Introduction
Culture is actually a term that is used to refer to a number of factors that people learn in order to make up the way of life in their communities. Such factors include beliefs, values, and norms. Identity on the other hand is about how individuals or groups see and define themselves. It is also about how other people see and define them. It is also formed in the socialization process.
Identity is mostly influenced by families, the education systems, and the mass media. The youth adolescent is often faced with the challenge of choosing to follow the correct culture and not to follow the subcultures that will jeopardize his success. It is almost natural that most of the youth who experience this problem are found in an urban set up.
Adolescent Problems in Urban Schools
Recently, researchers and policy makers have focused attention on the importance of the school learning environment and the influence of the individual and peer behaviors on students’ performance. It is worth noting that these students’ behavior also play a key role in determining student success in school and beyond.
Studies of students considered to be at risk of school failure in most urban schools have shown that these students possess particular characteristics that act as factors that determine their academic performance. Such characteristics include; the students are likely to complete less homework, they attend school less frequently, and they exhibit more aggressive behavior and also use illicit drugs.
The indicators of a relatively higher prevalence of poor academic effort in urban schools than in rural schools are as follows. Most urban students tend to spend less time doing homework and more time watching television. The amount of time spent in the classroom is represented by student’s absenteeism and the time spent on discipline in the classroom.
According to Lippman et al, rural students are more likely to be worse (Lippman et al. 1996). This paper reviews some of the problems faced by urban youths in relation to their academic and social conditions.
The Nature of Urban Students
Most urban schools are characterized by violence and drugs. Learning in an urban set up is constrained in an atmosphere of fear and disorderliness. Cases of students going on rampage and bringing weapons to school are more prevalent in an urban learning set up than in rural schools. There are also many more cases of low commitment in academic effort such as poor attendance, discipline, or study habits in urban schools.
At Risk Students
Recent studies indicate that one out of every four high school students drops out of school before graduating. The incidence is more prevalent in major cities with some recording as high as 40% prevalence of cases of students dropping out of school. Also, the higher standards in urban public schools have affected a lot of the minority students who are mostly disadvantaged.
One of the reasons why this happens is because education reform has changed the rules. The rules were especially changed before the system could accommodate the increasing number of students who drop out of school. It is important for the authorities to do more research concerning at risk students in order to prevent their failure. This is actually an important aspect of education reform.
At risk students do not experience success in their academic pursuits. These students are low academic achievers. They have low esteem. It is important to note here that male students form a majority of the at risk students. They form a disproportionate number when combined with the minorities. Further studies indicate that such students usually come from financially and socially unstable backgrounds.
Thus, students who come from low income, and also those from minority, or both are at a higher risk of developing at-riskness. The parents of such students may also be of low educational background. The situation can further be complicated by the fact that such parents who have low education backgrounds usually have low expectations from their children.
It is also important to note that at risk students tend not to participate in school activities. They have a minimum identification with the school and also exhibit truancy. Further, such students have discipline problems which may affect their credit ratings. They have poor peer relationship. Their characteristic behavior is actually impulsive. Most of them usually have family problems.
They do drugs and cases of pregnancies among there are not uncommon. Such problems are actually considered to be the determining factors that make them not participate in school activities. As a result school becomes a negative environment for them. This is because they have experienced perpetual failures in their academic performance thereby falling behind their peers.
It is also important to note that these characteristics have their own reservations. This is because a study done by Richardson et al, suggest that at riskness involves much more than the characteristic students bring with them to school and the conditions from which students have come (Donmoyer & Kos, 1993).
A close review of the data from Richardson indicates that the defining properties of at-riskness vary from class room to classroom and even within a classroom as the classroom changes over time. For instance, when new students who display more dramatic problems enter the classroom, students who once were labeled at risk by their classroom teacher may no longer be described as such.
Also, a student may be labeled at risk by one teacher but not by another one. This could be because the student responds differently from the teachers teaching styles. It could also be because the teachers may be defining at risk differently.
Thus, at risk behavior has been defined quite differently by Richardson (Donmoyer & Kos, 1993). He says that the child brings to the classroom a certain number of characteristics that have been shaped by background and personal factors and past experiences in schools. This child interacts with a classroom context that includes other children, teachers, and materials.
There are a number of programs that can be implemented to effectively manage at risk students. These programs tend to isolate at risk students from the rest. The programs mainly relate to work and educations. In addition, such programs are small. Thus, they have low student to teacher ratios. The students have access to counseling services whereby they may also receive supporting services from their teachers.
Most of these successful programs put a great emphasis on flexibility and restructuring the curriculum in order to meet the needs of at risk students. In addition, the programs are innovative thereby providing alternatives to conventional promotional policies. Their curricula are reframed in an unconventional manner.
Most of them actually have early childhood education programs that may also have vocational and education in alternative settings.
Special services are therefore needed in urban schools to take care of the needs of these students especially those who are considered to be at risk. The services should help them achieve a higher level of self esteem. They should also provide supportive services that will help the students begin to have positive experiences. Thus, remediation programs come in handy at this juncture.
Tutoring and child care support should also be included in such programs. There must be effective campaigns on drug abuse awareness. Also, teachers should ensure that they closely follow up their student’s performance and also on the students’ truancy and absenteeism. It is also important to note that these programs are service oriented. This means that they provide students with personal contacts.
The students can therefore be contacted by a qualified caring staff on how they are fairing on. Such qualified caring staffs also help in identifying other at-risk students and instruct parents on how to help their at-risk children.
An example of a successful program that identifies and helps at risk students is the New Haven Schools Project (CT). This project has been running for 19 years. The project involves administrators and parents whereby they collaborate to ensure that at risk students are provided with the correct climate for their success. As a result, there has been an increase in achievement levels.
Attendance records of students have also risen sharply. Behavior problems have also been lowered thereby improving the performance of schools. For instance, there is a particular school that has recorder an improvement from being position thirty three to position three in the entire city (Donnelly, 2011).
Urban Populations
There are a number of characteristic that differentiate between urban and rural populations. The nature and composition of the house holds in an urban setting is quite different from that of a rural setting. Also, the amount of space utilized by this population is also different.
Urban populations are generally more literate, younger and earn higher incomes than rural populations. They also enjoy secondary and tertiary activities compared to their rural counterparts whose major economic activity is primary production such as farming.
There are also a number of differences concerning students in urban and rural set ups. Thus, urban students tend to spend more time in regular school lessons than their rural counterparts. Also, urban students’ expectations are pretty much different from those of their rural counterparts.
More students in urban populations would want to further their educations than in rural schools. Also, an urban set up is more mixed with different races and cultures. Students in urban areas also have higher income expectations compared to their rural counterparts.
The goals of parenting are actually to raise a healthy child who will bring more good than harm to the society. However, this is not always the case. Studies indicate that a greater percentage of middle school students have at least reported of being involved in some violent behavior. Most of these students have either recently fought or have been involved in a weapon-related behavior.
The same studies indicate that about 61% of the middle school students have been involved in either threatening to beat someone, been injured by someone or have hurt someone. Also, 30% of the youth in urban areas have reported to use a weapon to either threaten or injure someone (Clubb et al. 2001). There are also a number of students who have contemplated suicide in their lives.
Adolescent Youths
Culture is actually a term that is used to refer to a number of factors that people learn in order to make up the way of life in their communities. Such factors include beliefs, values and norms. They also include such aspects as diet, roles, knowledge and skills. Culture is actually passed on from one generation to the next. The main mode in which culture is transferred to the next generation is through socialization.
The dominant culture of the society is the one that is most acceptable by a population. Adolescent youth also have their subculture. However, these subcultures are mainly unacceptable by the older generation. Examples of popular cultures in adolescent youth include videogames. Identity on the other hand is about how individuals or groups see and define themselves.
It is also about how other people see and define them. It is also formed in the socialization process. Identity is mostly influenced by families, the education systems and the mass media.
When interacting with an adolescent of ethnic background, an important consideration is the intensity in which the adolescent identifies with their ethnicity. A racial identity model is useful for understanding a continuum of ethnic and/or racial identification along with different levels of sophistication of how the self is integrated into mainstream culture.
The subculture of violence in adolescences is actually so popular among them. Most of the violent behaviors of gangs and racial pride groups are usually hailed among a section of the adolescent youth. This is why most of the youth group themselves in particular subcultures. They separate themselves from other bigger cultures thereby engaging in criminal activities.
The most frequently used reason for a youth to join a violent street gang is poverty. The use of violence and drug abuse in a subculture involves learned behavior and a process of differential learning, association, or identification. Inclinations for an adolescent to become more involved in violence and drug use subculture usually begins to form early in childhood as the youth is socialized into accepting violence as normal.
The adolescent strives for his other real self to as closely resemble the ideal self as possible. For a youth who has grown up in poverty stricken, mother centered household, where the father is either transient or absent, the older male gang member most closely represents the ideal strong male figure that the youth is searching for.
Due to lack of parental supervision, possible feelings of abandonment and a failure to succeed to the societal norms, the youth is fragile and can easily be recruited by an older gang member.
Further, the youth moves away from the feared self. Thus, he becomes the unprotected and ignorant individual roaming the streets. This means that the ideal self, the feared self and the claimed self are constantly at war in the mind of the adolescent. Thus, he becomes more prone to gang membership.
This subculture is also characterized by the youthful adolescent feeling abandoned, or a feeling of perceived abandonment. These feelings are usually followed by anger, aggression, and violence later in the adolescent development as the identity continues to struggle with formation without strong adult examples.
Since the use of violence is considered as normative in a violence based subculture, the adolescent does not have to deal with the feelings of guilt (Milkman & Wanberg, 2005).
Conclusion
Culture is actually a term that is used to refer to a number of factors that people learn in order to make up the way of life in their communities. Identity on the other hand is about how individuals or groups see and define themselves. Most urban schools are characterized by violence and drugs. Learning in an urban set up is constrained in an atmosphere of fear and disorderliness.
At risk students do not experience success in their academic pursuits. There are a number of programs that can be implemented to effectively manage at risk students. Many successful programs have been developed. These programs tend to isolate at risk students from the rest.
The programs mainly relate to work and educations. There are a number of programs that can be implemented to effectively manage at risk students. The programs mainly relate to work and educations and are usually small in size to take personal care of the needs of the students.
Reference List
Clubb et al. (2011). Violent Behaviors In Early Adolescent Minority Youth: Results From A Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Web.
Donnelly, M. (2011). At-Risk Students. Eric Digest Series Number 21. Web.
Donmoyer, R. & Kos, R. (1993). At-Risk Students: Portraits, Policies, Programs, and Practices. NY: State University of New York Press.
Lippman et al. (1996). Urban Schools: The Challenge of Location and Poverty. Washington DC: MPR Associates, Inc.
Milkman, H. & Wanberg, K. (2005). Criminal Conduct and Substance Abuse Treatment for Adolescents: Pathways to Self Discovery and Change. California: Sage Publications, Inc.