youth observed in their classrooms
 Scheduling youth co-researcher interviews
with an older peer.*
 Weekly school-wide observations of
college fairs, parent association meetings,
student award ceremonies, the testing
cultures, and extracurricular activities.
 Collection of written documentation about
the stated goals and objectives of schoolwide college focused reform processes.
 Completion of 24 youth surveys
* We will continue to collect data during the
months of July-August.
We conducted analyses as part of an on-going, simultaneous, and iterative process. Data
analysis was initially coded for each participant and across data sources around emerging themes
such as future aspirations, agency, youth’s relationships with teachers and peers, test preparation,
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admission policies, and extracurricular activities as well as technical, cultural, and political
structures.
Negotiating college-bound identities, academic coursework, and testing cultures
In creating a high school college-going culture across grades 9-12, research shows that
students’ early preparation, awareness and exposure to college-related information requires
institutional and interpersonal structures such as the support and assistance of dedicated
leadership and personnel (McClafferty & McDonough, 2000). In creating a college going culture
within a high school, the technical, political and cultural dimensions of institutional and interpersonal
structures are essential for youth to make well-informed decisions in preparing for and choosing a
college/university, and particularly to enable them to successfully negotiate college-going processes
during their 9th –10th grade years. Also, early awareness better equips youth to handle the rigors of
college preparatory academic courses, college related information, including school and state policies
on earning credits, requirements for college and university admissions, and the differences and
expectations of tests such as the Regents, PSAT, and SAT. Denver administrators engaged in this
research study with the condition that the research team share with them information about the
policies, structures, and practices that facilitated and/or hindered the creation of a 9th –10th grade
college-going culture.
Institutional and Interpersonal Structures
The research literature on restructuring college preparation practices calls attention to the
importance of high quality teachers and curricula and pedagogical practices that facilitate the
acquisition of rigorous academic training and preparation for college entry and related exams.
Denver High School has several commendable technical dimensions of institutional structures in
place to create a school-wide college-going culture. They include the presence of house counselors,
two school-wide college counselors, the Morton Learning Center, testing coordinators, cross-age
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extracurricular activities such as sports, clubs, and electives, and CUNY high school liaisons who
present admissions requirements in English classes. The school also offers rigorous academic courses
and tutoring for academic help and Regents and SAT test preparation.
Interpersonal structures of college counseling and academic supportive relationships
extends beyond the counseling staff to include other faculty, staff, and youth’s peers. Although a
few youth mentioned having college related conversations with their English or Music teachers
or attending the school-wide tutoring program, the majority of college related conversations and
activities taking place at Denver high school for 9th and 10th graders is occurring with dedicated
personnel and youth’s peers in cross-age activities, clubs, and sports. For example, youth
reported going to college fairs with 11th and 12th graders from the track team, having access to
tutoring sponsored by the baseball team and ROTC, and receiving information about financial
aid and specific colleges from older high school team/club mates and alumni who came back to
visit. Yet many youth who do not participate in these cross-aged structures do not have access to
such benefits. In order to create and sustain a college going culture for all 9th and 10th graders,
information sharing cannot be left to the chance of occasional personal relationships that are
formed between people. More systemic policies have to be put in place for cross-age interactions
focused on college going.
However, as the research literature on college preparation demonstrates, understanding
the technical dimensions of institutional and interpersonal structures that youth negotiate in and
out of school contexts is necessary but not enough to facilitate greater access to college. Through
focus groups and individual interviews, participant observations, and written documentation,
youth reveal the ways they interpret and negotiate cultural and political dimensions of negative
perceptions of urban youth’s college-bound identities, the “passing” of academic coursework,
and disconnected testing cultures influencing their college-going processes.
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Negotiating Perceptions and Expectations of Urban Youth’s College-Bound Identities
The study’s findings draw attention to the intersections of urban youth’s identities, and
their agency in shaping their interpretations and the impact of their class participation within
cultural and political dimensions of interpersonal and institutional structures within their high
school. For example, McClafferty and McDonough (2000) argue that the expectations that
teachers, parents and other adults have of youth as college-bound’ or non-college bound “have a
profound impact on the choices that students make, the options they see for themselves and what
is realistic” (p. 1). More specifically, youth in this study discussed their classed-raced-gendered
negotiations of negative perceptions and expectations of them as not “college-bound.” These
perceptions and expectations were based on negative stereotypic images of poor and working
class, Black and Latino/a male and female youth’s self-representations of their college going
identities through dress, hairstyles, and language. Youth responded by employing varied
negotiation strategies in school and work contexts to affirm their college-bound identities and to
facilitate or contest teacher’s expectations of which youth are perceived to be “college bound”
within K-12 policies, structures, and practices (Fordham, 1996; Valenzuela, 1999).
During the following focus group conversation consisting of two Black males and one
Latina female, Amy, one of the university researchers, posed the following two questions: What
makes people see you as or think of you as college-bound and how do you negotiate the way
people perceive you? Amy went on to note that it could be related to an activity, like a sport a
student is involved in. Youth revealed the ways that they interpret, critique, and act to sustain
their college-bound identities in the following excerpts.
Dennis (Black male, football player): Just by walking through the door, when they first look at
me all my teachers think that I am going to cause trouble, the way that I dress, I talk.
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Amy (university researcher): … Why do you think they look at you and think you are going to
cause trouble. What is it about your appearance and the way you talk?
Dennis: Baggy jeans, long white t-shirts, the way I talk.
Amy: How you talk?
Selena: (Latina female, Job Core): Ghetto talk. I have that same problem. The teacher said
you’re a white girl with a spic last name, cause I am half Italian on my father’s side. When I first
came in a big t-shirt, sweat pants, she looked at me and told me to sit in the back like a
kindergartener when they do something wrong and you tell them to sit in the back.
Amy: This is just from walking through the door.
Selena: Yeah.
Amy: What do you guys do with that—how you are being perceived? Just by walking through
the door and what you have on? How do you negotiate that?
Selena: Me personally, I don’t care how they look at me. I don’t care. You’re not going to pay
my bills. You’re not going to pay my rent. I don’t just worry about what you have to say. I just
prove them wrong. That’s just me personally.
Amy: Are you experiencing any of that Abraham?
Abraham: (Black male, highly motivated, basketball player): Sometimes, when I have braids.
When I just started passing the tests, when I do my class work, homework—that is when they
started to pay attention to me.
Selena: I know they look at him and think he is a thug. I know. I have seen it.
Youth respond to self and teacher expectations of their college-bound identities in a
variety of ways. They are individually analyzing, critiquing, and mediating cultural perceptions
of themselves as college bound. Some of the Black male youth like Dennis and Abraham who
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maintain B averages and believe that they are academically competent negotiate negative
perceptions and expectations of their self representations as being college-bound by doing well
on academic tasks such as class work and tests, thereby gaining teachers’ approval as they prove
that they are college-bound.
On the other hand, U.S. born Puerto Rican females like Selena did not individually seek
the approval of teachers to prove they are college-bound in academic contexts. They affirm and
support their educational aspirations outside of school contexts (Quiroz, 2001). Selena
strategically negotiates the use of ghetto language and proper English in her work world to
challenge negative Latina stereotypes of her college bound identities. Although Selena does
know the difference between varied forms of speech, ghetto talk and proper English, she does
not seek teachers’ approval by using proper English. Rather, she asserts her college bound
identities in the work place. She proves her teachers wrong by using proper English on her job as
seen in the following excerpt.
Amy: And you guys said also about the way you talk? What is it about the way you talk?
Selena: We don’t use words that are in the dictionary. We make up our own words. You get so
used to talking like that you talk like that in class. You talk to your friends like that. You get
used to talking like that in general. My mother knows that I talk like that ever since I was little.
But if it is something like real professional like when I go to my job core meeting. I change my
ghetto language to proper English.
Amy: Does this happen at school too?
Selena: They [teachers] try to correct you. When you say a certain word they like to correct you.
They say it’s not proper English.
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The above focus group conversations provides insights into the ways high school students
who see themselves as college-bound interpret and negotiate cultural perceptions of their
college-going identities and their schooling-career connections (Quiroz, 2001). For example,
Selena maintains a positive understanding of her bicultural identity while negotiating negative
stereotypes that she is uninterested in education and not going on to college because of dress and
language styles. For U.S. born Latina students like Selena, her negotiations of language use in
school and work contexts raise important questions: What are the cultural dimensions of
institutional and interpersonal structures in place at school and work which affirm her college
bound identities in such a way that she decides to use ghetto talk and proper English in the
workplace and not in school? Will her work or career identity as mediated through language
continue to sustain her college bound identities and prove her teachers wrong? It is imperative
that educators begin to understand and link the ways youth negotiate the cultural perceptions and
expectations of themselves as college-bound in their school and work worlds and how these
cultural perceptions and expectations impact their high school, college bound, and career
identities.
Valenzuela’s (1999) findings resonate with this study as she notes the various ways that
U.S. Mexican youth must also negotiate teachers’ “displeasure with [their] selfrepresentations…the way, youth dress, talk, and generally deport themselves ‘proves’ that they
do not care about school” (p. 61). She argues that
teacher’s of U.S. Mexican youth tend to overinterpret urban youth’s attire and off-putting
behavior as evidence of a rebelliousness that signifies that these student’s ‘don’t care’
about school. Having drawn that conclusion, teachers then often make no further effort to
forge effective reciprocal relationships with this group. Immigrant students, on the other
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hand, are more likely to evoke teacher’s approval. They dress more conservatively than
their peers and their deference and pro-school ethos about school are taken as sure signs
that they, unlike the ‘others’ do ‘care about school’. (p. 22)
Rather than subtracting U.S. Mexican youth’s cultural identities, Valenzuela (2000) asks
educators to consider the interpersonal structures that can affirm students’ cultural identities
within schools. Dennis, Selena, and Abraham are informing policy makers, educators, and
researchers in the ways in which the cultural dimensions of the interpersonal structures between
teachers and students affirm their college bound cultural identities, their self-expressions of
dress, talk and behavior in which they can clearly negotiate and shift between and among
academic and work contexts.
Negotiating Academic Coursework
Research demonstrates that early awareness better equips students to handle college
related information including state and school policies on earning credits, requirements for
college and university admissions, including the role of academic coursework, extracurricular
activities, and the differences and expectations of tests such as the Regents and SAT. Many of
the youth enacted their interpretations and negotiations of these policies by employing the
concept of “passing” as they make meaning of technical, cultural, and political dimensions of
institutional and interpersonal structures.
One of the Latino males and 3 of the Black female students in the study are well aware
that their counselors come find them to encourage them “to get your grades up in a certain
subject” and “if the counselors think that you are going on to college, they give you certain
classes.” Yet, very few of the 25 youth are aware that their counselors are engaging in these
specific activities with a small group of their peers. Many of the youth seem to be negotiating
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from a vague general idea of having the right courses. They talk about friends who have “all
those credits but didn’t take the right courses.” In some cases, youth desirous of a future career in
medicine, who are unaware that they are in a 3-term science sequence that takes up to 1½ years to
complete, do not realize that they will be ineligible for pre-med programs in many of the private
universities which require 4-years of high school science. When asked what they think are the
requirements for going on to college, the youth reveal the negotiating strategy of “passing.”
Abigail: That’s all they tell us [teachers, friends, peers, seniors]. Have money to be there. You
have to pay. Left and Right. Left and Right.
Jackie: To get an application you have to pay for it.
Abigail: Whether you go to the school or not.
Jackie: That is the thing that hurts.
Abigail: You have to pay just to apply. They say, make sure that you pass your classes. They
say, go to your classes.
Michelle: Do they specifically say what classes you need to pass?
Abigail: Everything. Everything and anything that you can get. You need to pass everything.
They say that’s what colleges look at –to see if you are active or not. They look at freshman year
too. A lot of people don’t know that. A lot of people mess up freshman year.
Jackie: Oh freshman year isn’t nothing. You can make it up. But freshman year they look to see
how you started off and then 11th grade.
Maria: Oh yeah, in their freshman year they get a 65 and now they get a 95 or 94, but the 65
pulls them back. I saw this girl. She said don’t fool around. I have to go to summer school. I still
have to make up credits.
Abigail: I am going to pass everything.
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In several of the focus groups, understandings of the necessary college admissions
requirements in 10th grade versus 9th grade is situated with concepts of “passing all your classes,”
and “maintaining an 85 average.” However, across the 25 youth and teachers, counselors and
administrators interviewed over the two years, all overwhelmingly agree that math is a subject
where youth are experiencing increased difficulty. Both teachers and counselors expressed
uncertainty with changing math curricula and the content and expectations for Regents exams. Yet,
according to recent news reports, low student performance in math is not unique to Denver High
School, but is a city-wide issue (New York Times, 2002).
Youth in the study illuminated difficulties arising in class when teachers use pedagogical
practices that provide Regents-like examples and answers rather than providing full explanations and
allowing them to grapple with concepts (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000;
Wilson & Corbett, 2001). Youth who felt more successful in math had teachers who allowed them
to work in groups with others, provided more time for questions, and broke concepts up into smaller
conceptual groupings. Youth who felt least successful in math identified teachers using only a lecture
style, individual work sheets, and pedagogical practices that kept math separate from their multiple
worlds of work, family, and peer interactions.
Denver High School has generated several institutional structures including double periods of
math and tutoring that can attend to some of the math learning needs of college-bound youth. Youth,
however, noted that it is not beneficial to repeat double periods of math with a teacher whose class
they previously failed or with a teacher who tutors using similar pedagogical strategies that have
made course content inaccessible. Many of the 10th graders were made increasingly aware of tutoring
by peers, counselors, and family members. Some who were unable to attend Denver’s math tutoring
structures due to conflicts in schedules such as work, other academic priorities, extra curricular
activities, or family obligations, turned to other resources. For instance, two youth took tutoring at
19
one of the senior CUNY colleges. Attending to a variety of time schedules for tutoring and the
strategies used in tutoring and math classes would improve youth’s’ success in math.
Increasingly, passing all their classes seems to be the negotiating strategy that many of the
youth are employing. This negotiating strategy will ensure that many of the youth graduate from
high school. However, embedded within this negotiating strategy may be the very mechanisms
that limit student’s access to a range of postsecondary institutions as it remains at a surface level
understanding of specific academic course requirements needed for enrollment into a range of
postsecondary CUNY institutions.
Negotiating Disconnected Testing Cultures
Due to the multiple testing cultures at Denver High School and the presence of other
technical, cultural and political dimensions of institutional and cross-aged interpersonal structures of
care, 10th grade youth are increasingly aware of Regents exams and their importance for high school
graduation but not CUNY college admissions requirements. By the end of 9th grade and the first
semester of 10th grade, youth expressed confusion about how to prepare for these exams, the
meaning that they hold for their high school, and the score expectations on their colleges of
choice even though 9 of the 25 youth participants took Regents examinations as freshmen and
each was scheduled to take at least one by the end of their sophomore year. Near the end of the
10th grade year, youth listed various ways that they are preparing for the exams, although some
of the youth still had no idea which Regents Exams they would be taking two weeks before the
three hour exams are to be given. Their negotiations of Regents preparation now includes
creating their own peer study groups, attending tutoring sessions, buying the Regents Exam
books, and taking practice exams on the Internet.
However, there continues to be uncertainty among youth, teachers, and counselors about the
significance of the connection between academic courses, Regents, and college admissions
20
requirements as well as the coordination of technical, cultural and political dimensions of
institutional and interpersonal structures such as the CUNY high school liaisons to more
systematically address this connection. Some youth receiving resource room services are receiving
mixed messages about the requirements they must meet for Regents exams. They believe that they do
not have to pass Regents in order to graduate. Furthermore, youth continue to show only a vague
understanding of the PSAT and SAT exams and their importance to college going at the beginning of
10th grade. Only two 10th graders mentioned being informed about the PSAT. In fact, the only 10th
grade youth in the study who took the PSAT exam was signed up and encouraged by her mother. The
other youth declined the chance to take the exam because it was held on Saturday which is her
religious Sabbath. Her decision to not take this exam highlights the types of decisions that youth
make while negotiating their multiple worlds and college-going processes.
While some youth focus on the lack of preparation by institutional and interpersonal
structures at the school for Regents and SAT Exams, other youth like Tammy, Mario and Patrick
discuss their nervousness, fears, headaches and decisions that they need make now that they are
10th graders and “college is closer.”
Amy: (1st Interviewer, Black female): How do you think your thinking about college has
changed since last year [as 9th graders]?
Mario (Latino male): It brings more headaches. (much laughter) Yeah. Right.
Lynn: (2nd Interviewer, Black female): Like what? Keep going Mario?
Mario: Like I am almost graduating, the more I think about it. Headaches.
Amy: What kinds of things are you having to think about differently?
Mario: Like which one to choose. There’s a lot. Like I am trying to get a good score on the SAT.
That is giving me a headache. And then, the Regents aren’t helping either. And then that’s it
…and what they expect you to have to go [to college].
21
Amy: How do you find out more about what they are expecting?
Tammy (Black female): As far as college goes, I am scared. We have two years left. This year is
almost over. Regents are coming up. We have SAT’s coming up? All this other stuff --not to
mention extracurricular.
Lynn: What are you worried about specifically? Can you name one of two things that have you
worried?
Tammy: Everything. Just Everything. I do well on tests but I am just nervous. I have a bunch of
Regents. College is getting closer.
Lynn: What Regents are you taking? Two Math Regents, Spanish Regents , History Regents,
and AP English.
Although some of the students like Tammy and Mario know which Regents they are
taking, many of the students want to know which tests that they will be taking and are asking for
more time to prepare for them. However, organizational policies within the school prevent many
of the students from learning which tests they need to take and when they will be held. Youth
like Jackie who passed one of the Regents Exam in 9th grade with a score above a 75 do not have
any understanding that this score would exempt them from one of the CUNY achievement tests.
This exemption would bring them closer to eligibility to attend a senior CUNY and perhaps
alleviate some of their fears about future exams that they will have to take. Additionally, as 10th
graders, youth like Tammy are sharing their fears and nervousness around taking all of these
exams yet do not express how they will negotiate their fears and headaches with college getting
closer.
Cultural and political dimensions of institutional and interpersonal structures such as the
college fair held at Denver high school with representative from CUNY also appeared to be a
22
place of “policy slippage” (Marshall, 1997). Resources, although provided, are unequally
distributed and do not specifically address testing admissions score requirements or exemptions
needed for senior CUNY colleges. For example, Denver High School supports two college fairs
throughout the year. This year the college fairs were opened up to 10th graders as well as to 11th
graders. During the college fair held in the spring 6 senior universities of the 10 universities
within the CUNY system were in attendance. Students received a handout of questions from one
of the school-wide college counselors to ask college representatives. None of the 36 questions
focused on the required tests or the scores needed for eligibility to a senior CUNY college.
Moreover, the available Freshman Admissions Guide to the CUNY (2002) states that
baccalaureate applicants
must demonstrate readiness for college-level work in English and mathematics. They
may demonstrate this by attaining a certain level of achievement on the SAT, ACT, or
New York State Regents examinations, by passing the CUNY Skills Assessment Test
or by other criteria determined by the CUNY Board of Trustees. (p. 5)
Thus, although some of the students from the study attended the Spring College fair,
there is no place within the Denver High School Questionnaire to prompt youth to ask questions
about testing requirement nor does the Freshman Admissions Guide to CUNY specifically state
the score needed on Regents exams to be exempted from the CUNY Skills Assessment exams.
Creating a college-going culture for all youth that is responsive to their multiple worlds
means helping youth understand the significance of such CUNY achievement tests early on and
increasing their awareness of alternative testing options that accommodate for diverse religious
beliefs. Moreover, working with youth, families, teachers, peers, and counselors at large means
clearly understanding and sharing information about requirements and exemptions of CUNY
achievement tests in order to be eligible for baccalaureate programs in senior CUNY colleges.
23
As 10th graders reflected on 9th grade and their futures as college-bound youth, they discussed the
need to have teachers who evenly spread out review and Regents connections throughout each
semester of the year, rather than reserving it for that time immediately prior to testing. They
prefer this type of preparation rather than pedagogical practices which create and sustain anxiety
for youth by last-minute cramming or the decision to focus only on very technical aspects of a
subject which neglect to deepen youth’s' understanding of concepts and impact their success on
tests for increased eligibility to senior CUNY colleges.
Both youth in the study and those observed in House offices have desired and utilized
schedules given out for Regents exams, so they can plan programs of study earlier and more
effectively around their busy schedules which may include babysitting, volunteering, attending
religious services, playing volleyball, or participating in the band. The only schedule posted for
June Regents Examinations is found on the school website. Moreover, in determining the
allocation of resources and funding, 10th grade youth participants told us that varied tutoring
structures for academic and testing preparation need to be offered at different times with a
variety of people, including peer tutoring, tutoring by college youth, and/or Denver faculty and
staff. Incorporating this feedback system from youth would help to coordinate existing, and
establish new institutional and interpersonal structures that draw from youth’s agency,
knowledge, and negotiations to assist in the implementation of a more supportive testing culture.
This culture would link student’s interpretations and negotiations of academic coursework,
standardized tests for high school graduation, and college admissions achievement tests.
Implications for policies, practices and future research of K-16 reform efforts
Recent changes in college admissions and remediation policies mandating more stringent
entrance requirements to four year colleges necessitates increased attention to them and stronger
24
alignment between these higher education policies and K-12 systemic college focused school
reform efforts. Ethnographic inquiry facilitated the focus on three interconnected areas of
alignment among K-16 policies, structures, and practices to create a 9th and 10th grade college –
going culture to support poor and working class Black and Latino/a youth’s negotiations of their
futures and eligibility to a range of CUNY colleges. These interconnected areas comprise
challenges to: 1) negative perceptions and expectations of urban youth as college-bound, 2) the
“passing” of academic coursework, and 3) disconnected testing cultures.
More specifically at the level of policy formulation and implementation, youth’s
interpretations and negotiations of college-going processes in the 9th and 10th grade reveal the
ways in which universities concerned with recruiting a diverse college-bound student
populations will need to communicate the new standards and expectations of college admissions
policies to high school personnel and youth (Gandara, 2002, McClafferty & McDonough, 2000;
Nora, 2002). Access to CUNY senior colleges necessitates a focus on the technical, cultural and
political dimensions of institutional and interpersonal structures such as the CUNY high school
liaison and the guide to CUNY admissions. Within these structures, CUNY outreach personnel
can communicate the ways the academic curriculum, the extracurricular curriculum and the
testing cultures of the high school shapes students’ access to a range of postsecondary CUNY
institutions as early as 9th grade. In K-16 school-university partnerships, the emphasis on which
youth have access to rigorous academic college preparatory curriculum is linked to perceptions
and expectations of who is considered to be college-bound. This link is demonstrated by the
decisions made of which classes the CUNY outreach personnel will serve in the high school.
Wider access to all youth within the high school and the resources of CUNY personnel needs
further facilitation within school-centered reforms.
25
Youth also reveal the necessity for teacher professional development learning
opportunities to impact mathematics’ curricular and pedagogical practices to increase
opportunities for eligibility to senior CUNY colleges (Gandara, 2002; National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics, 2000; Jones & Yonezwa, in press). Although the majority of the
teachers at Denver High School have master’s degrees and have been there longer than 5 years,
the quality of instruction in mathematics does not lead to youth’s advanced understandings of
mathematical concepts and preparation for college, but rather to the exact opposite as many of
the youth languish in trying to “pass” their double math periods. In order to encourage all youth
to pursue a range of postsecondary options, educators must be willing to provide multiple
approaches to teaching and learning youth in subject area content. Teachers could benefit from
pedagogical discussions with each other during professional development days that attend to
multiple pedagogical practices for teaching mathematics, offer support in the reflection on
teaching styles, and encourage one another to try out new pedagogical practices to facilitate
youth’s movement through a math sequence that will prepare them for college.
Creating a supportive testing culture that connects academic course work, and Regents,
SAT exams and extra curricular activities or work responsibilities requires the coordination of
several institutional and interpersonal structures to respond to youth’s multiple worlds in order
for them to attend a range of postsecondary institutions. The coordination of structures includes
attending to organizational timing policies, study skills, the balance between review and new
learning, alignment of scores between Regents, SAT’s and CUNY Achievement tests as well as
the allocation of resources and funding for varied learning tutoring opportunities.
In creating a 9th and 10th grade college-going culture high schools also need to
specifically examine school policies and practices to understand the impact of technical, cultural,
26
and political dimensions of institutional and interpersonal structures for increased access to
college. In so doing, they can address the ways in which college-focused resources are being
created and distributed among the entire school population. Attending to some of the following
questions facilitates the creation and redistribution of resources and opportunities in K-16
school-centered reform efforts. For example, how do high school personnel determine who is
college bound? Which youth are not participating in college-focused school reform efforts?
Which youth have access to what resources within the college-focused reform efforts? In what
ways are youth interpreting, utilizing and creating institutional and interpersonal structures to
negotiate their identities and college-going processes? As Nora (2002) cogently articulates, while
many researchers may believe that there has been a “saturation of interventions and initiatives”
to address access to college, he argues that in the face of the persistent drop-out rates, especially
between 9th and 10th grade, further research is needed to examine “why students forego their
educational hopes and dreams” (p. 74). Thus, documenting and analyzing 9th and 10th grade
youth’s interpretations and negotiations of college-going-processes for their futures highlights
possibilities for research to impact the creation of more college-focused equitable structures that
links student’s negotiations of K-16 policies and practices and eventual access to, retention
within and graduation from a range of CUNY colleges.
27
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