Students at Risk

This book examines historical approaches and current research and practice related to the education of adolescents placed at risk of school failure as a result of social and economic conditions. One major goal is to expand the intellectual exchange among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and concerned citizens on factors influencing the achievement of poor and minority youth, specifically students in middle and high schools. Another is to encourage increased dialogue about policies and practices that can make a difference in educational opportunities and outcomes for these students. Although the chapters in this volume are not exhaustive, they represent an array of theoretical and methodological approaches that provide readers with new and diverse ways to think about issues of educational equality and opportunity in the United States. A premise that runs through each chapter is that school success is possible for poor and minority adolescents if adequate support from the school, family, and community is available. *The conceptual approach (Section I) places the research and practice on students placed at risk in a historical context and sets the stage for an important reframing of current definitions, research, policies, and practices aimed at this population. *Multiple research methodologies (Sections II and III) allow for comparisons across racial and ethnic groups as well as within groups, and contribute to different and complementary insights. Section III, "Focus on African-American Students," specifically addresses gender and social class differences among African-American adolescents. *Current reform strategies presently being implemented in schools throughout the United States are presented and discussed (Part IV). These strategies or programs highlight how schools, families, and communities can apply research findings like the ones this book presents, thus bridging the often wide gap between social science research and educational practice.

This work presents a practical guide to creating effective, school-based responses to the difficult problem of dealing with troubled youth in schools, based on an "ecological" approach to collaboration among school professionals and community members. The two themes of "prevention" and "connection" pervade the practices that are described in this timely contribution.

Compensatory education for alienated students at risk of dropping out is a recognized part of the educational landscape. This is the first ethnographic study of such a program. It focuses on students and staff at two state-supported sites--one composed of white students, the other being predominantly African American. Participants are paid to attend, and are given academic remediation, counseling, and job assignments in the community. The author found that, unknown to the staff or the state, the program is unsuccessful in its main goal of reintegrating adolescents into their schools. He associates this failure with the program's perception of its students, the trivial curriculum, and the lack of student involvement in planning. Coming from the perspective of critical theory, the author challenges the mainstream view that this program compensates for deficiencies that individual students bring with them to the classroom. His findings support the idea that the program legitimates stratification by giving potentially disruptive students mixed messages. Operating from an "ideology of hope," the program tells students that they should challenge themselves to aspire to become middle class profesionals. At the same time, however, it ignores institutional barriers and fails to give its students the tools they need to succeed in school. This study has implications for all educators attempting to reach at-risk youth.

Mentoring is used in a wide range of situations in education: to assist learning; to help weaker students or those with specific learning needs or difficulties; to develop community or business links; to aid the inclusion of pupils otherwise at risk of exclusion; to develop ethnic links; to enable students to benefit from the support of their peers.The development and proliferation of mentoring and mentoring schemes in education over the last few years has been dramatic, and presents teachers, principals and superintendants, as well as mentors themselves with a challenge. This book presents all mentors plus anyone working with young people with an invaluable guide to approaches to mentoring today. It looks at mentoring as a concept, at what mentoring is, how it is done well and how it can be made more effective. Contents include: understanding student mentoring; the forms of student mentoring; a guide to effective student mentoring. Written by a leading expert on mentoring, this practical and relevant handbook is backed up throughout by relevant case studies and examples from schools and schemes internationally.

This book discusses peer group programs and long range community efforts to rehabilitate street youth, gang members, and other youth who have low self-esteem, come from dysfunctional families, and are failures in school and society in general. Through his experience and workshops, Frank has found ways for these youth to deal with their rage and shame in a productive, effective, and edifying manner. The author shows how behavior and attitude improve when the youths learn to curb their feelings of inadequacy by building positive self-esteem. This will be an excellent tool for educators, counselors, social workers, and others concerned with troubled adolescents.

This volume presents the most recent research on Title I federal compensatory education programs. Over the past three decades, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has served as the cornerstone of the federal commitment to equality of opportunity. It is the federal government's single largest investment in America's schools. As Title I begins a new century, this book documents the program's history and points to the potential for its future, building on 35 years of research, development, and practical experience. The research and analysis it provides fills a void for systematic information that can help inform Title I education policies and practices. Title I: Compensatory Education at the Crossroads is essential reading for educational researchers and students working in the areas of social stratification and equity-minded policies, programs, and practices. It will serve well as a text for graduate courses on these topics in education, as well as in public policy, sociology, and psychology. Educational policymakers and administrators at the federal, state, and local levels who are concerned with Title I and programs for students placed at risk will find it an important resource in crafting policies and programs for this population of students.

Adults have been and remain marginalized in academic institutions because of the persistence of a deeply rooted culture bias. This work analyzes the current state of the adult student experience in higher education, exploring the organizational, instructional, and interpersonal barriers that adults face in reaching their educational goals. Using applied critical and postmodern theory, the author explores the hypothesis that adults are "at-risk" in higher education settings because of such bias. The book includes an extensive review and critique of the literature and of contemporary adult programs and practices. In addition, adult students' personal accounts of their academic experiences are presented. This study not only reveals the nature and scope of the obstacles faced by adult students, but begins to suggest tangible ways students and educators can work to overcome them.

Art therapy has long been an invaluable tool for therapists working with children, allowing them access to emotions and experiences that their young patients may be unable or unwilling to express verbally. More recently, some professionals have speculated that some form of art assessment might be used to screen children for signs of aggression and depression, but now there is confirmation. A study of more than two hundred children using Rawley Silver's draw a story test showed a strong correlation between aggression or depression and certain types of artistic narratives; meanwhile, unbeknownst to Silver, a pair of Russian therapists were using Silver's assessment tests in a similar fashion with Russian children and achieving similar results. Aggression and Depression Assessed Through Art: Using Draw-A-Story to Identify Children and Adolescents at Risk came about as a result of these studies, but the book's scope goes beyond the numbers to investigate the connections between a child's expression through drawing and his violent behavior. The text, written mostly by Silver but with chapters contributed by therapists from both the United States and Russia, compares drawings by children who have already exhibited violent behavior with those who have not, thus exploring the potential of the test for use as an early identifier of children and adolescents at risk for depression or inappropriate aggression. Other chapters examine the changes in emotional state revealed by a child's responses to standard art assessment tests, as well as the cross-cultural applications of Silver's tests. Silver is recognized as one of the earliest developers of art therapy in the United States, and by providing mental health professionals with a tool to help identify and treat disturbed children this book represents yet another of her major contributions to the field.