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

Adolescent Concerns
During the interviews and discussions, students were asked to talk about the prob-
lems and concerns that face adolescents today. Responses differed widely accord-
ing to socioeconomic status and age. Younger students and those from more afflu-
ent backgrounds were more likely to speak of immediate personal and inter-
personal concerns, such as academic pressure and relationships. Older students
describe concerns that focus on negative peer pressure, drug use, and teen preg-
nancy. Those in more impoverished neighborhoods spoke of a broader range of
social concerns that have an impact on their day-to-day lives: gangs, fear for per-
sonal safety, family violence, drug use, and hunger. Few students at any level
talked about concerns at the national or global level. Many talked about the fu-
ture, but in some cases this was as narrow a concern as which college one might
attend. In others it involved facing the possibility that they might not have a fu-
ture.

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Parents, too, mirrored the economic situations in their neighborhoods as they re-
flected on student concerns in their children’s schools. Two mothers, both par-
ents of middle school children, gave these contrasting portraits of the worries chil-
dren in their communities shared:
My daughter worries about getting A’s . . . . And I think there is always the
feeling, is my kid behind? Boys out here, if you want to play hockey, you really
have to start skating when you are five or six. My boy, when I started him
skating it was too early, he did not like it and did not want to go back. By
the time he was interested again, he felt he was already so far behind he could
not compete. So then he considered karate, and he said to me, I would really
like to do karate but I think I am too old . . . . The parental perspective (in
this community) is push, push, they’ve got to do it. If they are going to play
an instrument or play hockey they have to start early in the first grade and
keep going in order to be good enough to compete. (Mother, Vanderbilt Mid-
dle school)
Just a short distance away, in the inner city, another mother talked about the wor-
ries of children in her community:
Kids who live in the area here, if you were to ask them, their daily worries
are drugs . . . . and there’s night—and gunfire . . . . A lot of them worry
where are we going to get our next meal, what will we go home to find. Will
mom be there, will mom not be there? (Mother, Metropolitan School)