Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Adolescent Social Problems
The majority of problems students mentioned are those that could be more
broadly defined as social problems faced by their communities and the country
as a whole.

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Safety issues, violence, and gangs. 
Some children mention that they welcome
going to school, because it is the only place they feel safe. Others do not feel
safe even at school, a perception confirmed by national statistics. In a recent na-
tional survey on violence and crime in schools, the most frequently cited prob-
lems were stealing, cited by 38 percent of students as a ‘‘major’’ problem, and
pushing, shoving, or grabbing cited by 33 percent of students. Threats to students,
threatening with knives or guns, and using knives or firing guns were cited as
major problems by 23 percent, 20 percent, and 19 percent of students, respec-
tively (USDE 1995).
Metal detectors and security guards are a standard presence in inner-city schools,
along with omnipresent IDs worn on chains around students’ necks, but students
still know which hallways are most feared. During our observations we saw a fight
erupt during the change of classes in a hall monitored by only one teacher, re-
mote from the central office. Four large males had surrounded one female student
and were banging her head into a locker, as they shouted obscenities. As a
teacher commented: ‘‘Overall, I think it’s a safety thing. The gangs, the weapons,
the drugs, all of this has taken over to the point where this isn’t a teaching envi-
ronment.’’ Even in one of the suburban schools, a shooting had recently taken
place, shattering students’ sense of security:
We were in the cafeteria and a student had a gun in his backpack. Some way
it got jostled and the gun discharged and hit another student in the back. The
bullet is still in him because it was so close to his spine they did not want
to remove it because it might paralyze him.
Just a short cab ride north in a wealthy white suburb, middle school students
acknowledged their relatively secure position and the privilege of attending a
school where personal safety can be assumed.
We read books in this school that have to do with the inner city. On the news
there is just so much which is really upsetting. I feel great to be here . . . . I
know that in this school no problems are going to happen that are going to
be tragic. (Eighth-grade female)
Violence on the street is a more threatening intrusion in young lives. In some
schools, most students seem to know someone who was shot and many have wit-
nessed it. Fears of being victimized by random violence are common. A question
such as ‘‘Do you ever worry about the future, that you won’t be able to achieve
your goals?’’ was answered by an African-American female student at South Cen-
tral:
Yeah, you don’t ever know what’s going to happen. You may get shot, any-
thing can happen. You can be an innocent bystander. I be scared

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sometimes . . . . Sometimes I think that I can make it though, if I just stay
in the house, but I can be walking to the store for my mother and get shot.
Her friend echoed the concern:
I know people who have been shot. My brother got shot. We had just walked
into the building and a boy had a (gun) and dropped it and the next thing,
my brother was shot. So you don’t ever know what’s going to
happen . . . . You can get shot in the house. My brother’s girlfriend who he
got kids by, her sister got shot in the head, and the bullet come through the
house, come through the wall and hit her.
Much of the violence is attributed to gangs, a predominately male phenomenon,
and a source of fear for many of these students. None of the students we were
assigned to interview, not surprisingly, professed to being gang members them-
selves, but many knew of others who were or were aware of the presence of
gang members in their schools. One student had recently moved to the city be-
cause her brother had been in a gang where they lived before, and her parents
hoped that moving him to a new environment would end his affiliation with
gangs. It had not, according to the sister. A principal in one of the inner-city high
schools talked about within-city relocations negotiated by principals when stu-
dents (or their parents) were attempting to end gang membership. A teacher at
South Central thought the primary cause of truancy at the school was ‘‘gang
intimidation. The kids may miss school to miss the guy who is threatening him.’’
At the middle school level in West City, a 13-year-old Mexican female talked about
the destruction gangs had brought to her school. ‘‘They rip out the pages of the
books and mess up the desk and they mess up the school.’’ Her brother noted
that these kids were ‘‘wannabes,’’ not yet old enough for gangs in this community
where adult gangs also exist. ‘‘Parents might be in gangs too. You see a lot of
adults in gangs—people in their 40’s and 50’s.’’ A teacher at Metropolitan, a K–
8 school, thought that children as young as fourth grade were aware of gangs and
the violence that was ‘‘a reality of life in this particular area of the city. And that’s
unfortunate, because children are not allowed to be children, to have those care-
less or free moments of play and be able to grow up.’’