Teachers Helping Students: A Sociocultural Perspective

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TEACHERS HELPING STUDENTS: A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

by

Heather Robertson

______________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to theFACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAIn Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the DegreeDOCTOR OF EDUCATION

May 2007

Copyright 2007 Heather Robertson

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Table of ContentsAbstract ........................................................................................................... iv

Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................1The Problem.............................................................................................2Purpose Statement....................................................................................3Research Questions ..................................................................................4Themes of the Study.................................................................................5Sociocultural Aspects of Teacher-Student Interaction.............................5Importance of the Study...........................................................................8Outline of the Dissertation .......................................................................9

Chapter 2: Literature Review.........................................................................10Theoretical Framework ..........................................................................12Sociocultural Theory and the ZPD in Practice.......................................30Weaknesses in the Literature .................................................................33Summary ................................................................................................35

Chapter 3: Research Design ...........................................................................37Site Selection..........................................................................................38Participant Selection...............................................................................43Data Collection.......................................................................................46Data Analysis .........................................................................................59Summary ................................................................................................62

Chapter 4: Data ..............................................................................................63NAI History............................................................................................63NAI School Culture ...............................................................................74NAI Partnerships....................................................................................92Summary ..............................................................................................105

Chapter 5: Analysis of the Data ...................................................................107Theoretical Foundation ........................................................................109Review of Methodology.......................................................................113Data Analysis .......................................................................................117Implications for Policy.........................................................................129Recommendations for Future Research ...............................................134Conclusion ...........................................................................................137

References ....................................................................................................139

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Appendix A: USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative OrganizationalChart.............................................................................................................146

Appendix B: Research Protocols ................................................................147

Appendix C: School Staffing Profiles.........................................................153

Appendix D : Model of College Preparation Program Effectiveness .........155

Appendix E: NAI Graduate Survey 1997-2004 ...........................................156

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Abstract

This study examined how the teachers of the University of Southern

California Neighborhood Academic Initiative respond to students. The research

focused on how organizational, social, and cultural factors drive student-teacher

interaction within a pre-college program for low SES minority students. The study

identifies and describes organizational, social, and cultural factors as they emerge in

teacher interaction with students. The research questions are: 1) How does a

teacher’s social and cultural background appear in his or her responses to students?

2) How does school organizational culture appear in teacher responses to students?

3) What other factors affect a teacher’s responses?

Data collection included document analysis; observation of NAI teachers’

classes at NAI and local high schools; observations of faculty meetings and parent

leadership board meetings; individual interviews of NAI teachers, students,

administrators, staff, school principals, and parent board members; videotaping of

each NAI teacher conducting one class (7 videotaped sessions) used in a second

interview with each teacher to elicit teacher thought processes during the lesson

(“stimulated recall”); and focus groups of NAI teachers, students, and parents. The

study's key finding is that organizational culture is the strongest driver of teacher-

student interaction and is instrumental in the success of the students.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

If Johnny cannot read, Robin cannot write, and Jane cannot calculate, what is

a teacher to do? Too many students are below grade level in reading, writing, or

arithmetic. At 17, an age when students should be ready for college work, few

students are adequately prepared. The latest National Assessment of Educational

Progress (NAEP 2005) data show that nationally, only 38% of 17-year-olds can read

at a level where they can understand, summarize, and explain relatively complicated

information, and only 6% of students read at the highest level tested. In math, only

7% of 17-year-olds can solve problems at the algebra level. Facing these dismal

statistics, high school teachers have the task of helping students get ready for

college-level English and math classes.

Although discussion about the problems of American schools is almost

constant, the focus is often on resources, curriculum, school organization, teacher

education, or educational policy. What happens in the fundamental interaction

between teacher and student--the teachable moment, the point at which learning

actually takes place? In the social-constructivist perspective, meaning is generated

through social interaction. Learning takes place not so much because of the

curriculum or the class materials, but primarily because a teacher interacts with a

student. The sociocultural theorist, Vygotsky (1978), characterizes this distinction as

the difference between an object, in this case the curriculum or materials, and a

process, in this case human interaction. A more contemporary sociocultural theorist,

Rogoff (1990), terms the learning interaction between teacher and student an

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apprenticeship in thinking. She explains that learning takes place when student and

teacher solve problems together. What happens when a teacher enters into dialog

with an individual student? I focused on interaction between teacher and student.

The Problem

Teaching is often framed within the context of educational problems. There

are many challenges that face schools. Some of the problems discussed in the media

include lack of parental involvement, children lacking sufficient language skills,

inadequate teacher training and unqualified teachers, low standards, inadequate

textbooks an other materials, deteriorating school facilities, and lack of funding,

along with a litany of other problems.

A variety of reforms and initiatives aim to remedy educational problems. For

example, one of the biggest recent reforms is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002.

The key goals of this Act are holding schools accountable for results and

encouraging better teaching methodology (U.S. Department of Education 2005).

The positive effects of this law are that first, schools can no longer hide the poor

performance of subgroups of students, forcing them to give more resources to

underperforming groups. Second, NCLB focuses attention on performance standards

and pushes states to produce cohesive systems of standards and assessments.

Finally, it forces schools to address the achievement gap (Fusarelli, 2004). Better

teaching methodology may help to make these changes, so research into

methodology is important, but the fundamental social nature of the interaction

between teacher and student seems to be lost in the rhetoric of reform.

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Methodology is often treated like technology, with principles and steps and

methods presented for teachers to follow (Bartolome, 1994). However, the

application of methodology depends heavily on the individual teacher. Although

prospective teachers study the technology of methodology, in practice it is affected

by sociocultural factors such as school culture and the teacher’s unique outlook

based on culture, experience, social class, gender, ideology, and possibly other

factors. The organizational culture of the school can affect classroom behavior as

well. Organizational culture includes school leadership, policies, mission, and

organizational responses to influences from the neighborhood as well as district,

state, and federal influences. Sociocultural factors have a historical basis, so history

is another a factor to take into account. Bartolome argues that teacher-student

interaction is the key aspect of education, regardless of method, and that

sociocultural background must be taken into account within this interaction. I

conducted a descriptive ethnographic case study to examine sociocultural factors that

affect teacher behavior. The approach can best be characterized as cultural and

cognitive anthropology (Creswell 1998). The next section will further focus the

study on one aspect of teacher behavior: helping students struggling with course

material.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this ethnographic case study is to use the lens of sociocultural

theory to describe and analyze how the eight teachers in

the Neighborhood Academic Initiative respond to individual students when they

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need help. A tentative definition at this time for “respond” is the way teachers

identify a student to talk to individually, analyze a student’s needs, choose an

instructional strategy, deliver instruction, and evaluate instructional success. The

intent of the study is descriptive: to identify sociocultural factors that affect teacher

interaction with individual students.

Research Questions

NCLB holds schools and teachers accountable for student achievement,

regardless of the hurdles they may face. Teachers are required to soldier on,

teaching in the face of many difficulties and obstacles. In decades of reforms, and

advances in computers and other educational technology, one thing that has

remained constant is that a teacher must instruct students in a classroom. Because

students in a class do not all have the same level of skill or speed of learning,

inevitably, a student will have difficulty with course work. There is a strong impetus

generated by NCLB to bring up the level of subgroups of students who are lagging.

How does a teacher respond to a student who is struggling with course work? In this

study, I seek an answer to this question.

The questions guiding my research into teacher responses to struggling

students include the following:

• How does a teacher’s social and cultural background affect his or her

responses to students in need?

o What are the effects of a teacher’s social and cultural experiences in

teacher training and in childhood schooling?

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o How does a teacher’s social class (family status, parents’ status, or

grandparents’ status) or gender affect his or her responses to students

in need?

• How does school organizational culture affect teacher responses to students in

need?

• What other factors affect a teacher’s responses?

Themes of the Study

This study specifically addresses one-to-one interactions between teacher and

student. Within these interactions, I examine the following through the lens of

sociocultural theory.

• Rapport with student

• Assessment of student level

• Analysis of student needs

• Choice of instructional strategy

• Delivery of instruction

• Evaluation of instructional success

Sociocultural Aspects of Teacher-Student Interaction

A variety of studies examine the influence of sociocultural factors on teacher-

student interaction. The first two studies focus on mathematics and literacy. Povey

(2002) studied mathematics teachers and how their beliefs and educational

background affected their teaching. One aspect Povey studied was teacher

attribution of student failure to learn math. Teachers had two divergent perspectives

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about the causes of student failure. One set of teachers attributed student failure to

learn to structural problems in the school, such as how students are placed into

classes. The other set of teachers attributed student failure to learn to students’ own

lack of ability or motivation. The first group believed that mathematics and

knowledge in general is culturally and historically situated, not absolute. The second

set of teachers differed in their ideas about the nature of mathematics and knowledge

in general. They felt mathematics represented absolute truth, and took a more

authoritarian attitude. These differing ideas produced different teaching attitudes and

behaviors.

In the area of literacy, McCarthey (1997) focused on how students from

diverse backgrounds develop literacy. In her case study of five students from

different cultures, she found that the cultural background or home culture of the

student affects achievement. If a student’s home culture is similar to the culture of

the school, achievement is higher than if the student comes from a home culture

different from the school. The author recommends that teachers learn about their

students’ cultures and backgrounds in order to help them learn.

Focusing on at-risk students, Hones (2002) studied bilingual students using a

narrative, dialogic research process. These students tend to be academically at risk,

and Hones looked for a way to help them through dialog. His case study of three

bilingual students from different language backgrounds highlighted how schools can

use students’ cultural backgrounds as a foundation for academic and social

development.

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A different perspective comes from Hebert and Reis (1999), who studied

high achieving students from diverse cultural backgrounds in a large urban high

school in the Northeast. They found that specific factors enabled these students to

succeed in the face of obstacles, including “belief in self, supportive adults,

interaction with a network of high-achieving peers, extracurricular activities,

challenging classes such as honors classes, personal characteristics such as

motivation and resilience, and family support (428).” Among these factors, the

support of teachers is most relevant to my project. Teacher support consisted of

going beyond the class curriculum to help students get organized and to encourage

them both to persevere in spite of setbacks and to take on academic challenges.

Students reported that supportive teachers, coaches, and counselors listened to them

and tried to understand their problems.

In the same vein, Howard (2001) conducted a case study of four high-

achieving urban elementary school teachers who taught predominantly African-

American students. These students as a group tend to underachieve. For his sample,

the author selected teachers whom school administrators, peers, and community

members considered to be effective at teaching African-American students. The

study examined the four teachers’ culturally relevant teaching practices. The results

showed that these teachers not only made sure that students developed academic

skills, but they took an interest in their holistic development, including social,

emotional, and moral aspects as well. The teachers also were very familiar with

African-American verbal style, and were competent communicators in that style.

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The study highlights the importance of culturally relevant pedagogy for student

success.

These studies highlight key aspects of teacher-student interaction with respect

to mathematics, literacy, at-risk students, high-achieving students, and effective

teachers. They all point to the importance of sociocultural factors in education.

Although the studies point to the importance of sociocultural factors and

interaction in student achievement, they do not examine the exact sociocultural

mechanisms driving teacher-student interaction. This is particularly true in the case

of teachers helping students who are struggling with course material.

Importance of the Study

Since currently there is wide concern about the number of students who are

not achieving up to grade-level standards, information about how teachers respond to

these students can be valuable for educators and policy-makers. This can be

particularly useful for pre-college programs similar to NAI. This study highlights

how teachers approach the problem of students who do not understand course

material, and examines the sociocultural aspects of teachers’ thinking process when

they help struggling students. This information can be used for training teachers,

both new and experienced. For the participants in the study, I hope the research gave

them insight into their teaching practices and responses to students. For the program

under study, the University of Southern California Neighborhood Academic

Initiative, the results of the study can affect professional development programs for

NAI teachers.

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Outline of the Dissertation

In chapter two, I will review the literature on sociocultural theory as it relates

to teacher-student interaction. Chapter three will present the methodology for this

study, along with examples of other studies which have used similar methods. In

chapter four, I will present the data gathered from field study and key themes.

Finally, chapter five will show the data analysis and the results of the study.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

Joey is falling behind in class. His teacher has talked to him several times

about improving his attendance and homework completion, and each time, he

promises to try harder. However, with the next assignment, his problems are still the

same. His reading and writing skills are showing very little improvement. He is a

friendly and agreeable person, but he seems frustrated when he works in class and he

hands in incomplete writing assignments. The teacher is wondering what to do to

help him.

The teacher needs to consider the student’s sociocultural environment. For

instance, Joey’s father recently went to prison and his mother works. He has to care

for his three younger siblings while trying to do his homework at the same time. He

is often tardy because he has to take them to school in the morning. These

circumstances are impacting his classroom performance.

As presented in chapter one, a key moment when teaching and learning

should take place is when a student, like Joey, is struggling with course material.

Bennett (1986) points out the importance of dealing “at a profound level with the

‘knots’ that complicate children’s understanding” (p. 50). Teacher responses in this

situation need to be examined. This descriptive case study analyzed teacher

responses through the lens of sociocultural theory.

In this section, I review the literature on sociocultural theory as it pertains to

teacher responses to students having difficulty in class. First, I examine the relative

importance of teachers compared to other sociocultural factors influencing student

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performance such as SES and culture. Second, I examine the theoretical framework

of sociocultural theory, beginning with the widest lens, social constructivism. Then I

focus on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and how it has evolved, including common

units of analysis. I discuss a key element of the theory, the Zone of Proximal

Development, in detail, because it is particularly pertinent to the current research

study. Finally, I explore two aspects of how sociocultural theory explains what

happens in the classroom: how the theory can be used to explain student failure and

how it can be used in practice to encourage student success.

Teachers Make a Difference

With numerous studies showing the strong effect of student background, such

as culture and SES, on learning (Bourdieu, 1973, Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997,

DiMaggio 1982, Lareau 1987), some may argue that teachers can do little to help

students achieve. However, teachers do have an effect on learning, although the size

of the effect is in dispute (Resnick, 2004). Rowan, Correnti, and Miller (2002)

analyzed 1991-1994 data from a large government survey study using a variety of

statistical methods to determine the relative effects of schools, classrooms, and

student demographic factors. They found that the classroom effect size depended on

the statistical method used and whether researchers measured cumulative student

achievement vs. student gains during one year of schooling. For cumulative student

achievement, using variance decomposition models, they found the effect of

individual classroom teachers on student test scores ranges between four to 18

percent. When they measured annual gain with the same method, the effect of the

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classroom teacher was between three and thirteen percent. Although these effects

may seem small, Correnti and Miller point out that they add up if students have more

effective or less effective teachers several years in a row. The evidence shows that

what a teacher does in the classroom has an impact on what children learn. This

project’s research into how teachers respond to students who are having difficulties

may shed light on the mechanisms that make a teacher more or less effective.

Theoretical Framework

To establish the theoretical framework for the study, I first introduce the

underpinnings of sociocultural theory, specifically the epistemology of

constructivism. Second, I review some of the seminal works of sociocultural theory,

particularly as developed by the Russian psychologist Vygotsky, after which I

examine later theoretical developments. I give particular attention to the units of

analysis used by researchers in sociocultural theory, as this may indicate exactly

what to attend to in the current study of teacher responses to students having

difficulties. Third, I discuss Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in

detail, because in sociocultural theory, it is a key to teacher-student interaction and

learning. In the study of how teachers respond to students, the ZPD is a critical

concept because it specifies the point at which learning can take place. Fourth, while

sociocultural theory is usually used to describe student learning, some research has

used it to analyze student failure to learn, and I review this literature because it may

shed light on additional aspects of the student-teacher learning transaction.

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Social Constructivism

Sociocultural theory is a type of constructivism. Abdal-Haqq (1998)

summarizes constructivism as an epistemological explanation of how people learn

and make sense of the world. Constructivism posits that people construct knowledge

by interacting with the world and integrating new experiences with previously

learned concepts. He contrasts this with previous theories of knowledge such as

behaviorism, which emphasized stimulus and response, leading to repetition,

imitation, and memorization. Leont'ev (1981) explains that construction of

knowledge takes place through internalization: “The process of internalization is not

the transferal of an external activity to a preexisting, internal ‘plane of

consciousness’: it is the process in which this plane is formed” (p.57). This implies

that the entire internal world of consciousness is a product of the external context, in

other words, it is constructed out of social activity. Since everyone grows up in a

different environment, people have different internal planes of consciousness. Guba

and Lincoln (1994) characterize constructivism as relativistic and based on multiple

knowledges of groups and individuals. They contrast constructivism with the

positivist idea that there is an objective reality or truth that can be discovered. This

is a crucial point in education because it means that each student lives in a different

reality. When a teacher responds to a student who is having trouble learning in class,

because the mental landscape of the teacher and that of the student may be quite

different, there may be a barrier to communication and learning.

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There are at least two types of constructivism. Abdal-Haqq contrasts social

constructivism (sociocultural theory) with psychological constructivism, as espoused

by Piaget. Psychological constructivism is also termed cognitive constructivism by

Rueda and Dembo (1995). Psychological constructivism focuses on the learning of

the individual, in contrast to social constructivism which focuses on learning in a

social context, including interaction with the environment, other people, and history.

Vygotsky (1978) points out that the historical conditions in which children develop

are constantly changing, so that the development of one child is not necessarily

similar to another. Unlike Piaget, he suggests there may be no universal

developmental stages that can be associated with particular ages.

Further elaboration of these multiple aspects of sociocultural context is

presented by Au (1998), who includes “historical, political, and cultural

trends…face-to-face interactions, group processes both explicit and implicit with

intended and unintended consequences” in her description of context (p. 299). In

sum, social constructivism states that people have different ways of knowing

depending on their backgrounds, and this can be extended to mean that what teachers

believe they are teaching is not necessarily what students are actually learning. In

addition, the classroom is not immune to political and historical forces that may

affect student learning for better or worse. As a result, a teacher’s response to

student problems is impacted by more factors than just pedagogy.

In addition to the ramifications of sociocultural context with respect to the

classroom, there are some further implications for educational research. Cole

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(2001), in his analysis of a series of sociocultural research articles, points out some

key cultural and historical aspects for researchers to consider. First, it is a mistake to

generalize findings to other cultures and other times. Research is tied to a cultural

and historical context. Moreover, educational research is dependent upon the choice

of language and tools used. In addition, Cole says methods of inquiry and concepts

taught within the curriculum are historically based, even in scientific subjects, and

are not universal. Culture and history affect perception and what people observe;

they also affect planning and problem-solving strategies. For this reason,

educational researchers need to consider wider social and historical factors. This is

what sociocultural theory strives to do.

Sociocultural Theory

Sociocultural theory, which is based on social constructivism, is one of the

newer threads in psychology. Rueda and Dembo (1995) point out that sociocultural

theory was a way to combine psychology with the social and cultural contexts of

real-life situations in order to explain everyday behavior. This is in contrast to the

laboratory setting in which psychological research had often been conducted

previously. Rueda and Dembo also contrast sociocultural theory with cognitive

theory, a useful distinction for the current study. Cognitive theory also provides

many useful tools with which to analyze how teachers respond to struggling

students; however, sociocultural theory, not cognitive theory, is the focus of this

research.

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The basis of sociocultural theory is the work of Vygotsky. His theory,

originally labeled cultural-historical theory, was later termed sociocultural theory

(Wertsch, 1991). Vygotsky (1978) presented learning as the interaction between a

more capable person and one who is still developing capability in a task. Vygotsky

focused mainly on learning as represented by or evidenced by problem-solving.

Through the process of problem-solving tasks, human interaction drives the

construction of concepts within the learner. Vygotsky stressed that processes of

cognitive development can only take place through interaction with the environment

and with people. This interaction is mediated or helped by tools specific to a culture.

These tools he called mediational means. Mediational means include language,

writing systems, mathematical systems, as well as any other symbols or physical

items. To elaborate, from his qualitative observations, Vygotsky concluded that

language is a tool for accomplishing goals just as a stick or a chair is a tool. For

instance, planning, which is a language task, is essential to achieve a goal. In

addition to spoken language, Vygotsky (1978) included other cultural tools such as

all manner of symbols and symbol systems, including mathematics and writing.

These he considered the basis of learning in the sense that social interaction between

people, mediated by cultural tools, forms the foundation for the development of

thinking in a child.

Tharp and Gallimore (1988) elaborated on the social character of learning.

They illustrate how a goal can be reached with the cooperation of an adult and child,

where neither one individually would have been able to accomplish it. Learning and

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problem-solving or goal-reaching appear to be characterized as the same by the

authors. The authors therefore define learning in terms of collaborative activity that

is oriented toward solving problems to reach a goal. An important aspect of this

collaboration is the situation. In this context, Rueda and Dembo (1995) point out

that there are three key aspects of what they call the activity setting: 1) “objective

features of the setting and environment,” 2) “objective features of the motoric and

verbal actions of the participants,” and 3) “subjective features of the participants’

experience, intention, and meaning” (p. 268). The activity setting is one type of unit

of analysis, which is the specific item that a research study examines.

Unit of Analysis

Particular units of analysis appear in the sociocultural literature and are

typical or representative of this theory. In this section, I first consider the

requirements of a sociocultural unit of analysis. Then, I examine the various units of

analysis that have been used in sociocultural theory. Finally, I focus on one unit of

analysis for the current research study.

Based on his study of Vygotsky’s writings, Zinchenko (1985) outlines seven

requirements of any sociocultural unit of analysis. I illustrate each of Zinchenko’s

requirements by using examples of Vygotsky’s (1986) unit word meaning, very

simplified for illustrative purposes to just word. First, a unit of analysis must be “an

integrated psychological structure” (97), not a combination of unrelated items. A

word is a combination of sounds (or letters in the written word) which has an

integrated relationship that carries psychological meaning. Second, a unit should

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“maintain the characteristics of the unified whole” (97), in other words be a

simplified representation that could develop into the whole. For instance, a word

represents and can develop into a language. Third, the units must be capable of

development, of being changed by activity. Word meanings change based on the

social context. Fourth, it should be a living part of the whole system and it should

not be possible to break it into smaller units without destroying its structure. A word

is a living part of a language, and breaking a word into individual letters or sounds

destroys its meaning. Fifth, the unit should enable the study of its structure,

development, and function and should fit into a taxonomy. Word structure (spelling,

phonology), development (etymology), and function can fit into language taxonomy,

along with syntax and other language elements. Sixth, the units should be

combinable into a new synthesis. Words can be combined into sentences or

thoughts, sentences can be combined into narratives. Seventh, the unit of analysis

must allow the study of the relationship between a psychological function and

consciousness. To continue the example, words represent thoughts.

Based on these requirements put forth in his theoretical writings, Zinchenko

(1985) discussed three units of analysis: living movement, liberated action, and tool-

mediated action. Living movement is the external movement, as for example a

movement observed in a subject in a psychology laboratory, as well as the mental

representations that go along with that movement. Liberated action is the kind of

action that occurs when a person acts without thinking in moments of high stress,

such as in an emergency, war, or a competition. Zinchenko’s unit that is most

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pertinent to the current study is tool-mediated action. Wertsch (1991) reiterated this

unit of analysis. Tool mediated action is based on Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of

mediational means discussed earlier. As Vygotsky postulated, the mediational tools

in tool-mediated action are elements such as language and other symbols. What

Zinchenko and Wertsch did was combine the action and the tool used into one unit of

analysis. According to Wertsch, the action and the mediational tool should not be

studied in isolation because this would leave out the social context, and social

context is essential to understanding human behavior. In keeping with the

requirements for a unit of analysis, tool-mediated action is a microcosm of

sociocultural behavior.

Some other units of analysis have appeared in theoretical papers. In his

theoretical analysis, Habermas (1984) categorized various types of action that

contrast with the tool-mediated action of Zinchenko and Wertsch. First, he described

teleological action as the type of action that is planned and oriented toward decision-

making and goal achievement. The tool-mediated action described previously could

be categorized as a subset of teleological action. Another type of action is

presentation of self, which is action for presenting an image to the social world. The

third type of action is complying with a norm, or actions that comply with group

rules and expectations. Combining elements of all three types of action is

communicative action. According to Habermas, communicative action involves at

least two people in a relationship who define the situation and plan actions together.

The key elements of communicative action are understanding and agreement. In

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their discussion of sociocultural issues, Rueda and Dembo (1995) state that the

activity setting, or the context in which learning takes place, is a suitable unit of

analysis for sociocultural theory. This unit is notable in that it is external to the

individual, while the other units are based on individual actions.

I next present how units of analysis appear in the research. As illustrated in

the discussion above about requirements of a unit of analysis, Vygotsky (1986) chose

word meaning as his unit of analysis. He studied over three hundred people, from

children through adults. His key finding was that word meaning is a part of concept

formation. This formation process begins with young children, but does not fully

develop until puberty. Vygotsky’s (1986) comment captures the sociocultural

essence of his study:

Unlike the development of instincts, thinking and behavior of adolescents are

prompted not from within but from without, by the social milieu. The tasks

with which society confronts an adolescent as he enters the cultural,

professional, and civic world of adults undoubtedly become an important

factor in the emergence of conceptual thinking. If the milieu presents no such

tasks to the adolescent, makes no new demands on him, and does not stimulate

his intellect by providing a sequence of new goals, his thinking fails to reach

the highest stages, or reaches them with great delay (108).

In this passage, Vygotsky highlights the critical nature of the relationship between an

adolescent’s social surroundings and cognitive development. This is the foundation

of the current study, because since adolescents spend a great part of their day in the

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classroom, what happens in the classroom is, based on Vygotsky’s findings using

word meaning as a unit of analysis, essential to their mental development and

learning. Other researchers in the sociocultural tradition have used different units of

analysis.

The unit of analysis I use is mentioned by Wertsch (1991). It is the “dyad”

(p. 27) or a pair of participants who think and remember together. Education is often

conceptualized as a teacher teaching a class as a group, but the individual

relationship of each student to the teacher is an important aspect of the learning

process. Stough and Palmer (2003) highlight this dyadic quality of teaching in their

qualitative study of expert special education teachers. The central phenomenon

revealed by the research was teacher concern for each individual student’s

performance rather than concern about the class performance as a whole. Teachers

individualized their instruction by monitoring student behavior. They responded to

students as individuals, walking over to a student and providing guidance when they

recognized it was needed. This study highlights how these 19 effective special

education teachers responded to students who were having difficulties, showing that

individually tailored one-on-one interactions were an essential part of effective

instruction.

The current study proposes the teacher-student dyad as the unit of analysis of

classroom interaction between teacher and student. Regardless of the unit of analysis

chosen, the key area where the unit comes into play is the zone of proximal

development.

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The Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky uses the construct of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to

explain how learning takes place in a social context. He defines ZPD as the

“difference between the child’s actual level of development and the level of

performance that he achieves in collaboration with the adult” (Vygotsky, 1987, p.

209). He further explains that in the child, cognitive skills appear first with the help

of an adult or other more skilled individual before they appear independently in the

child. This idea has been termed the general genetic law of cultural development

(Wertsch, 1985). Vygotsky says a skill appears “in two planes. First it appears on

the social plane, and then on the psychological plane. First it appears between

people as an interpsychological category, and then within the child as an

intrapsychological category” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 163). By interpsychological,

Vygotsky means thinking that takes place between people, in a sense outside the

individual. As examples, group brainstorming and focus groups illustrate how this

kind of thinking can take place. By intrapsychological, he is referring to thinking

that occurs independently of others, inside the individual. This is the commonly

conceived idea of thinking as a solitary activity one does inside one’s head. In sum,

the difference in performance between problem-solving a child can do with capable

assistance and alone constitutes the ZPD.

Tharp and Gallimore (1988) point out that Vygotsky did not analyze in depth

exactly what the mechanisms are that assist learning in the ZPD. They studied these

processes of assisted learning. Before starting with school learning, they first looked

23

at child learning at home. The home environment proved very effective at imparting

all kinds of knowledge to children, without the participants even being aware that

teaching and learning were taking place. They define teaching as “assisting

performance through the ZPD. Teaching can be said to occur when assistance is

offered at points in the ZPD at which performance requires assistance” (p. 31). They

then attack the issue of teaching in school, and of training teachers. They extend

Vygotsky’s theory to adults, positing that adults also learn in the same manner,

through the ZPD. Next, I focus on Tharp and Gallimore’s four stages of the ZPD.

Because first stage is the one my research focuses on, I give more emphasis to the

literature about this stage.

In Tharp and Gallimore’s (1988) outline of the four stages in the ZPD, the

first stage is when adults help children. Depending on the level of the child, the

methods of assistance can vary, as can the child’s understanding of the task. For

instance, adults could direct attention, give encouragement, or provide key

information. In addition, the adult can structure the situation by choosing

appropriate materials and tasks for the child (Rogoff, 1986). In this stage, the child

begins by needing a great deal of assistance, and progressively becomes more

independent in task performance. Tharp and Gallimore see the assisted learning

process as task-specific, so a new task will begin at a different point in the ZPD. As

the child progresses, the adult needs to adjust goals and sub-goals in the activity. As

a result, the authors stress that it is important for the teacher to have a deep

24

knowledge of the subject matter to move easily through the set of sub-goals and

goals.

Bruner (1985) elaborates on the first stage of the ZPD. He introduces the

term scaffolding to describe the assistance provided by another. This scaffolding he

describes as “a vicarious form of consciousness” (p. 24) that supports the learner

until the time the student internalizes the knowledge. Bruner also points out that in

the learning transaction, there are props, processes, and procedures, corresponding to

educational curriculum, learning, and teaching. He postulates an acquisition process

in the learner aided by an external support system. The characteristics of this

external support system include a person modeling the task, encouraging the student

to attempt the task by reducing the chance of error, and then scaffolding. In the

scaffolding process, the adult reduces the number of possible actions a student can

take, increasing the chances for success. In addition, when the student has trouble,

the adult provides whatever assistance is needed. In this way, the task is

accomplished with no apparent errors. After the child has accomplished the task,

there is dialog about what was done.

Taylor, King, Pinsent-Johnson, and Lothian (2003) studied the scaffolding

and the ZPD in adults taking literacy classes. Their qualitative case study examined

four adult literacy classrooms in one program in Ontario, Canada. Nine students in

levels one and two as well as four teachers were interviewed. In addition there were

observations, a focus group, and document analysis. Several themes emerged from

the research. Most pertinent to the current study is the classroom environment, the

25

leadership role of the teacher, and peer collaboration. The teachers set up the

classroom environment to facilitate learning by arranging the seating and allowing

students to choose classmates to sit next to and work with. The instructors took a

facilitative and enabling role in leading the class, which produced a student-centered

learning environment. In addition, the teachers structured activities and tasks with

the aim of minimizing the chance of student errors. Once the teacher set up the

environment and tasks, students could then collaborate with peers and use the teacher

as a resource when they had difficulties. This classroom arrangement moves away

from the role of teacher as lecturer and holder of knowledge toward a classroom

where students have a greater role in their learning. They work with each other,

independently, and with the teacher as their needs change based on the learning task.

The class becomes a social network or community of learners in which students learn

collaboratively. Some of the student behaviors observed in the study were inviting,

assisting, directing, tutoring, and modeling. Students also used negotiation to build

consensus and compromise. In addition there was feedback in the form of self-

correction, correction from others, and seeking information. The authors described

directionality patterns, or who assists whom. Students were observed to be very

aware of which students were most capable at a certain task, and they would ask the

more capable peers for assistance. This study shows how the instructor can scaffold

or structure the learning situation so that adult learners can collaborate and teach

each other. In the research study, elements of Tharp’s (1993) seven methods of

26

assisting performance are evident: modeling, providing feedback, contingency

management, instructing, questioning, cognitive structuring, and task structuring.

In the second stage of the ZPD, the child can do an activity unassisted, but

uses language to mediate the process. In a sense, the child takes on the role of the

adult, giving spoken directions to herself. In this way, the child uses language as a

tool to mediate action (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). Vygotsky goes so far as to say

that if a child is not allowed to verbalize instructions to herself at this stage, she may

not be able to complete the task. In addition, the more difficult the task is for the

child, the more the child verbalizes (Vygotsky, 1978). Use of this self-instruction is

evidence of the second stage, and at times even adults use this method of assisting

themselves (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988).

The third stage is when performance becomes automatic. Tharp and

Gallimore (1988) call this the developmental stage, which corresponds to the stage of

knowledge most commonly tested in schools. The fourth stage is de-automatization

and recursion, when automated knowledge is lost or forgotten due to a variety of

factors and needs to be relearned. In such a situation, the individual reverts to a

previous stage in the ZPD, generally stage two. Thus a reversion to speaking aloud

to solve a problem can appear. Other methods of regaining a skill include reviewing

what a teacher said or asking for help, steps farther back in the stages of the ZPD.

To summarize, the Zone of Proximal Development as introduced by

Vygotsky is the social space in which learning takes place. Learning is socially

constructed with the presence of others or another person, and is not an individual

27

but a cooperative or joint activity. Learning takes place through assisted

performance based on the learner’s level, and tools and symbols mediate the

interaction necessary for the learning process. Scaffolding, or structuring the

learning environment in the first stage of the ZPD, may be essential to student

learning. If something goes awry at this stage, learning may not occur. The next

section examines studies showing why there might be a failure to learn.

Failure as a socially defined construct

Although teachers may have the best intentions for all their students to learn

and succeed in the classroom, there are social and cultural factors within the

educational system that may inhibit student learning. When I study how teachers

respond to students, especially those who might be having difficulty in class, I need

to consider these inhibiting factors in context. In this section, I examine a variety of

explanations of student failure as they relate to sociocultural theory.

If, according to sociocultural theory, learning is socially constructed by

participants in activity settings, then a failure to learn may also be socially

constructed (Au, 1998). Au proposes a diverse constructivist framework to account

for student underperformance in schools in the area of literacy. She uses this term to

distinguish it from social constructivist orientations that tend to focus on similarities

among participants. She emphasizes the differences between individuals’

background knowledge. Her framework focuses on diversity in seven areas of the

educational context: the goal of instruction, the role of the home language,

instructional materials, classroom management, interaction with students,

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relationship to the community, instructional methods, and assessment. When

diversity exists, standard methods of instruction, which tend to assume homogeneity

on the part of learners, are ineffective because they do not address differences in

social class, language, and ethnicity. The identity of the teacher with respect to that

of the students is also important. Diverse populations bring diverse ways of knowing

and performing. Students from these populations may under perform in a classroom

with a mainstream social context, because a teacher who is not aware of his or her

own cultural biases may use practices that disempower students. Student failure is

socially constructed through the characteristics of the activity setting which prevent

students from learning. The implication is that even a teacher with the best

intentions of helping a struggling student may not be effective because of cultural

differences. These differences may be between the student and the teacher,

methodology or curriculum.

A case study of one student can illustrate Au’s (1998) point. In a study of

cultural differences in literacy, Gallas and Smagorinsky (2002) present the case of

one minority boy whose ideas about literacy did not match those of the school. This

resulted in learning problems. The boy’s concept of reading was that reading is to

learn words. He thought adults read so that they do not forget words. He could

decode text and read aloud, but the idea that reading can communicate entertaining

stories and important information was foreign to him. He demonstrated his ability to

invent entertaining stories of his own, and his verbal skills were very good, but he

was inattentive when the teacher read aloud to the class. He did not have the same

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concept of literacy as that of the teacher; therefore, he could not see the usefulness of

a teacher reading to students. The study demonstrates how every student comes to

class with a culturally-determined script of what learning should be. If the script

does not match the class flow, confusion, inattention, and alienation can result. This

student’s ideas about literacy were a product of the representations of reading that he

had been exposed to in the media, in previous schooling, and at home. The

mismatch between the student’s and teacher’s concepts of literacy was a barrier to

learning.

Another reason that more learning does not take place in schools is a lack of

assisted performance (Tharp and Gallimore 1988). Although assisted performance is

common in homes, it is almost absent in schools, according to the authors. This is a

product of how the schools are organized and run. Unlike the special education

teachers in the study by Stough and Palmer (2003), who taught each student as an

individual, most teachers do not have the opportunity to get to know each student’s

particular point in the ZPD. They do not have the time for the individual attention

necessary for assisted performance, in part because of large class size. In essence,

the authors say that the school sociocultural context is not conducive to learning.

Even if the schools were reorganized, teachers do not have the training to assist

performance. Tharp and Gallimore argue that simply knowing how to raise one’s

own children does not translate into effective classroom teaching; teachers need

specialized training in assisted performance.

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The problem is that society conceptualizes the primary educational

relationship as teacher to class. According to sociocultural theory, the learning

relationship is teacher to individual student. John-Steiner and Souberman (1978)

point out that if a teacher simply stands in front of the class and lectures, the social

interaction necessary for learning in the ZPD is missing. They also point out that

students who are behind in their learning are often tracked into special education

classes that may have less interaction and more “programmed” and “mechanized

instruction” (p. 131). Such practices may serve to exacerbate student learning

deficits instead of reducing them.

In sum, the social context of the school constructs student failure because it

withholds the appropriate assistance and social interaction that students need in order

to learn, by not providing appropriately trained teachers and a learning environment

conducive to learning. The diversity in educational context described by Au (1998),

lack of assisted performance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988), and lack of social

interaction with the teacher (John-Steiner & Souberman, 1978) are several factors to

observe when studying how teachers respond to students. Moving from these

theoretical points, next I examine recent empirical studies and the application of

sociocultural theory and the ZPD in the classroom.

Sociocultural Theory and the ZPD in Practice

A study about cooperative learning and the ZPD was conducted in the

Netherlands by Veenman, Denessen, van den Akker, and van der Rijt (2005). They

examined the effect of teacher training on student cooperative learning skills. Their

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mixed-methods nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design included 15

sixth-grade teachers and 24 dyads of sixth-grade students. Notable in the research

design is the dyad as a unit of analysis. The treatment group consisted of teachers

who had participated in a two-year cooperative learning training program with

supplemental training, and their student dyads. There were two control groups of

teachers and students, one with one year of training and one group with no

cooperative learning training. The student dyads consisted of pairs in which one

student was more advanced than the other. The goal was for students to help each

other to solve a set of 15 mathematics problems. Students were video and audio-

taped as they worked on the problems, then transcripts were made and coded. The

researchers focused on student interactions related to help seeking, help giving,

constructive activities, procedural and affective statements, as well as non-content

statements. Student dyad performance on the pre- and post- math tasks was also

assessed to see if the groups using more cooperative interactions achieved better

results. The treatment group showed greater use of cooperative skills such as

elaboration and explanation, and greater performance gains in the post-test than the

control group. The results can be interpreted to show that cooperative learning,

which by definition should be within the ZPD, can improve student performance.

The key elements of the study are that teachers were trained in cooperative learning

methods, and that student dyads with the trained teachers performed better than

dyads having teachers with less or no training. Therefore, in the classroom, it is

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possible that cooperative learning within the ZPD requires special training of the

teacher.

Another study investigated how students learn the meaning of mathematical

words through the ZPD. Steele (1999) focused her study on Vygotsky’s unit of

analysis, word meaning. She points out that one reason that children have difficulty

in mathematics is that mathematical words have special and precise meanings. If

students do not already know the concepts represented by the words used in class,

they have difficulty learning. In many cases, mathematical words represent concepts

that can only be understood by actively manipulating items in the environment. (A

simple example is that it is difficult to learn the meaning of numbers without actually

counting physical items.) Steele observed a fourth-grade mathematics teacher

conducting an interactive lesson about circles. Key word meanings students learned

included diameter, center, and radius. The method of instruction used the ZPD in the

following way. Instead of simply writing the words on the board and defining them,

the teacher asked students to use a variety of tools (paper, ruler, pencil, journal for

notes) to find the center of the circle. After a period when students worked

individually and with each other to solve this problem, the teacher asked students to

come up to the board and demonstrate their solutions. In fact, the demonstrations

were not completely accurate, but accuracy was not the objective of the board work.

The goal was to provide assistance to students’ performance, a keystone of the ZPD.

Consequently, as each student worked out the problem on the board, the teacher gave

advice about what to do. With this assistance, and after several students came to the

33

board to try to find the center of the circle, students were able to perform the task on

their own. Students learned the target meanings because the teacher stated the words

diameter, radius, and center whenever students spontaneously used these methods to

solve the problem. In the process of students working out the problem, the teacher

pointed out key aspects of the concepts, for instance that a diameter has to cross the

widest part of a circle, and that the center can be found by drawing two diameters

that cross each other. This one lesson provides a clear case of how the ZPD can be

used, even when class size may not be optimal. Although the teacher may not have

interacted individually with every student, having the students come up to the board

and using dialog to help them provided interaction that students could learn from.

Weaknesses in the Literature

Some researchers apply the ZPD too narrowly or misapply it in classroom

research. One example is a study by Kozulin and Garb (2002), who developed an

assessment instrument to measure student’s ZPD in English as a foreign language

reading comprehension. Their qualitative study involved 23 students aged 20-23 in

Israel, who were academically at-risk because they had failed their high school

English exam. The assessment process included a pre-test; two mediated learning

sessions (instruction) designed to develop students’ cognitive strategies in reading

comprehension; and a re-test. The pre-test was designed as much as possible to test

reading strategies, rather than prior knowledge. The first 50-minute instructional

session focused on grammar, vocabulary, and basic English language conventions.

The second 50-minute session focused on reading comprehension strategies such as

34

recognizing text structure, transitions, and using background knowledge. After the

two sessions, students took a re-test designed to test the same skills as the pre-test.

Test results showed that some students made greater gains from the first to the

second test than others. The authors conclude that these gain differences indicate

each student’s learning potential. Although the students received instruction

between the two tests, it appears that the second test was administered in the same

way as the first, in other words without any help from a teacher. As a result,

although the authors’ assessment may show how much each student gained from the

intervening instruction, the instrument does not really measure a student’s ZPD. To

do that, the pre-test tasks must take place in cooperation with a teacher who is giving

instructions and help as the student works. This would show students assisted

performance level. Another key item that is missing is the manner of instruction in

the two 50-minute lessons. The students who made more progress may have

received more individual help from the teacher than others.

The literature has pointed to several areas needing further research.

Huberman (1996) highlights the contributions that practicing teachers can make to

research. This is pertinent to my study because I am a practicing teacher. Huberman

discusses various streams in teacher research, pointing out the value of studies by

participants and observers grounded in specific educational contexts. Although these

studies can not be generalized, the documentation of particular cases and practices

still adds to the knowledge base of the teaching profession. The current study is just

such a situated study.

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The one-on-one relationship of teacher to individual student is one facet of

the classroom that has not been studied as much as others. According to Vygotsky’s

ZPD, this relationship is important to learning because teacher-student interaction is

the arena where learning takes place. How does a teacher assess what a student’s

needs are at a given moment for a given task? How does the teacher respond based

on this assessment? Is the response effective in helping a student progress?

Summary

The literature on sociocultural theory begins with constructivism, the idea

that meaning, and by extension knowledge, is a social phenomenon, developed

within a cultural group. In modern society, a large part of the responsibility for

transmitting this knowledge lies with educational institutions and teachers. Although

many sociocultural factors influence student learning, such as family background and

SES, this study focuses on the role of teachers in transmitting knowledge. The

theoretical framework of sociocultural theory proposes an explanation for how this

knowledge is transmitted. Sociocultural theory has evolved as various researchers

added their own elaborations. Within sociocultural theory, I have examined one

important mechanism for transmitting meaning and knowledge, the ZPD. Finally,

although the theory can explain student learning, it can also explain why students fail

to learn.

Sociocultural theory can be a tool to explore teacher responses to students,

especially those who are struggling with course material. The culture of the teacher,

student, and school, as well as other sociocultural factors such as social class and

36

gender may affect how teachers respond to individual students in a classroom. I

studied how these sociocultural factors affect teacher rapport with a student, the

assessment of a student’s level and needs, and the choice, delivery, and evaluation of

instructional strategies.

In the next chapter, I introduce the methodology of the study, including an

examination of how these methods have been used in other studies. In chapter four, I

present the data, and in chapter five I analyze the data and present my findings.

37

Chapter 3: Research Design

As mentioned in chapter one, the purpose of this qualitative case study of the

Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI) was to examine how teachers responded to

students who were having difficulty with course concepts. I focused on teacher-

student dyads and how teachers interacted to help students. The study could be

significant within the NAI as an aid to designing teacher training and professional

development, and ultimately could be valuable as an addition to the research on

pedagogy.

The conceptual framework for the study was sociocultural theory, as

discussed in chapter two. This framework explains how culture and the social

context play a vital function in learning. In this study, I examined the teacher-

student relationship through the lens of sociocultural theory. As discussed earlier,

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the zone where learning takes

place as a more skilled adult or peer helps a student. I analyzed the process of

teacher helping student with respect to the teacher’s cultural background and

socialization into the teaching role in the NAI (the culture of the NAI program), as

well as the interaction of teacher’s culture and student’s culture. Considering the

ZPD, I analyzed teachers’ approaches to assessing a student’s skills and to

monitoring the level of assistance the teacher offers to the student.

In this chapter, I first introduce the site, followed by a description of the

participants. The school and program site names are authentic because I released

this study to NAI; however, I disguised the names of teachers, students, and

38

administrators for confidentiality. After the description of site and participants, the

third section covers the sampling procedures, the fourth, data collection, the fifth

data analysis, and the sixth section describes how I ensured validity and reliability.

Site Selection

The site for the research project was the University of Southern California’s

Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI). Located in Los Angeles, the NAI was

part of a set of USC programs that reach out to the local community. The umbrella

organization for all these programs was the USC Community Education Academy,

whose mission was “To provide the needed support to USC education outreach

programs in order to strengthen the services provided, eliminate barriers and

encourage collaboration among programs” (Office of External Relations, 2004). Its

outreach programs strove to involve students from pre-school to university level in

educational enrichment. The NAI was part of this Academy, along with five other

programs: Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement, McNair Scholars,

Medical Counseling, Organization & Recruitment, and the Office of civic &

Community Relations/USC Family of Schools, which encompassed the Educational

Opportunity Programs Center, Multimedia University Academy, and the School of

Early Childhood Education. The goal of all these programs was to attract students to

USC, help them prepare for college, and keep them in school.

The NAI was established in 1989 to help and encourage students at local

schools to go on to study at USC. Its mission is “to increase the enrollment and

graduation rate of low socioeconomic, neighborhood, under-represented students to

39

the University of Southern California, by serving as a model for a 6-year pre-college

enrichment program” ( Neighborhood Academic Initiative, 2005 par. 13). After

successfully completing six years of preparation at the NAI, students with qualifying

GPA and SAT scores receive a four-and-a-half-year full tuition scholarship to USC.

The program operates on public and corporate funding as well as private donations.

For the past four years, all of the NAI seniors have graduated and gone on to college.

I selected the NAI as the site for the study because its purpose is to prepare

average students from urban schools for entrance to USC. These students are from

the neighborhood schools near USC, and are mostly low-income, at-risk and

minority. In such a situation, it is highly likely that some students will have

difficulty with course content, since these students are only average achievers at their

schools, yet the NAI challenges them with college preparatory work. This allows

opportunities to observe how teachers respond to students who have difficulty with

course content. The rationale for the site choice is that there may be more teacher-

student interactions of the type that is the object of the study. Specifically, there may

be more incidents of teachers responding to students in difficulty. In the next

section, I examine the neighborhood schools in more detail.

Demographics

Broadly speaking, the neighborhoods around USC are mainly minority and

low-income. Three local schools from the Los Angeles Unified School District work

in partnership with the NAI: 1) Foshay Learning Center, an inner-city school for

high-achieving K-12 grade students, 2) Manual Arts High School, a large inner-city

40

school grades 9-12, and 3) John Muir Middle School, an urban middle school grades

6-8. Because Foshay Learning Center includes both the junior high and high school

levels, the feeder schools for NAI consist of two junior high schools (Foshay and

Muir) and two high schools (Foshay and Manual Arts). Since NAI students come

exclusively from these schools, this section outlines key demographic statistics for

each school. I focus on the high schools because my study does not include the

junior high school students.

The first school, Foshay Learning Center, has grades K-12 and an enrollment

of 3503 students. The school is located several blocks west of USC. It is currently

on a three-track schedule. Founded in 1924, the school’s mission is to encourage

students to go on to college and successfully graduate. Hispanic students comprise

the majority of the enrollment, at 76%, while 23% are African American.

Approximately one-third of the students are English Learners. The poverty level is

high, with 95% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Thirty-five

percent of parents did not complete high school. To give a further idea of the social

atmosphere of the school, there were 734 suspensions during the 2003-04 school

year, and the transiency rate was 15%.

The school has 146 certificated teachers. The department with the largest

number of teachers is mathematics, with 21 teachers. Next are special education, 18

teachers, and English, 17 teachers. The large number of special education teachers is

notable. Social science has 14 teachers and science eight, with bilingual-ESL at six.

Other departments have fewer than six teachers each. Of the teachers, 92 are

41

continuing, meaning that they are full-time and permanent (Los Angeles Unified

School District, 2003). A detailed breakdown of teacher data can be found in

appendix C.

The second school, Manual Arts High School, has a long history, having been

established in 1910 (Los Angeles Unified School District 2003). It has undergone

many changes, and in its present form comprises a grades 9-12 year-round school

with three tracks and eight academies, each specializing in a particular subject. Data

for 2004-05 show 3802 students enrolled, comprised of 20% African-American and

79% Hispanic students. Thirty-eight percent of students are English learners. For

the 2003-04 school year, the transiency rate was high, at 56%, while attendance was

only 85%. In that year, there were 1140 suspensions, for a suspension rate of 29%.

In contrast, the suspension rate for LAUSD is 11% (Los Angeles Unified School

District, 2005). Eighty-one percent of students participated in the free or reduced

price lunch program. Forty-five percent of parents did not complete high school, and

39% of students are English learners (Los Angeles Unified School District, 2003).

The school has 160 certificated teachers of which 116 are continuing. Many

of the teachers have been at the school for several years; 22 teachers have taught at

Manual Arts for more than 11 years, and another 26 have taught there for six years or

more. This means almost a third of the teaching staff has been at the school six years

or more. Compared to Foshay, Manual Arts has a larger teaching staff. The biggest

department is English, with 28 teachers, next biggest is mathematics, with 18

teachers. Other large departments are social science, 15, and science and special

42

education, which both have 14 teachers. The foreign language department has ten

teachers, but all other departments have less than six teachers each (Los Angeles

Unified School District 2005). A detailed faculty breakdown can be found in

appendix C.

Finally, Muir Middle School is for students grades 6-8, and has a four-track

school calendar. The population of 1687 students is 26% African-American and

73% Hispanic. Over 69% of the students are English learners. The transiency rate is

over 43%, with 500 student suspensions in the 2003-04 school year. There are 99

certificated teachers of which 58 are continuing. Thirty-two teachers have

probationary status. Over half of the teachers have been at the school for five years

or less (Los Angeles Unified School District, 2005).

The NAI recruits 9th to 12th grade students from Foshay and Manual Arts.

Approximately half of the grade 9-12 students come from Foshay and half from

Manual Arts. Within the NAI, the weekday student population consists of 9-12th

grade students with a C+ grade average. These students are from Foshay and

Manual arts and were identified by their high school teachers as having potential.

They must have at least a C+ in Algebra 1 to qualify for the NAI. The program does

not recruit advanced placement or honors students. Middle school students from

Muir and Foshay attend a Saturday academy, but do not take regular weekday

classes in the NAI. The next section describes the participants of the study.

43

Participant Selection

The NAI staff and administration consists of an executive director, assistant

director, administrative coordinator, a middle school liaison, eight teachers, and

various temporary employees, student workers, and volunteers (see Appendix A for

an organization chart). There is also a ten-person parent leadership board.

Interacting with the NAI are the school principals of Foshay and Manual Arts as well

as senior administration in the USC Community Education Academy. There are 219

9th-12th grade students in the program in fall 2005, plus another 221 7th-8th grade

students who attend on Saturdays. In all, the entire population of people affiliated

with the NAI is approximately 470, not including parents and families.

From this wide group, I have based the participant selection on my interest in

teacher education. I was particularly interested in teachers for two reasons. First, as

a teacher educator, I want to know what factors affect the way teachers perceive,

analyze, and respond to student problems. Second, I could use my 25 years of

teaching experience to inform my observations of teacher-student interactions in the

classroom. As a result, the focus participants in this project are the NAI teachers.

The program has eight instructors: four instructors from Foshay learning center and

four from Manual Arts High School. The teachers are five males and three females.

Each teacher teaches one grade level and one subject, either Math or English. The

research study included all eight teachers in focus groups and observations. One

teacher declined to participate in the videotaping or interview due to being

overcommitted. A list of teachers and their assignments follows:

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9th grade geometry Mr. Manning, Manual Arts

9th grade English Mrs. Middleton, Foshay

10th grade algebra 2 Mr. North, Foshay

10th grade English Mr. Penn, Manual Arts

11th grade math analysis Mr. Brenner, Manual Arts

11th grade English Mr. Castle, Manual Arts

12th grade calculus Ms. Medina, Foshay

12th grade English Ms. Roan, Foshay

I obtained participant demographics as well as teacher background and

experience through interviews. Four NAI teachers taught at Foshay, and four taught

at Manual Arts. Of the eight teachers who participated, there were five males and

three females. Six classified themselves as white and culturally American. One

teacher classified herself as of central American/Mexican descent, and one teacher

classified himself as American of East Indian descent. For social class, although

teaching is considered a middle class occupation, I explored class background in

more depth by asking about parent’s occupations. Five out of seven teachers

interviewed had parents with middle-class occupations, while the two had parents

with working class occupations, based on Wright (2000). The length of time

working at NAI ranged from new, meaning this was the first year teaching there, to

eleven years at NAI. Three teachers completed credential programs at CSU

campuses and two received credentials through the Los Angeles Unified School

District intern program. Two teachers’ training is unknown.

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In addition to the teachers, I also interviewed administrators. These included

the executive director, assistant director, administrative coordinator and middle

school liaison at NAI, a previous NAI administrator, the principal of Manual Arts,

and a CEA administrator. Interviewing these people was important because

administrators set the requirements for hiring and provide training and curriculum

which affect the teachers’ classroom behavior. In addition, the administrators

influence school culture, which is important to consider when using sociocultural

theory.

In order to round out the dyad unit of analysis, I intended to interview

students I observed interacting with the teachers. In practice, it was difficult to get

student participation, and I eventually interviewed student volunteers regardless of

whether I had observed them interacting with a teacher. Since the students talked

about their interactions with teachers, I could still obtain useful data. I interviewed a

total of 15 students, consisting of six ninth grade students, three tenth grade students,

four eleventh grade students, and two twelfth grade students. (The seniors were the

most difficult to recruit because they were very busy.) The student group included

11 females and four males. They were evenly divided between Hispanic and

African-American ethnicities.

Because the parent leadership board also influenced NAI, I interviewed

board members. I interviewed six parents on the parent leadership board, including

the board president, secretary, ombudsman, and general members. In all, I

interviewed 35 people.

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Data Collection

The NAI program runs in two sessions, from July 1 to October 23 and

January 3 to April 23. I conducted the research during both sessions. I started the

data gathering process in October and continued through graduation in May. I also

observed the orientation for the incoming ninth grade students for the following year.

In this study, I employed qualitative methods of data collection, primarily

ethnography and secondarily case study. An ethnographic case study method can

answer the central questions of this research project, as specified in chapter one:

How does a teacher’s culture affect his or her responses to students? How does

school organizational culture affect teacher responses? Ethnography can provide the

kind of data suitable to answer these questions using the framework of sociocultural

theory. According to Creswell (1998), in ethnography, the researcher studies the

“meanings of behavior, language, and interactions of a culture-sharing group (58).”

In this case, the culture-sharing group is the NAI teachers.

Along with ethnography, I used case study in the sense that I was only

observing the NAI, and not other programs. My study was “bounded by time and

place” (Creswell, 1998): The NAI location and the 2005-2006 school year.

Although the NAI is unique and another researcher might do an intrinsic case study

because if it’s uniqueness, according to Creswell’s definitions, this case study is

instrumental because I focused on an issue, teacher-student interaction, in order to

illustrate how this interaction is influenced by culture. The case study is within-site

as opposed to multi-sited because I only studied the NAI site.

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An example of an ethnographic case study as a type of educational research is

a landmark educational study by Willis (1977). He conducted a comparative

ethnographic case study of how British working class boys get working class jobs as

a result of their culture. Willis studied 12 working-class boys in a place he called

Hammertown, located in central England. The boys had a culture of opposition and

resistance to school. In order to study this culture, his data collection methods were

observation and participant observation in class, around school, and during leisure

time, recorded group discussions, informal interviews, and diaries. These methods

are hallmarks of ethnography. Ethnographic methods allowed Willis to get the

information necessary to study working class culture. His findings show that

working-class high school boys form informal social groups and a culture of

resistance to school. The result is they do not get a good education and therefore

take working class jobs, in this way reproducing the class structure. Ethnographic

methods were an essential means for Willis to gather the data he needed to reach his

conclusions, shedding new light on the role of culture in reproducing social class.

Willis’ study opened the field of education to ethnographic research because the

insights he gained were very different from results of more conventional research.

Ethnography can pose a new type of question, the question of how culture influences

education. My study examined the influence of culture on education.

Like Willis, my data collection procedures included observation and

interviewing. In addition I included document analysis and videotaping. These

encompass the four forms of data discussed by Creswell (1998): observations,

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interviews, documents, and audiovisual materials. First, I will discuss the researcher

as research instrument, and then I will present my data collection procedures.

Research instrument. In qualitative research, the researcher is the instrument

(Lincoln and Guba 1985, Patton 2002). Creswell (1998) states it is important that

the researcher disclose his or her “biases, values, and context” (172). Nonetheless,

Patton (2002) emphasizes the importance of keeping “empathetic neutrality” (50), in

other words it is important not to enter a study with a preset agenda to prove a

particular point. (This is quite different from quantitative inquiry, where the

researcher sets out to prove a hypothesis.) With these points in mind, I would like to

disclose my personal background.

Having taught students from other countries for my entire career, I have a

special interest in cultural issues affecting teacher-student interaction. I have been

teaching college-level English as a second language since 1979, and am familiar with

methods of teaching language learners. My experience is solely with teaching

adults, but in this study I observed high school teaching, so student age is different.

The students in the study were fluent English speakers, although there were some

ESL students. In spite of these considerations, my long experience was an asset in

observing teachers and identifying their problem-solving strategies. My

unfamiliarity with the students and grade levels in the study allowed me to look at

classroom interactions with a fresh view.

Since culture is a focus of this study, next I will disclose my cultural

background because it may affect my observations. All my grandparents were

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immigrants and came of age in other countries: Turkey, Belgium, England, and

Canada. My mother was born in the USA, but entered school without knowing any

English. French was her first language, Spanish her second, and English her third

language. Her family valued multilingualism, and I share that value. Hispanic

culture had a strong influence on my childhood. My mother’s family is Sephardic,

and her uncle ran a school in Mexico. When I was a child my household was

bilingual English-(Mexican) Spanish, not only because of family, but also because

we had a series of live-in housekeepers who spoke only Spanish. As a result, I saw

firsthand some of the problems Spanish-speaking children face in school. Since

many of the students in this study are Hispanic, this cultural issue may be a source of

bias, but it may also be a source of insight.

Next I will discuss my background from a social standpoint. Both my

parents suffered from poverty and discrimination when they were children, in part

because of my mother’s Hispanic Jewish ancestry and my father’s Scottish ancestry.

My father was a Canadian citizen, but he spent much of his childhood traveling up

and down the West Coast as his father moved from job to job, mostly working on

farms. Even though my parents went to college and were middle-class professionals,

their childhood backgrounds influenced the cultural milieu of my family. Within

Lareau’s (2003) categorization of the characteristics of working class and middle

class childhoods, my childhood was like the working class. I grew up in urban Los

Angeles, a few miles north of the location of this study; as a result, I encountered

gangs, drugs, violence, teenage pregnancy, and many other urban problems.

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Knowing firsthand what an urban childhood entails can help me understand NAI

students, because they come from similar neighborhoods. In sum, my background

can be an asset in allowing me greater insight into the social class and cultural

dynamics of student-teacher interactions.

Document analysis. Document analysis was one of the first steps in my

research. As Patton (2002) points out, documents are “material culture” and an

important source of data for ethnographic research. They can provide historical

background as well as the program goals and mission. Documents can give context

for observations. I began the study by analyzing public NAI program documents,

particularly those pertaining to program mission, curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher

training, in order to get the official version of the program as well as its formal

structure.

Observations. Observations were the second step in the research process

because they were a good way to get a holistic picture of the NAI program. An

example of observation in educational research is Bettie (2003). She conducted her

ethnographic study over nine months in a high school in California’s Central Valley

with the purpose of portraying how race, gender, sexuality, and class interact in the

experiences of white and Mexican-American senior high school girls from the

working class. Bettie’s methods included participant observation of six cliques at the

school and interviews of individual students. She pointed out that the participant

observation and interview methods became blended as girls had long conversations

with her as she was observing. She conducted the observations and interviews on the

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high school campus for varying amounts of time. She recorded and transcribed her

interviews. Bettie personally did all the research and developed trusting

relationships with her participants.

In my case, I observed one NAI class session and one home school class

session for each teacher and took observation notes. In addition, I observed five

teacher meetings and three teacher retreat days and took field notes. I observed two

parent leadership board meetings and one administrative staff meeting, taking

observation notes each time. During the classroom observations, I simply sat in the

back of the room and did not participate, but during the meetings, I did participate by

asking and answering questions. As Creswell (1998) points out, participant

observation can cause participant perception of the researcher to change from

outsider to insider. This kind of participation might have made the participants more

comfortable with my presence.

An example of a study employing participant observation is Lareau’s (2003)

study of how family life reflects class and racial differences. The study’s most

important element was naturalistic participant observations of families at their homes

and at other activities such as parties and doctor visits. During these observations,

the researchers participated with children in games, meals, and other child-centered

activities. There were also classroom observations. Sometimes the observer

participated in classroom activities, while other times not. Lareau also conducted

interviews with parents, teachers, school personnel, and adults who interacted with

children during organized activities outside of school. Lareau’s key findings were

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that both poor and working-class families differ from middle class families in their

child-rearing practices. Poor and working-class families allow their children to grow

up naturally, without much adult supervision or organized activities, while middle-

class families enroll their children in multiple organized activities. Participant

observation, particularly participating with children, allowed researchers to become

involved in everyday family life Creswell (1998) in order to obtain data about family

activities and child-rearing practices.

Interviews. Using a semi-structured interview format, I individually

interviewed seven of the eight teachers. The eighth teacher was too busy to schedule

interviews. I intended to interview all the teachers two times. I interviewed five

teachers twice and two teachers once, also because of their schedules. I interviewed

the NAI executive director, the assistant director, the administrative coordinator, the

middle school liaison, and a former NAI director one time each, using a semi-

structured interview format. All the above interviews were audiotaped and

transcribed. I also interviewed a total of fifteen students. For these interviews, I

took notes instead of using audiotape in order to make the students feel more

comfortable. I interviewed six parents, taking notes to record the data. I interviewed

the principal of Manual Arts, taking notes to record his responses. I conducted a

telephone interview with the vice-president of external relations at USC, who

oversees NAI along with other programs.

I met with most participants individually or in focus groups on the NAI

school site, which is the University of Southern California campus, at a time

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convenient to each participant. I conducted some interviews at the home schools, in

coffee shops, in private homes, or by telephone for the convenience of the

participants.

In the literature, an example of interview research methods is in Stanton-

Salazar’s (2001) work. Stanton-Salazar used interviews extensively in his research.

He presents ethnographic and statistical data to describe how the social networks of

Latino youth tend to prevent their social mobility. Here I will only describe the

interview aspect of the research. In the Bay Area, 205 Latino sophomore, junior, and

senior high school students participated in semistructured interviews about social and

informational support. In San Diego, Stanton-Salazar interviewed fifty-one

sophomores and juniors at Auxilio High School. Students participated in intensive

semistructured interviews conducted by four interviewers in school, at homes, and at

neighborhood locations. Another set of interviews asked parents, particularly

mothers, about their views of obstacles to student success. A final set of interviews

asked institutional agents whom students had identified as supportive about social

conditions that allowed them to be supportive. Through the interviews, Stanton-

Salazar showed how the social networks of the Latino students helped or hindered

them in succeeding in school and by extension, society. This example study

illustrates the use of interviews to conduct ethnographic research.

Videotaping. I videotaped one 60-minute session of each teacher’s class (7

videotaped sessions) during the spring semester. The purpose of the videotaping was

to capture teacher-student interactions to extract cases of the teacher responding to

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students having difficulty with coursework. I used the videotapes for stimulated

recall as described below.

Stimulated recall. After each videotaped class session (7 recall sessions), I

replayed the videotape to the teacher and asked the teacher to recall his or her

thoughts and actions captured in the video with respect to responses to students. I

audiotaped and transcribed these teacher responses.

A study using this research method can illustrate how stimulated recall

works. My study replicated the stimulated recall procedures used by Stough and

Palmer (2003). They used grounded theory methods to study how expert special

education teachers teach. This study is particularly important because my study

mirrored its procedures in many respects. Stough and Palmer found that expert

teachers think of students as individuals and respond to them individually, as

compared to responding to the class as a whole. Strategies teachers used with

individual students included instructional strategies, class management, and

behavioral strategies. The research highlighted the dynamic, complex, interactive

nature of teacher decision-making when it came to assisting individual learners.

Stough and Palmer selected 19 teachers from five school districts, including urban,

mid-size, and rural settings. They chose these teachers because of their expertise as

determined by their years of teaching, certification, recognition for superior teaching,

and the progress of their students. Methods of gathering data included interviews of

the teachers, videotaping of teachers teaching their own classes, observations,

stimulated recall, and field notes. Interviews lasted 45 minutes and were audiotaped

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and transcribed. Each teacher was videotaped six times for 30 minutes to one hour

during a two-month period. During each videotaping session, an observer took notes

to, among other things, map out the classroom, student seating, and to note amount

of time the teacher spent with individual students. On the same day as the

videotaping session, the teacher participated in a stimulated recall session. This

involved the teacher watching the video and stopping it to explain his or her thoughts

or feelings at various points during the lesson. According to Stough and Palmer’s

very detailed description, if the teacher did not stop the video and comment on it

after two minutes, the researcher would stop the video and ask “open-ended

questions such as ‘What were you trying to accomplish here?’ or ‘What were your

thoughts or feelings at this point?’” (p. 5). The content of field notes included

researcher comments about data collection, ideas, reminders for the next meeting

with the teacher, and observations about the mood of the session.

Stimulated recall is based on work by Ericsson and Simon (1993). They

outlined how to use verbal reports as data, a process called protocol analysis.

Protocol analysis means analyzing the transcripts of people thinking aloud or

recalling their thoughts in a given situation. In anthropology and ethnography,

researchers have always relied on verbal reports to do research. In educational

psychology (Ericsson and Simon’s field) however, it is only recently that verbal

reporting has been considered a valid source of data. Educational researchers usually

would observe behavior and use various sorts of tests to study learning, instead of

just asking people what they were thinking. Ericsson and Simon present a

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comprehensive guide for using verbal reports as data in educational psychology. The

value of this method is that it allows the researcher to observe and record thinking

processes. For that reason, I transplanted this educational psychology research tool

into my ethnographic study. It allowed me to observe what teachers are thinking as

they interact with students in class.

One key use for protocol analysis is to show how subjects selectively identify

relevant information. Ericsson and Simon (1993) define two types of verbal reports:

concurrent verbalization, which consists of thinking aloud as one is doing something,

and retrospective verbalization, which consists of recalling the thinking process after

the action is completed. I was particularly interested in the second type, because

after a lesson, a teacher can explain his or her thinking process as the lesson was

going on, discussing the thinking behind any changes or adjustments made in

response to student performance. I attempted to discern what teachers identify as the

relevant information in student behavior that cues them to adjust their teaching

methods. This can be particularly important in determining how teachers identify

and assess students who are having problems with course material. Combining this

with ethnographic data, I analyzed how culture influences teacher responses to

students.

There are, however, some issues that a researcher has to be aware of: with

retrospective verbalization the subject will not remember every thought, and the

subject may remember inaccurately (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). Researchers have to

analyze data from verbal reports carefully for these reasons, and the authors spend a

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great deal of their book discussing various pitfalls and how to adjust for them. They

say interviews with the subjects to find out their knowledge base can be helpful in

reducing errors in the data. In my study, in addition to interviews, I used video as an

aid to teacher recall of their thought process during their lessons. Although Ericsson

and Simon do not specifically mention video, Stough and Palmer (2003) used video

to reduce problems of incomplete or inaccurate recall, thus their term stimulated

recall.

Focus groups. According to Creswell (1998), focus groups can elicit

information that may not surface in private interviews, and they are useful when the

group members are similar and cooperative with each other. My research included a

total of six focus groups.

I conducted two focus groups with the teachers, which I audiotaped and

transcribed. The first, in the fall semester, was to discuss how they perceived and

responded to student problems. The second was at the teacher retreat in May, after

the observations, videotaping, interviews, and stimulated recall. During the second

focus group, I presented the results to the teachers and administrators for their

comments and responses. The goals of the second focus group were validation of

my findings and group identification of best practices. In addition, another

researcher conducted a focus group session during a teacher retreat I observed in

December. I obtained permission to transcribe the audiotape and included it in my

data.

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I also organized some of the students into focus groups by grade level. We

met at the NAI office during after-school tutoring time. The focus group format put

students at ease and they were more talkative. Unfortunately, because they were

more excitable in this format, they often talked over each other, making it difficult to

take notes about who said what. Further, I used the focus group format for parents at

the NAI office because it was convenient for them to participate in this way when

they convened for a parent leadership board meeting.

Field notes. In addition to notes taken during observations and interviews,

after each contact with a teacher or administrator, I recorded comments and

reflections as well as any problems that came up or concerns about the data.

Creswell (1998) describes this type of reflective note taking as field notes. Field

notes also included my perceptions about the mood and tone of each session.

Getting participant buy-in. As Patton (2002) points out, a field study begins

with negotiation with gatekeepers. From the NAI administrator’s point of view, this

research study provided ideas for program enhancement as well as material for

teacher training and for improving instruction. To encourage teachers to participate,

I provided as much information about the project as possible, so that their curiosity

became a motivating factor. The possibility of getting insights into their teaching

methods by watching videotapes of themselves and discussing their thinking process

was intrinsically motivating to the teachers. According to Ericsson and Simon

(1993), a side effect of retrospective verbalization is that it sometimes improves

subsequent performance on the task, which can be an added benefit to teachers who

59

participated. After analyzing most of the data, I presented the results to the NAI

faculty and staff, along with a written draft report. A monograph summarizing the

study is the final product to be submitted to NAI. This deliverable can be valuable to

NAI as well.

Data Analysis

I analyzed the data based on the qualitative methodology of the ethnographic

case study. The case under study is NAI. I did a thematic analysis of the data from

all sources, including documents, interviews, videotaping/stimulated recall and

observations. This is in keeping with Creswell’s (1998) description of case study

analysis.

As I completed each step in the data gathering process, I analyzed the data, so

that the research proceeded in an iterative process. Lincoln and Guba (1985)

describe this process as the flow of naturalistic inquiry. It moves from collecting or

sampling the data to analysis to theory to adjustments in the sampling process and

back to sampling. As I analyzed each document, observation, or interview, I

adjusted future data collection procedures by focusing my attention on what

appeared to be the most salient characteristics for the study.

I analyzed the teacher interview transcripts to identify themes. Preliminary

themes presented in chapter 1 included:

• Rapport with student

• Assessment of student level

• Analysis of student needs

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• Choice of instructional strategy

• Delivery of instruction

• Evaluation of instructional success

During the iterative data analysis process, some of these changed. I found that the

above themes were dependent on broader issues of program history, culture, and

relationships to other institutions. The revised list of themes and sub-themes is as

follows:

• Program history and mission

• Program culture

o Student culture

o Faculty culture

o Administrative culture

• NAI partnerships

o Partnership with families

o Partnerships with home schools

o Partnership with USC

I looked for “key phrases, terms, and practices that are special to the people

in the setting” (Patton 2002) as a way to clarify themes. I endeavored to see the NAI

through the eyes of the teachers, administrators, and students, to see how they

perceived the program. After reviewing data from an interview, I fitted it into other

data to describe, analyze, and interpret (Creswell, 1998) the helping behavior of NAI

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teachers. I produced a holistic picture of the NAI, both from the view of the

participants and from the viewpoint of sociocultural theory.

Methods to Ensure Trustworthiness

Scientific studies need to address issues of reliability and validity. In

ethnographic research, perhaps a more appropriate term is trustworthiness (Lincoln

and Guba 1985). In constructivism and sociocultural theory, since knowledge is

constructed, it is not so easy to discern what the “truth” is. Different people have

different ideas; knowledge is relative. For this study, truth is defined by the people

in the case under study, along with the researcher, as well as other uninvolved

observers. If these three groups can agree about the data, analysis, and results, the

study will be trustworthy.

I began checking the trustworthiness of my study early, by first checking the

interview transcripts with the interviewees shortly after each interview to ensure

accuracy. Second, when my analysis and results were largely completed, I presented

them to the NAI teachers and administrators in a focus group format for their

comments. These methods to ensure trustworthiness are termed member checking by

Lincoln and Guba (1985). In the final step, I shared the data and analysis with other

doctoral students in my dissertation group. These three steps can enhance the

trustworthiness of the study.

Another method to improve trustworthiness is triangulation. Triangulation

means using multiple data sources, methods, researchers, and theories (Lincoln &

Guba, 1985). In this study, I was the only researcher and I only used sociocultural

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theory; in addition, my methods were only qualitative. However, I used multiple

data sources. Data sources included document analysis, observations, interviews,

videotapes, and stimulated recall. This variety gave many views of the same

phenomenon, namely the influence of culture on teacher-student interaction. Having

multiple ways to analyze the same target can reduce errors common in a particular

method (Patton, 2002). Cross-checking information obtained from interviews,

observations, stimulated recall, and document analysis reduced the chance for error.

Summary

In this study I used ethnographic case study methods to study teacher-student

interaction at the NAI, an urban program to prepare average but promising inner-city

students for college work. Using the lens of sociocultural theory, I analyzed how

sociocultural factors affected teachers helping students. To gather data, I used the

methods of document analysis, observations, interviews, videotaping, and stimulated

recall. The primary participants of the study were teachers, but I also interviewed

students, administrators, staff, and parents.

The next chapter presents the data on teacher-student interaction as well as

cultural factors evident at NAI. Chapter 5 analyzes the relationship between

sociocultural factors and teacher thought and behavior when interacting with

students. Sociocultural theory is the tool of this analysis. I also present policy

recommendations for best practices, as well as recommendations for future research.

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Chapter 4: Data

The problem this research investigates is, given that low SES inner-city

minority students are underrepresented in colleges, how can schools effectively

prepare students in this population for college? The purpose of the study is to

examine the case of the NAI, a pre-college program for the population under

discussion. The NAI may serve as a model for other programs.

How does NAI produce college-ready students? Specifically, what is it about

student-teacher interaction that helps students learn the necessary skills to go to

college? The intent of my study is to focus on how teachers help students who are

having trouble with coursework.

I examine student-teacher interaction in the classroom through the lens of

sociocultural theory. Since this theory predicts that historical, cultural and social

factors influence the teaching-learning interaction, my data are organized into these

three broad themes. In light of these themes, I will next present data about program

history, NAI culture, and social influences, specifically partnerships, at NAI. I look

at how student-teacher interaction and learning may be affected by these factors.

The names of study participants are pseudonyms to protect privacy. A further

discussion of the data and theory will be presented in Chapter 5.

NAI History

Events in NAI’s past have left a clear mark on the present situation at NAI,

for better or for worse. This history affects the current program mission, the overall

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program functioning, and the students. There are two ways that program history

affects student-teacher interaction. First, the original program purpose and mission

still drives interactions. Second, previous administrative problems have changed the

program and have especially affected the 12th grade students who lived through

them. In this section on history, I present data about mission and previous

administrators to provide the foundation for the following sections on culture and

partnerships.

A brief timeline of the program history can serve as an introduction to this

section. I consulted news articles of the day to find data about program history.

According to Tucker (1991), in 1985, the USC Dean of Graduate Studies and USC

Executive vice Provost met to discuss ways to increase the number of minority

students applying to graduate studies at USC. After analyzing the problem, they

determined that in order to be qualified for graduate studies, minority students would

need to start preparing for college in the 7th grade. This was the origination of the

idea that developed into NAI. According to Hill (1995) in 1989, USC hired an

administrator to develop the NAI program and serve as its first director, and he spent

the first year planning the program, getting funding, and getting support from USC

faculty and local school principals. Lubman (1994) says the first 59 students from

Foshay and Adams Junior High schools started the program as 7th graders in the

1991-92 school year. Sullivan (1997) documents that when this group of students

graduated in 1997, 17 of them were accepted to USC on full scholarships.

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I interviewed Dr. Fitch, a previous interim administrator, and filled in the

history after 1997. NAI had a successful first decade under the leadership of its first

director, Dr. Heath, who, according to Dr. Fitch, “…was an extraordinarily

charismatic man, powerful speaker, and brought with him a sense of urgency about

something being done about these youngsters being excluded from the university

opportunity.” The director was a charismatic and powerful leader. Lubman (1994)

questioned whether the program could continue in the same form if he left. That

question was tested when the Dr. Heath left the program in 1999, and six months

later a new director, Dr. March, came on board. According to Dr. Fitch, after Dr.

Heath’s departure, the NAI started to falter. This point is corroborated by the

teachers and present administrators. The program’s social worker was eliminated

and it seemed that the original vision might be lost. Dr. Fitch took over the

directorship in January 2002 on an interim basis for six months. She says her goal

was to reestablish the purpose and vision of the NAI. After six months, Ms. Watson

was hired as director in July, 2002. As Ms. Watson said, “When I just came in, we

had a slippery slope of leadership.” There were two unstable years after Dr. Heath’s

departure, but with intervention and new administration, the program got back on

track. Ms Watson was director at the time of this study.

The original configuration of the program was similar to today. Here I will

outline that configuration, and point out any differences that exist now. Smith (1993)

describes the NAI’s five components. First, the Pre-College enrichment Academy

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includes early morning math and English classes on the USC campus for students

from local schools. The five-day-a-week classes were originally two hours long, but

now are only one and a half hours long. The second component was a crisis

intervention program headed by an NAI staff member with training in social work

and manned by interns from USC’s School of Social work. This component is not

currently in operation. The third component is the Family Development Institute,

where parents take Saturday classes on a variety of topics designed to improve their

parenting skills and ability to help their children in school. Fourth, once students

graduate and enter USC, there is a Retention Program to ensure their college success.

The final component is research and development. During the course of my project,

I mainly observed the Pre-College Enrichment Academy, including its adjuncts,

which are after-school tutoring and Saturday Academy classes.

Program Mission

In a well-run organization, the program mission is evident in every

interaction (Bennis & Goldsmith, 1997). In my observations, I found this to be a

characteristic at NAI. First I will present data about the NAI mission from program

documents. Then I will present data from observations that relates to the mission.

I consulted program documents and other published materials to identify the

program mission. The program vision is stated somewhat differently in different

documents. For instance, “the Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI) provides

multiple educational opportunities for Scholars and their parents to gain an

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understanding of self, and obtain limitless capacity for skills enabling them to

assume a measure of control over the direction and quality of life” (USC Community

Education Academy Strategic Plan 2004-2005). On the NAI website, the vision is

stated as, “to increase the enrollment and graduation rate of low socioeconomic,

neighborhood, underrepresented students to the University of Southern California, by

serving as a model for a 6-year pre-college enrichment program” (Neighborhood

Academic Initiative (n.d.).

To clarify the mission further, it would have been ideal to interview the

founder, Dr. Heath. Since I was unable to do that, I found articles that quoted Dr.

Heath talking about the program. His passion for the program mission is evident in

his comments: “Our focus is on the average student because our premise is we can

take an average student, and in six years render that student a scholar” (Jones, 1992).

In another article, Heath stated, “My fundamental goal is to prove that all students

can be learners…We consider the student as a complex, whole human being: mind,

body, spirit…Push them and never give up on them” (Fleming, 1993). Heath

mentioned another aspect that might be included in the program mission, “This is an

educational model that could and should be duplicated by any college or university

located in an urban setting” (Smith, 1993). Dr. Heath’s comments reveal a program

mission founded on the ideas that average students can be taught to excel, educators

should not give up on students, and all aspects of students’ lives need to be

considered when teaching them. In addition, Dr. Heath proposes that NAI can serve

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as a model for other schools. Next, I present data on administrators, faculty, and

students to show how I observed the NAI mission to be expressed in program

interactions.

I found that administrators often made comments that showed adherence to

the mission. In an interview, Ms. Watson, the program director, talked about staying

with the program vision and mission. “I think [my role is] not only to further the

goals of the mission of our program, but also to maintain affinity to the model, the

NAI model, [to] take a look at where we need assistance with implementing the

model.” In my very first meeting of the research project, Ms. Watson stated that she

believes all students can learn. She stated that she expects teachers to stick with

students and help them, not to give up on them. She emphasized that the students

generally have a C+ average when they enter NAI. Ms. Brooks, another

administrator, said, “I just think that for the amount of time I work here, I really like

what we do; I wish it could be duplicated so that other schools, other kids can get the

benefit of what we’re doing.” These all parallel Dr. Heath’s statements quoted

above.

Faculty also made comments in line with the mission. They mirrored Dr.

Heath’s statements more than the mission statement as it is written in program

documents. When I interviewed the teachers, I got comments such as these: “It’s not

just kids, it’s families who bought into this, and they deserve it.” “It’s a huge

common misperception at Foshay that we’ve got all the gifted kids, and we don’t.”

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“I wish we could go to other private universities and model this program.” “In a lot

of cases I see me in all the students…It makes me feel like, you know, I can’t give

up…” “You know you’re partly a teacher but you have a parental role. Because if

they have any kind of problem, you know, they will come to you…Two years ago I

bought one student bus tokens for half a year, because he couldn’t walk home

because he would get shot at.” These comments show the teachers adhere to the

mission. They believe average students join NAI, that they can’t give up on them,

that families have to be considered as well, and that teachers should attend to the

whole student, including problems outside the classroom.

Next, I looked at the data from student interviews to see if their perceptions

of the program also gave an indication of program mission. Students commented

that NAI teachers had higher expectations and assigned more homework than their

other teachers: “They’re always on us.” “They want us to do better.” “Mr. Manning

goes beyond the book.” “Good, encouraging teachers.” “Mr. Castle is very

committed; he asks for a lot.” One student said that when he doesn’t hand in his

work, his teacher tracks him down. Another student said his teacher “is one of the

best--dedicated, works with you. He cares, wants to make a difference. He comes [to

tutor us] after school.” These comments align with the goal of not giving up on

students. Students felt teachers treated them as if they were more mature. “They

take you seriously.” Students made comments that the program gave them an

opportunity. A student said NAI “opened my eyes to college.” It gave her “a new

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goal in life.” Another student said, “The program offers opportunities.” These

comments align with the goal of college preparation. Students also made comments

about NAI as an exemplary model. One focus group agreed, “Everybody should

have NAI.” Another focus group suggested, “NAI should get bigger. Get more

schools involved.”

Considering the data, there is a strong indication from the current director,

the faculty, and the students that interactions are aligned to the program mission. In

this way, the program history, particularly the original vision of Dr. Heath, is still

evident and alive in the NAI today. Comments matched Dr. Heath’s quotations even

more than the written mission statements. This shows the continuing influence of

the first director, emphasizing the importance of history on the current functioning of

the educational organization. The mission directly affects student-teacher interaction

because of high teacher expectations and because teachers put great effort into

making sure every student succeeds.

Historical Influence of Previous Administrators

As was introduced above, the influence of the first program director, Dr.

Heath, has been very strong, particularly with respect to the program vision.

However, later administrators have left their mark on the current functioning of the

program as well. Teacher-student interaction today is affected by administrative

decisions of the past. In particular, the leadership troubles of the two years after Dr.

Heath’s departure, 2000-2002, have had a lasting effect.

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The program is set up to help not only the child, but the parents and family,

through classes for parents in addition to classes for their children. This is based on

the mission to address the whole child. To further the goal of helping the child by

helping the whole family, the program originally had a staff member whose job

entailed counseling and social work with families, according to Dr. Fitch. After Dr.

Heath left, the new director, Dr. March, eliminated the social work staff position.

The funding is no longer available and it has never been reinstated, a move that

impacts the program to this day.

Because there is no staff member dedicated to family counseling, these

counseling duties have been taken up by the remaining staff as well as the faculty, as

they endeavor to follow the original program vision. I observed about 25% of

faculty meeting time was spent discussing student and family problems. Some

examples of statements related to student and family problems follow. “She is really

struggling, really insecure, doesn’t feel strong about her academic skills; she is often

late.” “He had to get his three siblings to school; he was always late.” There were

several instances of teachers blaming boyfriends for female students’ poor classroom

performance. There was mention of a foster child who was fighting with a sibling

and having family problems. Ms. Watson stressed the importance of helping foster

children. In one meeting she commented, “[This student’s] mother is alcoholic and a

drug abuser. She was in foster care. She was beaten badly, was late to class, missing

Saturdays. If we had a counselor she would not have suffered.” Another student

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was having problems because his father had suddenly died. Now this student is head

of the family and works. He has too much responsibility. Another student is often

absent because he has to go to court. About another student, a teacher commented,

“His mother is young but has degenerative arthritis. She can’t walk, can hardly get

out of bed. He really has his mom at home as an invalid.” Other family problems

discussed included alcoholism, mental illness, and homelessness. In the

homelessness case, a student slept on people’s couches for two years while he

studied at NAI. As Ms. Watson commented in one meeting, “Outside forces

sometimes cause them [students] to drop out.” This comment highlights the impact

of family and other issues on academics, and gives emphasis to the importance of

counseling. The data show that unresolved family problems can directly affect

students’ performance and interaction in class. This strengthens the point in the

original mission to consider the whole student.

The administrative decision to eliminate the school counselor has impacted

the administrative workload. Counseling takes up a significant amount of the

administrative staff’s time. I recorded comments indicating that letters, phone calls

and meetings are all used for counseling. For example, Ms. Watson commented that

one student was getting into a gang and she lectured him for one hour to persuade

him to get out. Parents appear to be routinely contacted when a student is having

problems in school. In faculty meetings I recorded comments about who would

contact or did contact parents and what the results were. Although I recorded some

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comments about teachers contacting parents, contacting the parents seemed to be

done more by the office staff than the teachers. For example, I recorded a meeting

discussion about a student failing an AP class. She was working at McDonald’s

because her parents had financial problems. She felt pressure from the parents to

work. Ms. Gomez agreed to call in the parents to discuss the situation. In another

case, a teacher commented that, “There’s lots and lots of alcoholism and drug abuse

with the parents, and they go to Ms. Gomez. … In fact they go to her more than she

wants them to go to her, with their sob stories… and she had to change her cell

number.” Parent contacts appear to be a big part of the office staff workload,

particularly for Ms. Gomez. This workload is a result of Dr. March’s decision to cut

the staff counselor and social work interns.

The effect of previous administrators can be observed from the students’

comments as well. Since administrative problems occurred in 2000 through 2002,

and students participate in NAI for six years, the classes of 2006 and 2007 started in

the program during that time. Teachers and staff commented that the class of 2006

as a group had a distinct personality. One teacher said, “The senior class—they were

heinous from 7th grade.” Teachers said they complained more than other classes. In

grade level focus group interviews, I observed that the 11th and 12th grade students

made more negative comments than 9th and 10th grade students. During my

interviews with 11th and 12th grade students, I detected a certain amount of distrust or

alienation among some of those students which was not present in the 9th and 10th

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graders. For instance, a 12th grader said she felt betrayed because the promises that

had been made to her when she started NAI had not been kept. She admitted that “A

lot of us had bad attitudes…You hear negative criticism about the class of 2006, but

we work hard.” She also said that “They [administrators and teachers] turn their

back on us.” From my observations, this did not seem to be the case, but perhaps a

negative view of administrators was formed back when the students started NAI and

administration was in turmoil. The events when they started may have colored these

students’ perceptions until their graduation.

The data show that two aspects of NAI history, development of the mission

and a previous administrator, still are evident in program interaction today. The

mission as put forth in statements by Dr. Heath, the first program administrator,

drives the program more than written mission statements. The change in leadership

after the departure of Dr. Heath left a legacy of mistrust among students who started

at that time and left the program without a counseling component. The staff devotes

a proportion of their time to maintain a key element of the original vision by

providing help for students with family and other problems outside school. The

program history and mission provide a foundation for the school culture, which I

describe next.

NAI School Culture

In the area of culture, the biggest challenge for a program such as NAI is to

develop norms and values that will help students succeed in college, in other words a

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college-going culture. As Ms. Watson said, “You’re not just teaching academics but

[also] how to be scholars. They don’t start that way [as scholars].” I present data on

NAI school culture among the students, faculty and administrators to show how

school culture affects student-teacher interaction.

Student Culture

NAI teachers comment on the special student culture at NAI. One teacher’s

comment was representative. She said when she walks into the NAI classroom,

“They’re all in a row looking at you and they’re absorbing and they’re ready. And

even if they’re sassy, you know they’re eager. They’re ready to go. And it’s the

same thing; 9th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade, they’ve got something extra where

they’re there to learn, even the ones that are low skill. They’ve been indoctrinated

by their peers, by their parents, by the whole culture at NAI, so they know what’s

going on. They know why they’re there, and that bad attitudes aren’t tolerated, and

ignorance isn’t something to be proud of.”

While NAI culture produces motivated, hardworking students, the workload

and time commitment required are big hurdles to overcome. Based on comments

from virtually every student interview, NAI students believe they themselves have an

extremely heavy workload. They feel they work very hard, although the workload is

much lighter than at a more privileged prep school. Only one student I interviewed

told me she was lazy. Almost every student said he or she had considered quitting

because of NAI’s time demands. A typical comment about the workload was, “[It’s]

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overwhelming. [You] have to give up some work in other classes; [you] don’t have

time.” Their impression of how difficult their NAI workload is is a result of their

experience in their high school context, where they are most likely the ones with the

heaviest workload. They are not coming into NAI from a highly competitive

academic environment and don’t have a frame of reference for what a really heavy

course load looks like; there are few role models for NAI students. Therefore, NAI

has the difficult job of promoting an academic culture that seems like self-

deprivation to students.

Teachers consciously attend to the development of school culture among the

students. In faculty meetings, the subject of student scholarly culture came up

several times. I recorded the following comments. One teacher commented, “We

know we have to change the culture.” Ms. Watson replied, “It’s habits of mind.” A

teacher commented that 9th grade students have culture shock at NAI. In another

discussion I recorded comments about how students just get by instead of trying to

excel. This was attributed to low expectations in the home schools. Teachers

commented that NAI can raise expectations. At another meeting there was a

comment that the culture of NAI allows kids to trust. But more often than

discussions specifically about academic culture, teachers discuss student values and

behaviors.

The faculty and staff made comments that show they believe students should

concentrate on their studies and put academics ahead of other interests. As an

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administrator said,” Those were the boys because they wanted to do the athletic

program. But we told them, you know if you do the athletics, it can interfere with

your grades. And that’s been the conflict all through the program because a lot of

these kids, they want to go for the athletics, or the cheerleaders, and this interferes

with our Saturday program. And so it’s kind of hard.” In a meeting, one teacher

commented that lacrosse was getting in the way of a student’s class work. In the

same meeting, a teacher expressed concern that the Foshay 9th graders were planning

to join sports teams in 10th grade. In another meeting, a teacher reported that two

students were doing poorly in class as a result of working at jobs. I observed NAI

teachers connecting work and extracurricular activities to poor grades. They wanted

students to value education above other activities.

Teachers often point to non-academic activities as a reason students do

poorly in class; however, students I interviewed did not all embrace this focus on

academics. Almost every student reported wanting to quit NAI at some point, most

often because the workload and time commitment meant they had to give up most

other activities. But the home schools promote extracurricular activities. For

example, in interviews, students said that their counselors and teachers in high

school tell them that they have to have a lot of extracurricular activities to get

accepted to college. In a class I observed at Manual Arts High, the students had just

had a big football rally and were too exited to settle down in class. The NAI

schedule discourages activities because Saturday classes take up students’ weekends.

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One student said, “Getting used to Saturdays [was difficult]. Soccer is on Saturday

morning.” Students made quite a few similar comments about Saturday classes

reducing their weekend activities. At NAI, the focus is on academics, and

extracurricular activities are discouraged, so there is a conflict between the values

and priorities at NAI and those promoted within the high schools.

In addition to a difference in values, there are different academic expectations

at the home schools. I recorded numerous comments by teachers and students about

the low expectations at the home schools. The most egregious example was given in

the 10th grade focus group. According to the group, a substitute teacher at Manual

Arts told the students that they were stupid and would die. A 9th grade student said

people at the home school “think we’re uppity.” An NAI teacher said a student

asked him, “Why don’t we all score poorly [intentionally, on a state test] so the

school can get more money?” Students contrasted the low expectations at the home

schools with the high expectations of their NAI teachers, “They are always on us.

They want us to do better.” “In discussion, you have to think in depth and

demonstrate knowledge when talking.”

However, students did not always make positive comments about the high

NAI teacher expectations. For example, here are two negative comments: “I don’t

want to say that they don’t have a life, but…” Another student said, “We have good

teachers but they expect too much. If I don’t turn in my homework, he [my teacher]

stalks me at nutrition.” These comments highlight the challenge of bringing student

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values in line with scholarly values. Some student comments imply that students

interpret teacher dedication as “not having a life”. Students also negatively interpret

teachers not giving up on them and demanding scholarly performance, such as the

comment about “stalking”. These comments also show that students are not familiar

with or accustomed to these teacher behaviors. It implies a contrast to teacher

behavior at the home schools. The difference between home school and NAI

expectations makes developing scholarly culture a challenge.

NAI succeeds in changing student culture despite the challenges of making

students adopt a new work ethic, new values, and higher expectations. I recorded

comments that showed the gradual acculturation to academics. Students reported

that the expectations were overwhelming at first, but they adjusted. For example,

about the workload: “It bugs you at first, but you get used to it.” A 9th grader said,

“It was overwhelming at first, but not now.” A 10th grader said she “adjusted to high

school and NAI in the 9th grade. In the 10th grade I got used to it.” A senior who did

not get accepted to USC said, “You’re so used to school that you just go [to college]

even though it’s not USC.” Students made some comments about other behavioral

changes: “It [NAI] makes you think about what you do so you don’t get in trouble.”

A 9th grader commented about classroom behavior and not talking back to teachers:

“You have to bite your tongue; you have to take it.” It seems that over time students

pick up scholarly culture even though they are not consciously aware of it and

sometimes resist it.

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Adopting the culture at NAI can be rewarding even though students don’t

realize they are developing a new culture. From the student’s point of view, when it

comes to the academic and time demands of NAI, “You get used to it.” Or “You get

attached to it.” Students mention that they grow to like their NAI friends and the

curriculum and pacing of the classes. A student said, “Everybody gets along like

family.” Students in one focus group said they knew some students who quit NAI

and they regret it because of the slower classes in the home schools. “It’s above high

school class in level, so if you quit, you won’t fit in.” Although I have observed

comments from teachers and staff that one student or another dropped the program to

join a sport, or to work, or some other such activity, overall, the students who buckle

down and concentrate on their schoolwork predominate at NAI, so the college-going

mindset is instilled in spite of the obstacles to development of a new culture.

A factor that may be important to promoting a college-going culture is the

NAI after-school tutoring. I observed after-school tutoring in the NAI office and on

outdoor patios near the office on several occasions. Students arriving for tutoring

appeared cheerful, smiling and talking together. They didn’t show any reluctance to

come to tutoring after their regular classes. Tutoring sessions consisted of groups of

students sitting at long tables working together under the supervision of a USC

student. Some tutors interacted with the high school students more than other tutors.

On the whole, the students interacted with each other more than with the tutors.

Students had their math or English work out and talked together as they worked. I

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also observed students eating on many occasions. The atmosphere was friendly, and

students seemed to enjoy being there. The NAI office appeared to be a welcoming

place for students to go. Sometimes the office provided snacks for students during

tutoring. I heard cheery hello’s to students from office staff, especially Ms. Gomez,

whose office door was closest to the front door. Teachers say that unfortunately,

students do not always use their tutoring time effectively. Teachers commented that

students should come to tutoring prepared with questions and problems to get help

with. I observed a few students doing this, but most of them seemed not to be

focused on a particular issue. Instead, they seemed to be doing their homework

together. Although the tutoring may not be perfect, it may encourage scholarly

culture by creating a positive atmosphere for studying.

Tutoring may also develop scholarly culture because the tutors may serve as

role models, particularly the tutors who were former NAI students. I noted the

serious, hardworking, conservative manner of the tutors. When I asked students who

they could count on for help when they had trouble with coursework, almost all of

them mentioned the tutors first. Although not all of the tutors are NAI alumni, the

alumni seem to be the college students NAI students can identify with. As it

happens, most of the math tutors are NAI alumni, and many of the English tutors are

not. I recorded that students made more comments about the helpfulness of the math

tutors than the English tutors. In addition, although both math and English teachers

also tutor students, the English teachers were mentioned more often as people

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students turn to for help with coursework. Students talked more about English

teachers than English tutors, but talked more about math tutors than math teachers.

One student said, “Help with math is good… college student tutors relate more.”

Another student said, “Tutors can relate to you.” This student commented that tutors

were young and previously were NAI students. I interpret the greater quantity of

comments about math tutors as a greater rapport with the tutors who are NAI alumni.

These tutors are some of the few role models available to students.

When teachers take the extra time to tutor students, it can also foster

scholarly values and culture. All the teachers tutor students, some putting in a

substantial amount of time. One English teacher commented, “All the kids who got

D’s and F’s from Mr. Castle—I took them on for independent study. It was hugely

time consuming.” I observed Mr. Castle, the 11th grade English teacher, at afternoon

tutoring every week. Ms. Gomez told me he was sometimes in until 7:00 pm. In the

area of English, students mentioned teachers more often than USC student tutors as

being the people they turn to for help. Students commented on how much extra time

their teachers put into helping them outside class: “[He’s] dedicated, comes after

school.” Students made numerous comments about how much the teachers care and

how hard they work. Math teachers were mentioned less frequently as people to turn

to for help, but several students mentioned going to an NAI math teacher at their

home school for help at lunch time, even though they did not currently have that

teacher at NAI. Relating this to culture, it seems that when the teachers value

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students’ learning enough to spend their own free time helping students, students

pick up the value.

Sometimes teachers take on a mentor or role-model status. One of the more

telling incidents was when an NAI student chaired an AP History study group at his

home school. Teachers reported that he prepared an agenda, syllabus, blackboard

postings, and handouts just like his NAI English teacher routinely did. In an

interview, this student told me that he looks up to his English teacher like a brother.

He said his English teacher is “dedicated…works with you, cares, wants to make a

difference, comes after school [to tutor]… He has affected me as a tutor.” Students

notice the dedication of their teachers. More than that, sometimes they adopt

scholarly values such as dedication by following the teacher’s example as a role

model.

Simply the time required to be an NAI student may inculcate NAI culture.

Students are together at NAI from 7th grade through 12th grade. Dr. Fitch, a former

administrator, observed “the continuity over time. Because if they really do get to

start in 7th grade which is where it’s a real must that they start, how many of these

programs get that long exposure to the same kids, the same family?” NAI students

attend many more hours of school than their home school counterparts. First, there

are weekday classes before regular school, from 7:30 to 9:00 in the morning. Then,

there is after-school tutoring once a week, or more often for some students. Next,

students are together in class on Saturday mornings from 9:00 to 12:00 as well.

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Finally, there are intersession classes during home school vacations. Spending so

much time together with the same companions for six years may be a key factor in

developing scholars.

In sum, after the 9th grade, students have substantially adopted NAI’s

scholarly culture. As a new 10th grade teacher in his first year in the NAI said, “It’s

what I would have expected school to be thirty years ago. Kids come in; they’re

serious about what they’re doing. It’s markedly different from anything I’ve seen

anywhere else in the seriousness with which the kids take their studies. And

specifically where that shows itself is when I give homework assignments,

sometimes every kid does homework. When I give homework assignments to

Manual Arts students, [it’s] often fifty percent, and that’s with good classes, with

kids I know. Also with attendance, they don’t miss.” As this comment shows, by

10th grade, NAI students have picked up the culture and have become scholars.

Faculty Culture

The first thing I noticed when observing teachers was their dedication and

passion. “We’re very child-centered. We’re always going to do everything for our

students.” “I love it. I love the students…” “I believe in this program with every

fiber of my being…You are on the front line. You are hands on making a difference.

And I feel that so much here, that you see the product of your effort right in front of

you every day.” “You feel like you have an impact.” “You have to buy into the

program.” “I love being here…We really believe in the program.” “I took them on

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as independent study students so that they could make up the D’s and F’s, so that

they could go on to college…so I pretty much gave up all of my lunches for the

semester and worked with them one on one.” In initial interviews with virtually

every teacher, I recorded comments such as these. But this enthusiasm would

quickly evaporate if it weren’t for a cohesive faculty culture.

The NAI has a very collaborative and collegial faculty culture in which

teachers are friendly and open with each other. In an interview, Ms. Watson, the

NAI director, explained her philosophy about teachers: “… Teachers have always

believed their role is as a single teacher, not as a unit of teachers. And so getting

them to think differently--it’s a different mindset. And so [I use] the teamwork

model, cooperation… If you’re going to have goals of the school, everybody has to

have the same goal. You have to know the goal and work towards that goal in a unit,

in a way that works. You may have a great classroom, but if your neighbors don’t,

then that’s your fault too. Because you’re not sharing information, you’re not

allowing that continuity of practice, best practices.” This philosophy is evident at the

friendly faculty meetings. I observed that in meetings the teachers talk more than the

administrators do. I also observed teacher interaction in a different context, when I

went to Foshay to meet Ms. Medina. I ran into Mr. North instead, and he didn’t

hesitate to make a call on his cell phone to locate Ms. Medina. Knowing colleagues’

cell numbers and feeling free to call them at any time implies a degree of closeness.

Closeness and collaboration appear to be a hallmark of NAI faculty culture.

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A key way that the collaborative and close faculty culture is exhibited is

through a practice called vertical teaming. In vertical teaming, all the math teachers

work as a group, and all the English teachers work together as a second group. The

groups develop the curricula for each grade level collaboratively so that each grade

provides the appropriate lessons to prepare students for the next. I infer this to be a

centerpiece of NAI teaching because of the great number of positive comments both

teachers and administrators made about it. An administrator said, “I think the vertical

teaming really makes it unique, in the sense that the teachers communicate amongst

one another. I think you can sort of look at what should a college preparatory

curriculum look like and that’s what they’re trying to do, and I think that’s very

helpful.”

One long-time teacher describes how vertical teaming started. “It started

three years ago, or maybe four years ago. And we brought in this person from the

College Board to kind of talk about vertical teaming. And we did a three-day

workshop with the English department, actually and the math department I think, for

vertical teaming. And what that did is that rolled into sort of a monthly meeting that

we would have or bimonthly. We had a series of meetings, throughout the school

year to kind of work out curriculum.” Every teacher commented positively about

vertical teaming. “This is unique for someone who’s taught at NAI for as long as I

have, which is now nine years, to sit down and specifically not only talk about NAI

but talk about NAI math… And we I think have a really strong team… We’ve all

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been here a while, we know a lot of the kids. That opportunity is so unique, to be

able to talk as nine, ten eleven, and twelfth grade teachers.” This collaborative

process directly impacts classroom instruction by fine-tuning the curriculum.

I observed two vertical teaming meetings for both English and math. The

meetings covered a variety of issues, from specific teaching points to the overall

scope of each course and how one grade level leads into the next. For example, in

one English vertical teaming meeting, teachers discussed the need to work on

grammar as a key theme in all English classes. In the second vertical teaming

meeting several months later, the same teachers worked out the specifics of which

grammatical points would be covered at each grade level. The discussion was

informal and proceeded as a team process, with all the teachers contributing and no

apparent leader. The math vertical teaming meetings had a similar team process, but

unlike the English team, the math group appeared to have a chairperson. A key

theme of the math meetings I observed was a discussion of how to make the classes

flow from one year to another. Math teachers also discussed the classroom validity

and use of various standardized tests such as the CAT 6 and STAR, and the

relationship of the test results to student grades.

I observed a continuity and progression of content in both English and math

groups from the first vertical teaming meeting to the second. The English group had

previously produced a document outlining the curriculum for each grade. The math

group is still working on theirs. The documents are important because, as Ms.

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Brooks said, “I think it helps anytime we bring someone new on board; they know

what to expect. Because a lot of times someone [comes] in not understanding how

we operate, but to give them a document to indicate this is sort of what we’re aiming

for really has been helpful.” The vertical teaming meetings were observed to be very

productive, with all teachers participating in a positive way. I did not observe

yawning, doodling, or silent teachers. This positive working relationship among

teachers is illustrative of NAI faculty culture.

Administrative Culture

From comments I recorded, it seems that NAI administration has been

instrumental in turning the program around and in developing the organizational

culture as a whole. The NAI administrators seem to treat the teachers as equals,

rather than as subordinates. Collaboration is important. As one administrator said,

“I think that’s what makes this program work. We have the collaboration between

the staff and teachers and students and the parents. All of that working together

really makes a difference.”

I observed an organizational culture that emphasizes collaboration not only

among teachers but among teachers and administrators. For example, as I mentioned

earlier, teachers speak more in faculty meetings than administrators do. The two

retreats during the school year were both held at Ms. Watson’s house. I observed

Ms. Watson cook breakfast for the faculty both times. I interpret this as an

indication of closeness and openness between faculty and administration. Teachers

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have a say in hiring decisions as well. According to Ms. Watson, the NAI director,

“If it were a math teacher…Math teachers from our program will interview the math

teacher for the position. The English teachers will help interview the English teacher

for the position. Because, I said, you all end up working together, for one. They

have to have the same kind of mindset.” I observed a prospective teacher come to

the second retreat and introduce herself. She stayed and interacted socially with the

faculty. This was in preparation for the hiring process, where teachers would give

their input about who to hire. On the whole, teachers seem to have a lot of control at

NAI and I did not observe any indication of an adversarial relationship between

teachers and administrators.

When it comes to administration, I recorded several comments that the

administration is “motherly”. There are three administrators and all are female. I

recorded teacher comments such as, “It seems that the culture of the administration is

to take a parental role with students to some extent.” “Our administrative coordinator

[Ms. Gomez]--She is this mother hen, mother earth figure for the parents.” “Because

it’s almost like three mother figures who are not afraid to shake that finger in their

[students’] face and tug them by the back of their collar, like your mother or your

grandmother would behavior-wise.” This and other teacher comments express

appreciation for the administration’s strong student discipline.

The administration is also very engaged with the teachers in their classrooms.

Ms. Watson, the NAI director, said, “I try to at least see all the teachers at least twice

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a week, either by poking my head in the classroom or sitting in the class.” I

imagined that the teachers might not be happy with this, but in interviews their

comments were very positive: One teacher said, “I think Kim does a wonderful job.

You know, she’s really involved.” Another NAI teacher summed up what most

teachers said, “In terms of overall school culture, I don’t have the backup [at my

home school] I have here. Here, I’ve got three or four people that I can say, I need

this adult to also talk to you. And it’s truly at Foshay, no one ever comes into my

room to see what I’m doing. Just this morning here at NAI, [Ms. Watson] came and

she was just in the building. She just came and sat for the last ten minutes of class

and she does it all the time. She comes to just see what’s going on and I love it. I

love that she’s there to validate what amazing kids we have and what amazing

teachers we have. She’s not there to check up on someone or reprimand someone,

make sure you’re teaching to the standards, because she knows that we are. She is

there to participate in the core of our program. And she knows. If you asked her

what kind of teacher I am, what kind of style I have, what kind of rapport I have with

my students, where my commitment is, she could tell you in detail. If you asked the

principal or the head of my department at my home school, they wouldn’t have a

clue.” The NAI administrators have a very hands-on culture, and administrative

participation is welcomed by the teachers.

The administrators also take time to interact with students. In addition to

their counseling and class visiting activities discussed earlier, they make an effort to

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meet students as they board the buses after NAI class every morning. Each time I

observed the boarding of the buses, there was at least one administrator there, saying

hello to the students and talking to them. I asked Ms. Gomez, the office manager,

why she does it. “That’s the time that we get to see them. Like for example, we’re

not in the classroom with these kids, you know. And like in order for us to get to

know them better, and to be able to interact with them, that’s one opportunity to do

it. And that’s my chance to be able to talk to them and give them things that they

might need.” Ms. Gomez says if a student is having trouble, “I speak to them… If I

come across them at the buses sometimes I say, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Is

something going on at home? Why aren’t you working so hard?’ You know, ‘What

could we do to help you?’ That kind of thing. So I do probe. I try to see what it is

that we can do.” Of the three administrators, Ms. Gomez talked the most about

interacting with the students, not only at the buses but whenever she had the

opportunity. “Well, I think what I try to do is I make myself available and open and

approachable; I think that’s a very important key, especially with kids. You know

we’re dealing with a very special population. There are problems at home. So in

order to try to find out and help them in any kind of way, you know you have to be

approachable. So I try to get to know the students as much as possible. It’s kind of

hard because there is quite a number of them, but I do try…I try to promote that they

be positive and that they try to work hard and… I ask them questions about how they

are doing, and if they have problems try to help them find some kind of a solution. I

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observed that the administrators not only interact collaboratively with the teachers,

but also interact with the students as individuals.

NAI Partnerships

Sociocultural theory places great importance on the role of social interaction

in learning. It generally focuses on student-teacher interaction, but I observed other

influences that were very powerful. Beyond the social interaction between student

and teacher, there are interactions within the NAI organization that affect student

learning. The program was designed to take advantage of social connections or

partnerships to enhance learning outcomes. In this section, I will look at the roles

that partnerships between NAI and family, home schools, and USC play in student

learning.

Partnership with families

I will start with the very positive impact of NAI’s partnership with families.

Through this partnership, parents become a strong motivating force for students to

stay in the program and work hard. The partnership takes place through parent

participation in an NAI program especially designed for them called the Family

Development Institute [FDI]. According to the NAI website (Neighborhood

Academic Initiative n.d.), the FDI includes seminars six Saturday mornings a

semester where parents study a variety of subjects to improve their parenting skills

and educational awareness. Examples of seminar topics include child development,

effective communication, and creating a positive learning environment. According

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to the website, parents can give input on what topics will be offered, and they are

required to attend 80% of the Saturday seminars. A teacher commented that students

are harder working due to the family involvement required: “The families are so

invested in it [NAI].” Students commented that NAI “talks to your parents, gives

them classes.” “Parents like it—they learn how to save lives, start your own

business, and other things.” “Parents feel like they’re learning too.” The FDI also

includes a parent leadership board with members elected by the parents. The board

meets twice a month to discuss topics such as fund raisers and home school issues.

In these ways, NAI partners with parents to help students achieve in school.

I interviewed students about the impact their parents had on their education at

NAI. First and most importantly, based on student interviews parents are responsible

for insisting that students remain in NAI even when they want to quit. As I

mentioned previously, almost every student wanted to quit NAI at some point. Of

these students, almost all cited their parents’ influence as the reason that they didn’t

quit. “My parents pushed me to stay.” “Mom made me stay.” “Parents want us

here.” As one student put it, “NAI kids are here because of their parents.” In this

way, I observed that parents play a key role in student retention.

The FDI appears to have an impact on parental behavior with respect to their

children’s schooling. Ninth grade students in particular commented on their parents’

active participation in their education. I infer the predominance of these comments

among 9th graders compared to higher graders as an indication of a change in parent

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behavior from 8th to 9th grades. “[My] parents are proud; they bought me new

shoes.” “Parents help. They take you around to get books.” “My mom said, ‘Do

what they ask; just follow the teachers’ directions.’” According to 9th and 10th grade

student interviews, parents also nag about doing homework and about grades and test

scores. I found that more than other grades, the 9th grade students made negative

comments about the active role their parents were taking in their education. “Parents

take it out on us.” “One student got an essay off the internet and my parents yelled at

me about it.” The ninth graders complained that their parents were following not

only their own test scores but the high school’s scores as a whole. “Mom yelled [at

me] because Manual Arts got higher scores this time.” It appeared from these

students’ comments that parents were paying attention to what was going on not only

at NAI but in high school.

The 11th and 12th grade students made fewer comments about parents with

respect to homework and grades. They did comment that parents did not allow them

to quit NAI, and that their parents were proud of them. When a student complained

to his parents that NAI got in the way of his sports activity, “My dad said, ‘What’s

going to take you farther, soccer or medicine?’” The same student said, “Parents are

most important. My mom—even though we had conflicts, she has been there for

me.” An 11th grade student said, “They [parents] get really mad that we don’t do

homework.” Although the students might complain about it, this discipline on the

part of parents is likely an important factor in student work habits and motivation.

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Partnerships with home schools

NAI’s partnerships with the home schools are not entirely smooth. The

biggest problem seems to be with the principals. Dr. Fitch, who was NAI director in

2000, said, “Oh, it’s been dreadful. And of course that was part of what I was

coming in on at 2000, because that’s when Mr. O’Hare left Foshay. And so [the new

principal] was there, and [the Manual Arts principal] was new, too at Manual Arts at

the time. So I had a new principal at each school.” There is still turnover in the

school principals, making it harder to maintain a good social relationship with the

schools. For example, during my study, a new principal came on at Manual Arts in

September. I noticed that Ms. Watson took special time to meet the new Manual

principal and show him around the NAI program in order to get his buy-in. As a

current NAI administrator said, “There’s been a lot of changes at the schools…When

you have so much change, and the schools are constantly being bombarded by

change, and they don’t do well in change either.” When the principals change, new

relationships have to be built.

Teachers told me that a few years previously, the current Foshay principal

had started. The previous Foshay principal had been a big supporter of NAI, but the

current principal is not as considerate of NAI needs. The current principal is

struggling to manage the school, and is making decisions that impact NAI. One

decision that has had a big impact on NAI is Foshay’s new shortened day for teacher

training every Tuesday to improve student test scores. One teacher commented on

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how he was affected by the Foshay principal’s new Tuesday class schedule. “I get

really frustrated because I feel a sense of panic or that I won’t be able to cover what I

need, what I planned for the week. And certainly where I plan to be by the middle of

the semester because we’ve had a lot of these minimum days, and Foshay has

the…shortened day, as they call it, which lets [NAI] out…at 8:40, 8:45 every

Tuesday.” This teacher calculated that he loses at least 20 instructional minutes a

week due to home school scheduling issues. In the same way, this principal’s

scheduling decision impacted all the NAI classes through a reduction of class time.

The structural interface between the NAI program and the home schools

produces disincentives for NAI teachers. I recorded many comments about how the

NAI teachers have to “travel” at their home schools, creating a hardship for them.

Traveling means that a teacher does not have his or her own classroom, but must

change classrooms from period to period. Due to overcrowding at the home schools,

there are always some teachers who have to travel. This entails hauling teaching

supplies and AV equipment from room to room, and is the biggest drawback of

being an NAI teacher. Here is a sampling of representative comments about

traveling: “One of the big downfalls actually at NAI [is] you have to travel when

you get back to your home school. But you also get an extra conference period at

NAI. So that offsets it.” “Some teachers really don’t like traveling. I complain

about it but I can certainly live with it. Some people said they didn’t want it [the

NAI job] because of the traveling.” “You have to put up with certain aspects of the

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program: the traveling, the walking, the walking in the rain; not having a place to

park; getting back to school late every day. … If you can figure out how to solve all

those issues, you’ll be happy. I think [Mr. Penn], this is his first year. I’m sure he’s

fine. He seems happy. My previous three partners were coming in in the morning

like (looks sad). They loved the idea of the program, they enjoyed the kids, but the

situation wasn’t working out for them. They missed having their own classroom.

We don’t have… we never will have our own classroom. There’s pros and cons to

that.” Even though traveling is a hardship, the NAI teachers accept it as a part of

their job: “You know it would be nice if I didn’t have to travel, and you probably

heard that before. But realistically, that can’t happen. So I just, you know, make the

best of it.” Under the circumstances, it is impressive that several NAI teachers have

stayed with the program for eight or nine years. Although teachers accept traveling

as part of the NAI job, this hardship is a result of the principals’ decisions to assign

NAI teachers to travel.

On the positive side, because half of the NAI teachers also teach at Foshay,

and half teach at Manual Arts, there are more chances for teachers and students to

interact, not only at NAI, but also on the home school campuses. I noted that

students approach their NAI teachers for help on their home school campuses as well

as at tutoring and before NAI morning classes. Some NAI teachers have NAI

students in other classes as well as NAI classes. The extra opportunities for teacher-

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student interaction can result in additional instructional time, but I observed another

result. Teachers know their students very well.

In the video playback sessions using stimulated recall, with every teacher the

most outstanding feature of their discourse was their comments about students. They

did not just comment about student skills. Teachers discussed students’ parents,

siblings, past courses, hobbies, and all manner of personal details. For example,

while watching the video of her lesson, an English teacher commented on a student,

“She lost a friend to gang violence last year…It really affected her…She was out a

couple of days…She’s in my creative writing class [at Foshay] so I feel like I’ve

gotten to know her.” Pointing out a student in his class video, a math teacher said,

“His brother is at MIT. He’s a sophomore at MIT. He was in the USC program and

he went above and beyond the USC program and got a full scholarship to MIT.” An

English teacher discussed the difference between teaching students from his home

school and the other school: “I’m just beginning to get to know the kids really well,

between the Manual kids and the Foshay kids because I don’t know the Foshay kids

that well…I really have a much firmer grasp of the personalities and abilities of the

Manual kids because I see them more. Generally the better I get along with the kids,

the better I feel I teach.” Another teacher pointed out, “This one girl back here is the

valedictorian of her whole high school.” Teaching at the home schools also has the

advantage of access to parent conferences: “He really struggles with both academic

speaking and writing…I just met with his mom last night at parent conference and

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emphasized the importance of reading.” Teachers exhibited a deep knowledge of

their students’ lives outside the classroom. This knowledge base is a result of the

home school-NAI partnership because the same teachers teach in both places and

thus have more time to interact with and get to know their students.

Next, I look at the partnership with respect to NAI students. While NAI staff

expressed some concern about students’ treatment at the home schools, students

generally had positive comments. A representative staff comment is, “I think that

even the students at the home schools see the difference in the NAI students. I’ve

heard some little things here and there that sometimes they’re shunned from the rest

of the population at the home school, because quote unquote, you know they’re

“better” or they’re the “college going kids” kind of a thing, you know? So they are

the special group.” Because Foshay is a small school, NAI students are more visible

there. Some representative comments made by Foshay students are, “People think

we’re smart.” “They expect us to be the top.” At Manual Arts, a very large school,

students also reported positively on their treatment as NAI students. “Kids and

teachers at Manual take you seriously.” “The old principal knew us. People look at

us with respect. Security respects us. Teachers expect more from us. They put you

in AP classes.” One student commented about middle school. She said her teachers

and principal in middle school were fond of the program. “They gave NAI students

special treatment in middle school. We had a special nutrition, and everyone knew

who NAI students were.” Kids are placed into more advanced classes at the home

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school because they are NAI students. Students reported being placed in AP

chemistry and AP composition because of their NAI status. Only one student

commented about negative attitudes, “They think we uppity.” With respect to the

NAI-home school partnership, on the whole, students report having a positive

experience at their home schools.

NAI has a partnership with two high schools, Foshay and Manual Arts. I

looked at the data for evidence of social ramifications of combining students from

two different high schools. While NAI teachers expressed some concern about

students getting along, generally, student comments were neutral on this point.

Students made some comments that their friends mainly come from the same home

school. Students say they see each other more if they come from the same school

and that’s why they have more same-school friends. I did not record any negative

comments by students about those from the other school; neither did I record any

comments by students that would indicate competitiveness between NAI students

from each school. A Manual Arts student said, “We’re mixed with Foshay and

became like a family. We stick together. We depend on each other for math and

English.” I asked teachers if there was any difference between students from each

school, and most of the responses were that there is not much difference. Teachers

said they thought perhaps students from one school considered themselves better

than those from the other, but in interviews, students didn’t mention this. Instead,

there were several comments about NAI students being like family. However,

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students and teachers did mention comparisons of the test scores for each school, and

as I mentioned earlier, 9th grade students told me that their parents were upset when

the “other” school had higher test results. Several 9th grade students complained that

their parents put the responsibility onto them to bring up the school test scores.

Overall, the combination of students from two schools seems to have a neutral result.

The final set of data about NAI/home school partnerships shows the adoption

of NAI ideas at the home schools. NAI has influenced the home schools in various

ways. Foshay was influenced most, probably because it is a smaller school, but

especially because the previous principal, Mr. O’Hare, was enthusiastic about NAI.

Ms. Brooks said, “It’s all in the buy-in with the principals.” She elaborated on the

effect NAI has had on Foshay, “For Foshay in particular, they’ve adapted a lot of

their programs based on what we were doing over here. When Dr. Heath [the first

NAI director] and their principal, Mr. O’Hare, was there, Mr. O’Hare saw the

advantage of having this type of program. So he instituted a lot of things that we

adapted here over at the school…When we first initiated NAI 15 years ago, their

school was parallel. They have a middle school that they set up very similar to the

actual NAI academy.” Ms. Middleton commented on a teacher practice that

transferred from NAI to Foshay, “That’s a very NAI… That was from way back.

You line the kids up outside the door. Make sure everybody’s shirts are tucked in,

make sure that they’re looking good and that they’re quiet. Because when they come

in your room, you want… I mean in the old Dr. Heath days it was like very very

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strict. Very hard core, you know like, good morning, eye contact, and… But what’s

interesting is that that followed over to Foshay. And you’ll notice at Foshay a lot of

teachers have their kids line up outside the door before they come in.” NAI has thus

influenced practices at Foshay in a variety of ways.

Manual Arts high school appears to have been influenced less by NAI.

According to Ms. Brooks, “They have a new principal, and then they have other

resources: MESA is over there, they have EOPC. So they have other programs that

are servicing their campus.” She continued, “At Manual I think it’s a little bit

different. Our students tend to be a whole lot ahead of a lot of students over there as

far as academics are concerned. I know that you know our kids pass the exit exams

with no trouble. I was just recently told that now the principal there wants to have

Saturday academy for kids who are not performing, not passing the exit exam.” The

Manual Arts high principal had just started in September and had visited NAI.

Already he is reported to be thinking of starting a Saturday academy. Perhaps there

will be more transfer of ideas from NAI to Manual under the new leadership.

Overall, although partnerships with the home schools have some weaknesses,

they do have positive aspects as well. Working with principals and their turnover is

difficult, as is teachers having to travel. On the other hand, NAI students report

having a positive experience at their home schools, and ideas from NAI do transfer

to the home schools.

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Partnership with USC

The last partnership to examine is with USC. Administrators, teachers and

students comment that having classes on campus is extremely important to the

learning experience.

A previous administrator, Dr. Fitch, commented, “From the time they get

involved in the program, it isn’t long until they really do have a second sense of we

belong to that university. We’re Trojans, we’re part of it; we’re there already and we

see what college is like and we walk on the campus and we sit in their classrooms

and we know we can handle it. There’s a sense of confidence by being, you know,

here, and so close to it.” A current administrator, Ms. Gomez, said, “I think it has a

really good, very large impact, very positive impact, and one of the things is it’s a

daily impact. Because they’re on this campus and they see the students, so…you

know, the students that are on campus is like the mirror. And so when they see the

students on campus, the football players, all of these athletes, faculty, staff, then they

see like, “This is where I belong.” So it’s like the university has opened their arms to

these kids, and if they come here, you belong here. So it’s a big impact.”

Administrators tended to stress students’ sense of belonging.

Attending classes on the USC campus has a powerful effect on college-going

culture. Teachers commented that being at USC gives students a sense of being

more mature and belonging to a university. “We’re on the USC campus. They’re

given a lot more independence here. But with that independence, they know how

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they’re supposed to behave.” One faculty member summed up what most of the

teachers said: “I mean obviously, the whole point is to expose students to the college

campus. That’s why we’re here. That’s such a wonderful aspect of the program.

They’re just in a completely different mindset when they’re here…If you took them

off [the USC] campus, what exposure to USC would they have? I mean that’s a key

ingredient in the program: Look, this is what college is like. Here is where you’re

going to be sitting one day. You’re going to be in these classes. You’re going to see

students. They see students every day walking the hallways out on campus. Former

students of mine walk by. And they’re going to their 8:00 class or they’re going to

their 9:00 class with their big USC T-shirts on. When would they ever be exposed to

that if they were not physically here? And they get so comfortable with campus life

that it removes that big mystery of what college is actually like.”

Students agreed that being on the USC campus was important. “You get to

know campus. You can check out books at the library; you can play on the field.

You have access to come here. I respect school a lot; they [USC] respect us by

offering support. In 10th grade, we took art classes in [USC’s] art building.” One

student’s comments sum up what most students said: “Coming to USC is wonderful.

You know what it’s like. You have to get up on time, and be responsible. It’s up to

us—there are no bells. It gets us familiar with campus. You’re not afraid to ask

people if you’re lost. I’ve been here five or six years and know the whole campus.”

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Studying on campus appears to give students feelings of confidence and

empowerment.

As part of the USC/NAI partnership, USC promises to provide full

scholarships to all NAI students who meet the admission qualifications. Students

often commented on the scholarships. “There’s a scholarship of $40,000 to go to

USC. I look forward to that; it’s inspiring.” “We want the scholarship. It makes

you stay.” However, students were not always clear on the details of the USC

scholarship. I recorded comments such as, “Is it guaranteed?” “How many students

get it?” “Can you use it elsewhere?” “We were surprised that a lot of students who

had good grades didn’t get scholarships.” Even though the details were sometimes

unclear, the scholarship seems to be a source of motivation for many students.

To sum up the social aspects of partnerships, I found the partnership with

parents appears to be a key factor in student retention. Parents insist students stay in

the program and do their homework. The partnership with home schools has

challenges because of turnover in principals which ultimately affects instructional

time at NAI. NAI ideas do transfer to the schools, however, and NAI students

appear to be treated fairly at their schools. The partnership with USC is very

productive in motivating and empowering students to go to college.

Summary

In this chapter I have organized the data into three broad areas: historical,

cultural, and social impacts on learning. The historical data show hat the program is

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saying true to its original conception, even though it bears some scars from past

administrative problems. The data on culture show a strong and distinct student

college-going culture as well as supportive faculty and administrative cultures. With

respect to partnerships, parent partnerships are extremely important to student

retention and motivation, while partnerships with home schools are somewhat weak.

The partnership with USC is NAI’s reason for existence. All these pieces together

form the NAI, and exemplary pre-college program.

In Chapter 5, I will discuss the significance of the data and make some

recommendations and concluding remarks.

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Chapter 5: Analysis of the Data

Programs such as the Educational Opportunity Program strive to help

academically talented yet low socioeconomic and minority students gain college

entry. However, average students at educational risk because of their minority or

low socioeconomic status have college dreams too. Often these less promising

students do not have the opportunity to enter a college preparatory track in high

school. The University of Southern California Neighborhood Academic Initiative

strives to reach these average students and give them the same chances that the

students with higher grades have.

During the 2005-6 school year, I studied NAI, focusing on how the program,

and especially its teachers, helped students succeed academically. I interviewed

students, teachers, staff, and parents. I also observed classes, faculty meetings parent

meetings, tutoring, and school activities. Through this process, I attempted to distill

the aspects of NAI that contribute to student academic success and development of

college readiness. These aspects support teachers in helping students struggling with

course work.

At its most basic level, the mission of NAI is to address the problem,

common to many universities, of low representation of poor minority students in

higher education. The main goals of NAI are to prepare students for college and to

help them enter college by providing academically rigorous classes and student

support. It is useful to briefly review NAI’s recent record of accomplishment for

student college going. According to an NAI graduate survey (Appendix E), from the

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program inception in 1997 through 2004, a total of 328 students graduated from the

program, and 314 went on to higher education, a rate of 96%. USC gives a full

scholarship to all NAI students accepted to the university. Between 1997 and 2004,

113 students, or 34%, received the scholarship. Details about NAI student

enrollment in other colleges and universities are in Appendix A. NAI is a successful

pre-college program as shown by these statistics, but educators and policymakers

still seek to understand what components contribute to its success. Specifically, how

do teachers help students learn the necessary skills to go to college? Using NAI as a

case of a college preparatory program for low SES minority students, the goal of this

ethnographic case study was to describe how teachers interact with students to

produce successful learning outcomes.

In order to understand how NAI prepares students for college, I set out to

examine teacher-student interaction in NAI. I focused on how teachers help students

who are having trouble with coursework. I found that it is not only teacher-student

interaction that makes the program successful, but also this interaction placed within

the entire social context of NAI. In line with sociocultural theory, the social,

historical, and cultural context of NAI had a profound influence on interaction and

learning. Teachers connected with students inside a comprehensive social cocoon

where students could develop their academic skills and ultimately emerge as

scholars. In this chapter, I briefly review the theoretical literature that drove the

study, summarize and analyze the research data in light of the literature, and make

recommendations.

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Theoretical Foundation

The theoretical foundation for this study is sociocultural theory, which says

that learning is a social, interactive process influenced by the history, culture, and

social setting of the participants (Vygotsky 1978). Further, sociocultural theory is

constructivist, meaning that learning actually constructs or changes a person’s

consciousness (Leont’ev 1981). I will review this theory and illustrate it with

examples from my observations at NAI.

Sociocultural theory posits that knowledge is socially constructed. This

means that everything people know is a product of their background and experience,

particularly the social interactions they have had. People’s mental landscape is a

product of experience (Leont’ev 1981). As a result, students and teachers may have

very different pictures of the school setting and the learning process because they

may come from different social and cultural backgrounds.

To give an example from the data, many students at NAI felt that they were

working incredibly hard, because neither they nor any student they knew at their

high schools had ever worked so hard. In their background, they had no experience

with a college preparatory workload. In contrast, NAI teachers demanded ever more

effort from students, knowing how competitive the college environment was and

how heavy the college workload was. Teachers could remember their own college

experience, and knew that other students at elite schools were doing more

schoolwork than NAI students were. However, NAI students were not able to

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comprehend this fully because it was not in their life experience unless they knew a

college student.

Consequently, they sometimes rebelled or felt overwhelmed by their NAI

coursework. As one student simply stated, “We’re kids; we should have a life.”

Lareau (2003) points out that the idea that kids should have free time just to play is a

hallmark of lower socioeconomic classes. Middle and upper middle class parents

instead believe that a child’s should spend time in cultivation of talents and academic

skills. Therefore, the college preparatory curriculum is a challenge to students’

fundamental class value systems as well as their intellects.

Au (1998) states that teaching students with diverse backgrounds can present

challenges since standard methods of instruction may not meet student needs. In a

diverse inner-city setting (like NAI), Au emphasizes that factors such as home

language, instructional methods and materials, classroom management, and

interaction with students can affect student learning. Sometimes it is necessary to

adjust standard methods to meet needs of specific students. NAI faces a special

challenge in this respect because if students are to go on to college and succeed, they

have to learn to manage with mainstream, standardized educational structures like

lecture classes. This means that while NAI teachers can adjust their methods to meet

NAI student needs, when these students go to college, no such adjustments will

occur. NAI starts imparting what the program terms “scholarly culture” as soon as

students begin in the 7th grade. As mentioned in Chapter 4, Ms. Watson said,

“You’re not just teaching academics but how to be scholars. They don’t start that

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way.” While adjusting to meet diverse student needs, this long-term acculturation

process helps students from all backgrounds learn to succeed with the standardized

teaching methods they will find in colleges.

Another element of sociocultural theory relates to the activity setting, such as

the classroom environment. The activity setting has an impact on student learning

because learning connects to and depends on the social context or situation students

are in (Rueda & Dembo, 1995). That is the theoretical support for holding classes on

the USC campus rather than at students’ high schools. Almost everyone I

interviewed agreed that holding classes at USC is an extremely important aspect of

NAI. Students learn to be scholars by attending classes in the context of a college

setting.

I have mentioned how social and cultural background impact learning and

how the classroom environment affects learning. The theory also predicts that the

social relationship of teacher and student affects learning. Something that was clear

in every NAI classroom was that teachers paid attention to students and their

learning needs individually. NAI teachers also knew students as individuals. For

example, when teachers talked about students in faculty meetings and in discussion

during the playback of their lessons, they mentioned details about students’ siblings,

parents, hobbies, and activities. I often heard teachers comment about a student’s

older siblings who were in college or who were NAI graduates. The teachers’ depth

of knowledge about individual students showed a close student-teacher relationship.

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Inside the teacher-student relationship, the teaching moment occurs in what

Vygotsky (1987) calls the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The main idea of

the ZPD is that learning occurs when a student does not understand something and

the teacher interacts with the student to nudge the student into understanding. It is a

helping or problem-solving moment, more similar to tutoring than to standing in

front of the class lecturing. It involves teacher attention to where the student’s

understanding currently is, where it needs to be, and what to do to move that student

forward gradually.

Most NAI teachers commented on the importance of attending to student

needs by helping them individually. As a testament to the value they placed on this,

many teachers spent extra hours tutoring students individually outside class, either

after school or during vacations. It follows that even more than classroom

instruction, tutoring by both teachers and USC student tutors makes use of the ZPD.

When NAI students meet with a tutor, there is a much greater opportunity for

individual instruction than in the classroom. Ideally, this instruction will more

closely address students’ level and needs. Vygotsky’s ZPD highlights the dyadic

nature of the learning process. Instead of teacher to class, the learning relationship is

teacher to individual student.

So far, I have located the theoretical basis of my study within the framework

of sociocultural theory. The specific relevant aspects of the theory are historical,

social, and cultural aspects of the school context, classroom setting, and relationship

of teacher to student.

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Review of Methodology

Even though NAI selects 7th grade students with average grades to enter the

program, a high percentage of students who finish the NAI program go on to college,

at either USC or other schools (Appendix E). From the inception of the program, of

328 students who graduated, 257 students went on to four-year colleges, of whom

113 were accepted to USC. Fifty-seven additional students went on to community

colleges or vocational schools. Because of this track record, I selected NAI as an

exemplary case of a college preparation program for inner city, low SES minority

students. I employed the qualitative method of ethnographic case study to describe

what happens at NAI, with the goal of finding key factors in the program’s success.

Ethnography was a suitable methodology for this purpose because the method

allowed me to focus on and analyze elements of individual and program culture

(Creswell 1998) to describe how these interacted to produce successful student

outcomes.

The participants in the study included all three NAI administrators, plus one

senior USC administrator who supervises NAI. I also included a former NAI

administrator. Seven of the eight NAI teachers participated in the study, as well as

six parents. I included students from grades 9-12 as participants, with a total of six

9th graders, three 10th graders, four 11th graders, and two 12th graders. An NAI

graduate who tutored the students participated, and one of the two home school

principals participated. All participants volunteered to be in the study.

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I conducted observations, document analysis, videotaping, and interviews

during the 2005-6 school year, starting in August 2005 and continuing through May

2006. I started by meeting with the gatekeeper, the NAI director. I collected

program documents through the administrators, the program website, and public

records. I also observed monthly faculty meetings and observed teachers in class,

twice in NAI classes, and once in other classes the teachers conducted at their home

schools with non-NAI students. I videotaped a one-hour segment of each teacher

conducting an NAI class session. I interviewed NAI teachers individually two times:

first, to learn about them as individuals, and second, to have them review and discuss

the videotape of their lesson. I audio taped and transcribed these interviews. I also

interviewed, audio taped, and transcribed one interview with each NAI administrator,

as well as a former administrator. I conducted a telephone interview of the Vice

President of University Relations, who oversees NAI. I conducted student focus

groups by grade level. In keeping with Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) methods of

naturalistic inquiry, I tried to spend as much time at NAI as I could. I observed the

NAI office, tutoring sessions, Saturday school, two parent board meetings, and the

graduation banquet.

Ultimately, I had about 600 pages of data, consisting of observation notes,

transcripts, and documents. I combed through this data looking for themes, as

described by Creswell (1998). I used sociocultural theory to organize the themes

into broad historical, cultural, and social categories.

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Methods to Ensure Trustworthiness

In order to ensure trustworthiness of the data, I used triangulation (Lincoln

and Guba 1985). In order to triangulate, I compared my observations and what

teachers, administrators, and students said. I also compared information in

documents. If all of these agreed, I considered the data trustworthy. For example, in

faculty meetings I observed teachers comment on how troublesome the 12th grade

students were. In interviews, teachers and administrators reiterated this point.

Surprisingly, in the 12th grade focus group, even the students acknowledged that they

were the troublesome group, although they were quick to give justifications for their

behavior. Compared to focus groups of other grades, I observed more negative

comments in the 12th grade focus group. Putting all the data together using

triangulation, I found that the data strongly show that the 12th grade class had more

complaints and rebellious behaviors than students did in the other grades.

In addition, I used member checking to improve trustworthiness (Lincoln &

Guba 1985). An observer’s background and preconceptions colors observations

(Lincoln & Guba 1985, Patton 2002). To ensure that my observations were

unbiased, I employed member checking. On a very basic level of checking, after the

teacher interviews, I submitted transcripts of their own interviews to teachers for

their confirmation of the accuracy of what they said or meant. On a more

interpretive level, near the end of the study I posed my conclusions to the

participants. When I had a preliminary analysis of the data, I presented it to a focus

group of the NAI faculty and administration for their feedback. The group had a

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very positive reaction to almost all of my findings, confirming my observations and

analysis through the member checking process. A possible objection to member

checking is that it may reinforce the biases of the participants. In ethnography,

however, the goal is to discern meaning from the participants’ point of view

(Creswell 1998, Lincoln & Guba 1985). Thus, it is important for the conclusions of

the research to ring true to the people under study.

Limitations

Using ethnographic case study methods to examine NAI had some

limitations. There was so much to observe that I had to limit my attention, focusing

on some aspects of the program but not others.

First, I did not examine the student selection process in detail. I collected

data on the basics of how students apply for and enter the program. In the process, I

noted comments by outsiders that NAI selected the cream of the crop of students

from the two feeder high schools, although NAI administrators, teachers, and even

students denied this. I did not follow up on the issue in my study. I also did not

interview the high school counselors, who often are the ones who place students in

classes and thus have an impact on student preparation and selection. Examining the

student selection process in detail could yield additional useful data.

Second, during my home school observations, unexpectedly several students

and a teacher who had left NAI approached me on their own initiative and told me

about NAI. I excluded the data from my study in the interest of keeping focused on

NAI teacher-student interaction. A limitation of the study in this respect is that

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excluding people who dropped out of the program may exclude different viewpoints.

In addition, there was some indication that even NAI dropouts are doing better than

the average home school students are. Including people who left the program could

shed light on whether NAI has a lasting influence even in the case of students who

leave early.

A final limitation to the study is that I did not examine in detail the impact of

NAI on the home schools. During my study, I recorded several comments that

students, teachers, and administrators at the home schools had changed some of their

behaviors and ideas because of NAI. I also recorded comments about the impact of

good NAI student scores on high-stakes tests at the home schools. It might be useful

to interview home school teachers and administrators not involved in NAI to get a

deeper understanding of how NAI affects home schools.

Data Analysis

In keeping with theory, I organized the data analysis into historical, cultural,

and social themes. My focus was on the sociocultural aspects of student-teacher

interaction with particular emphasis on the Zone of Proximal Development. During

the course of my research, I found that the NAI program turned students into

scholars not only through interaction with teachers in the classroom, but with

multiple program-related interactions after school and on Saturdays as well. My

analysis showed that it was not just student-teacher interaction in class that prepared

students for college, but also interaction with teachers and others within the larger

social context of NAI. Interactions outside class included the after-school tutoring

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program and the Saturday morning program. NAI did not just provide morning

college preparatory classes; it provided a social and cultural milieu in which students

could acculturate to college norms and values.

Interacting in the NAI context was how students learned to behave as

scholars. The true value of NAI was not that it produced students who learn the

math and English curriculum and earn good SAT scores. The value of NAI was in

the way it taught students how to learn, how to study, how to behave on a university

campus, in short, how to behave in a community of scholars. As one teacher

commented, when NAI students begin their university work, they struggle, but they

rally because they know what to do to succeed in school.

Program History

To understand NAI fully, it is important to consider the reasons for its

inception and its development. In my analysis of program history, I found that the

program was functioning almost as its founders had originally planned.

NAI addresses the problem of under representation of minorities on the USC

campus, particularly at the graduate level. The program starts with 7th grade students

and prepares them to enter college. The first director believed strongly that average

students could succeed in this process, so the program does not just select high

achieving students. The first director’s departure was followed by a period of

leadership turmoil that has had lasting effects on the program because of the loss of

the social work/counseling program component. After the current director started in

2002, the program regained its stability.

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There was one key departure from the original program design, and that was

the loss of the staff social worker and the social work component. This loss affected

the workload of program administrators, as they had to provide counseling as well as

carrying out their other duties. Although I observed the administrators to be

proficient at handling all kinds of student problems and family crises, the increased

workload may eventually take its toll. The social work component is important

because students with problems will have difficulty learning. Students with family or

other outside problems may have less productive interactions with their teachers.

According to Vygotsky (1978), this is because there is an affective filter that can

inhibit learning if a student is too emotional. In order to promote learning, the

learning environment has to lower the affective filter. This is why it is important to

have resources to help students with problems, so that they come to class calm and

able to learn at their best.

One key to the strength and success of NAI was that all the teachers and

administrators adhered to the program mission. I observed in a variety of meetings

how all the NAI employees worked as a cohesive team to further the program goals.

In Chapter 4, I presented many comments that showed the dedication of personnel to

the mission. As a result, interactions between students and NAI personnel were

directed toward the goal of making the student ready for college.

However, with respect to history, it is clear that changes in administrative

personnel affected students, sometimes with effects lasting students’ entire time in

the program. The data showed how past administrative problems may have affected

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students’ attitudes throughout their stay at NAI. Students who started during a

change in administration made comments that showed more alienation, and they

complained more than students who started later. With the stable leadership I

observed, this was not an issue, but if there is a future change in leadership, it is

important to recognize how delicate the situation is for students.

Program history affected student-teacher interaction in several ways. First,

students interacted with the components of the program. History affected these

components such that the administrators had to handle the counseling aspect. In

spite of the impact on administrative workload, they handled student problems

effectively, and this helped keep student problems from getting in the way of

student-teacher interaction and learning. When students interacted with NAI staff

members, the members were all dedicated to the program’s original mission. As a

result, interactions consistently aimed toward developing students’ scholarly

potential. Finally, students who had been in the program longest had been negatively

affected by past program administrative problems. Their outlook remained less

positive and trusting, even though the problems were resolved early in the students’

stay with NAI.

NAI Culture

The significant aspect of student-teacher interaction at NAI was the program

culture. It affected all interactions within the program, and was the key vehicle for

transforming low SES minority students into college ready scholars. Students

entered the program with the appropriate motivation, because motivation was one of

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the key criteria for selection to NAI. However, students generally did not have the

necessary skills, work habits, or values for college work. For example, a fair

proportion of students had ESL or other skill issues that put them below their grade

level. They also had difficulty bearing the workload. Many of them wanted to

participate in sports and other extracurricular activities that would interfere with their

academic achievement. NAI changed students through a combination of direct

instruction, discipline, and extensive time together in shared activities. Looking at

the program holistically, NAI formed a supportive social web that acculturated

students to scholarly values and behaviors.

Holding NAI classes on the USC campus was very important. By taking

students out of their high school social milieu and placing them in classes on the

USC campus, NAI could more effectively promote a college-going culture. Many

teachers and students commented on how different it was to be studying at USC,

even though the teachers were the same and the curriculum was very similar in

students’ high schools. The data showed that students became accustomed to the

college campus and started to feel that they belonged there. The college culture

surrounded them, and as teachers said, they visibly carried themselves differently

and behaved differently at USC. The college social context helped impart a

scholarly culture among the students in terms of their comportment and feelings of

belonging.

Students developed a college work ethic as soon as they entered the program.

Teachers had higher expectations of students, as almost all participants commented.

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In addition, students rose to meet these expectations that they attend class, be on

time, and do homework. Although they complained, they rose to the occasion.

Almost all the teachers commented that the key difference between NAI students and

other students at their high schools was that they worked harder, attended more

consistently, and did homework almost without fail. This work ethic was perhaps

the most essential component of the NAI culture that students acquired.

All the participants--administrators, teachers, and students--were quick to say

that NAI students were average students of average intelligence. Nevertheless, the

students did stand out of the crowd. Instead of more intelligent, perhaps the right

description would be that they were more motivated and better informed. For

example, as one teacher commented, they knew what Cliff Notes were. Through the

NAI, they knew more about college life, college expectations, and about how to

navigate the college application process. They behaved more like college students.

For instance, they formed study groups to help each other. At several faculty

meetings, teachers commented that when they had received a call from a student

with a question, they had heard other students in the background. Upon inquiring,

the caller told the teacher that the students were studying together and had a

collective question. I did not see evidence of any instruction in study group

formation or management, but students seemed spontaneously to form these groups

under the pressure of challenging teacher expectations. In NAI, students acquired

college study skills not only through direct instruction, but also as a product of

adaptation and enculturation.

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Scholarly culture developed because students spent a great deal of time in

NAI. Not only did they attend classes in the morning for an hour and a half, they

also went to after-school tutoring and Saturday classes. Overall, most student

comments indicated that they did not resent putting in the extra time. I found a

welcoming atmosphere at tutoring and at the NAI office in general. Sometimes I

saw students sharing snacks and food, and friends working together. Teachers

sometimes commented that the students were not always on task during these

sessions, but I observed them reading textbooks and writing in their notebooks as

well as talking. I estimate that they were talking less than half the time, and it

appeared that they were often talking about the study task.

Students seemed to have a positive attitude to tutoring. Because of the social

interaction during tutoring, studying was rewarding, and this was an important step

in developing scholarly culture. On Saturdays, there was also a cheerful social

atmosphere as students came in to their classes and during class breaks. In general, it

seemed that these activities students did together after school and on Saturdays had

more than just a time-on-task purpose. The activities included a positive social

atmosphere that made them intrinsically rewarding, created a stronger bond between

students, and in this way helped foster a scholarly culture.

Social connections and Partnerships

NAI culture derives in part from its partnerships with students’ families, the

high schools, and USC. In order to maximize learning, NAI links students, their

families, high schools, and the university. The connections between these create a

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unique social setting in which NAI students and teachers interact. A student is not

an entity separate from the family, school, and social setting; instead, sociocultural

theory states that a learner is embedded in a social fabric that affects learning in

profound ways. I will describe three partnerships that are in the most basic way

founded on social connections developed by NAI: partnerships with family, home

high schools, and USC.

I first discuss NAI’s partnership with families. Parent participation is not

optional for NAI; it is a requirement written into the contract parents and students

sign when they begin the program. During the school year, all parents attended a

Saturday morning program called the Family Development Institute six times a

semester. They could also serve on the NAI parent leadership board. When parents

met together on a regular basis at NAI, it formed a social bond that I observed to be

very cooperative.

While ninth grade students reported that their parents were unhappy with the

content of the Saturday sessions, the students from other grades reported their

parents liked the sessions. The ninth grade students reported that their parents

wanted more information about NAI and helping their children. This indicated that

the parents did not object to going on Saturdays, but wanted material that was more

specific. Collaborating with parents and getting them involved had positive effects.

The data showed that the most important influence of parents was that they

prevented students from quitting NAI. In addition, students reported that parents

were knowledgeable about their schools and supervised their homework and

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preparation. Ninth graders reported the most parental involvement in their

schooling, which may indicate an increase in parental involvement after starting

NAI.

These positive influences come in spite of some family problems I noted.

Family problems that were discussed in faculty meetings and teacher interviews

included substance, spouse, and child abuse, health problems, financial problems,

crime, incarceration, and death, including homicide. In its partnership with families,

NAI functions as much as it can as a buffer between students and these various

problems. The parent component brings parents into the school culture and helps

promote NAI scholarly culture by bringing it into students’ homes.

I next discuss NAI’s partnership with the home schools. I observed three

administrative challenges in this partnership. The first challenge in the NAI-home

school partnerships was working with school principals. Whenever a new principal

takes over, the social relationship between NAI and a school has to be renewed. A

new principal came on at Manual Arts at the beginning of my study. At faculty

meetings early in the year, NAI teachers and administrators expressed some anxiety

about whether the new principal would have a good impression of their program.

The principal visited NAI, and the NAI administrators explained the program to him.

After this, I did not record any mention of problems with the new principal. Another

indication of the principal’s acceptance of the program was that while the principal

had initially refused to be involved in my study, by the spring semester he was

willing to give an interview and permit me to do research on his campus.

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The second challenge in the partnership was that home school policies such

as class schedules affected NAI, and there was a constant need for NAI to adjust to

new developments at the schools. For example, one of Foshay’s school policies

tended to hamper the functioning of NAI. During my year of observation, NAI

classes lost at least 20 minutes a week of instructional time due to a change in

Foshay’s class schedule that year. This was a result of the Foshay principal’s

scheduling of weekly minimum days for teacher development workshops. Based on

the many comments I recorded, this posed quite a hardship on NAI in terms of

scheduling classes and buses. In addition, the minimum day and bell schedules at

Manual Arts and Foshay did not always match, and this posed problems as well. The

home schools have many more regular students than NAI students, and so it is not

practical for them to consider NAI in these matters. NAI constantly has to adapt to

this structural aspect of the school-NAI partnership.

A third challenge affects teachers because the schools are not structured to

allow them to easily teach both at the USC campus in the mornings and at the home

school campus for the rest of the day. All the teachers commented that they did not

have their own classrooms and had to travel and haul materials. The arduousness of

this traveling meant that only the most committed and energetic teachers remained as

NAI faculty. It was a sort of survival of the fittest, a structural selection process that

happily resulted in the best teachers remaining in NAI.

Moving from challenges to benefits, the NAI-home school partnership

benefits were most evident when I talked to students. From the students’

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perspective, the partnership with the home schools was seamless because the NAI

teachers also taught classes at the home schools. Four teachers taught at Foshay, and

four at Manual Arts. Students could find their NAI teachers on campus, and

approach them for help outside of NAI class time. Teachers knew the students well,

including their family and academic lives. NAI teachers advocated for the students

in home school issues, as was apparent from comments at NAI faculty meetings.

While NAI administrators and teachers expressed concern that NAI students might

be singled out in a negative way at their home schools, students made many positive

and few negative comments about their status on the home school campus. NAI

students reported mostly positive treatment by members of the home school

community. Students commented that at their high schools, they felt special and

smart because they participated in NAI.

A final positive aspect of this partnership was that NAI influenced the home

schools in some ways. At Foshay, the previous principal was very pro-NAI, and

non-NAI teachers adopted some NAI activities. In an interview, the new Manual

Arts principal expressed enthusiasm for NAI’s methods, and stated the desire to start

a Saturday academy at his high school. The possibility of NAI inspiring better

educational practices at the home schools is an interesting aspect of the partnership

that needs further exploration. In the final analysis, while the NAI-home school

partnership poses administrative challenges, it is beneficial to students.

The last partnership is with USC. Because the university provides

classrooms and administrative office space, as well as funding for the program, it is

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essential to NAI’s existence. Socioculturally, the most important aspect for

preparing NAI students for college is putting them on the USC campus. The

partnerships with parents and high schools may produce good learning outcomes, but

in terms of actual college going, the data showed that being on the USC campus is

the empowering factor. NAI teachers and administrators commented emphatically

that when the students were on campus, they carried themselves differently and

behaved more like college students. They had a sense of belonging. According to

sociocultural theory, people learn from their environments. Putting students into a

college environment is a learning process in itself, which goes beyond the curriculum

of NAI courses. The campus and students are different, and the classrooms

themselves are different from high school classrooms. As one teacher said, “They

get so comfortable with campus life that it removes that big mystery of what college

is actually like.”

Students commented that they felt more like adults. For instance, at USC

there were no bells or hall passes. Students felt proud to know their way around the

campus and to be able to use USC facilities such as the library and bookstore, just

like college students. They also were eager to earn the full USC scholarship for NAI

graduates who meet USC’s entrance requirements. From the USC partnership,

students received a message that the university supported them and believed in them.

While USC’s support could be beneficial because of the connections that become

available to students, sociocultural theory would emphasize the social bond to USC

that the partnership creates. The university functions as a mentor to these students.

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The university context showed them how to behave as scholars and enhanced their

image of themselves as future college students. This social bond was an important

sociocultural factor motivating and empowering students to work hard and apply to

college.

One reason that NAI has been successful in getting a high percentage of

students into college is its partnerships with parents, high schools, and USC. If any

of the three partnerships were broken, NAI would cease to function effectively.

They form a rich social setting that nurtures students and encourages them to

succeed.

Implications for Policy

Instead of focusing on the microcosm of classroom student-teacher

interaction, I widened the view to take in the program as a whole. How does NAI

produce productive student-teacher interaction? The historical, cultural, and social

aspects of the NAI program itself turned out to be the key drivers of interaction and

learning. Interaction between student and teacher produced good learning outcomes

because of the organization of the program. This is why, as several participants

observed, NAI can serve as a model for other college preparation programs. My

findings highlight effective aspects of NAI that are applicable to other programs

striving to increase the college-going rate of low-SES minority students.

First, NAI teachers had a strong sense of mission. The working conditions

and professional development activities instilled this sense of mission in program

employees. The program was very cohesive in this respect. The program director

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emphasized that she keeps the NAI mission and strategic plan in mind as much as

possible. At the semi-annual teacher retreat the director posted sections from the

program strategic plan on the wall for teachers to read and comment on. Because

NAI ensured everyone in the program was working toward the same goals and had

the same mission, moving from year to year the students experienced consistent

teacher-student interactions. Other programs can take this cue and emphasize the

mission and goals in program activities.

Second, developing a scholarly culture among students was a significant

factor in positive interactions and learning. NAI developed this culture through an

intensive program design that maximized student time in the program, both on a

weekly basis and over the six years students stayed in NAI. Weekly student

participation included one-and-a-half-hour morning classes five days a week,

afternoon tutoring for one or more hours per week, and three hours of Saturday class.

Students spent additional time in NAI classes and activities during semester breaks,

as well as time at fundraisers, picnics, and other social activities. This time allowed

students to bond with each other and form supportive groups. The program design

meant students spent time outside class in the company of teachers and tutors,

resulting in a transfer of academic values to the students. Additionally, teachers and

tutors became role models.

To support a scholarly culture, students could be given an expanded set of

experiences to develop a clearer idea of what the college workload is like. While

holding classes on a university campus was the key element of the NAI experience,

131

more could be done in this area. For instance, the 11th and 12th graders could visit

college classes in their majors for one day. The NAI tutors or other USC students

could visit NAI classes with their textbooks and written papers to share what kind of

work they are doing. It is also useful to pay particular attention to providing role

models. The tutors and teachers became role models for the students. There were

some tutors who were NAI graduates; students reported very positively about these

people. One stipulation of the NAI student contract is that students return to the

program after graduation to help. Perhaps more NAI graduates could come back and

interact with the students. Pre-college programs need to provide this comprehensive

culture-building component, including the college experience and expanded

interaction with teachers and college student tutors.

Third, maintaining program consistency in interactions with students was

essential not only for teachers, but for administrative staff as well. Students’

previous experiences in NAI colored their perceptions and attitudes throughout their

time in the program. The negative attitudes of the seniors may have stemmed from

events that happened when they started the program. This indicates that a successful

program needs steady management, particularly when students stay in the program

for six years, as NAI students do.

Fourth, to strengthen partnerships with families, it might be helpful to have

some experienced family counselors to help with the workload generated by student

problems. I recorded mention of shootings, parents with substance abuse problems,

domestic violence, parents arrested, and other serious family problems requiring a

132

trained counselor. Counseling is important because as the data show, these outside-

school problems can impact student learning and academic success. It may not be

possible to fund a position at NAI, but perhaps a partnership and a solid social

relationship with a local counseling center would be beneficial. I did record some

mention of this, but perhaps it needs more development. Pre-college programs need

to accommodate the whole student, including the family and other problems outside

school that may affect learning.

Fourth, the faculty and administration had a very friendly and collaborative

culture that facilitated teaching. The faculty participated in program decisions such

as hiring new teachers and implementing the mission and strategic plan.

Administrators and teachers spent time together at retreats twice a year, monthly

faculty meetings, and at vertical teaming sessions. Teachers had a say in all aspects

of the program, and worked with administrators as a team. This created a supportive

culture where all the program members felt they could be open with each other. The

teamwork resulted in curriculum development that was cohesive across grade levels,

as well as good communication about which students needed special help. Pre-

college programs need to ensure an open and collaborative working environment to

maximize positive teacher-student interaction and learning.

Fifth, partnerships with parents, schools, and the university were very

important to student success. Pre-college programs should ensure parent

participation. The NAI created a strong parent partnership by requiring parents to

sign a contract in which they promised to participate in Saturday classes. If a parent

133

was not able to attend, another family member was required to participate, and there

were sanctions for lack of participation. The NAI students reported an immediate

effect of the partnership with parents because parents took a greater interest in their

children’s school progress. This aspect of the program improved parenting skills as

well as taught parents about academic expectations for college going.

Pre-college programs need to be flexible in school partnerships. At NAI,

partnerships with schools, especially principals, were somewhat unstable. A pre-

college program like NAI that is independent of high schools constantly needs to

cultivate its relationship to the students’ high schools. It required constant vigilance

and effort on the part of NAI teachers and administrators to maintain the goodwill of

principals as well as to adjust to changing high school policies. After observing

NAI, I find there might be more effort put into fostering relationships with school

counselors. A pre-college program has to be flexible when it comes to partnerships

with local schools, while not compromising its mission.

A partnership with a local university can be the key component of a

successful pre-college program. The partnership with USC was essential to the

NAI’s success. USC guaranteed full scholarships to any NAI graduates who

qualified for admission. Even ninth grade students had the scholarship as their goal.

USC provided classroom space for NAI classes, allowing students to feel a part of

the university. This empowered students and gave them a sense of belonging to the

university community, unlike taking college preparatory classes on a high school

134

campus. Even though the teachers came from the local high schools, exposure to the

university on a daily basis made a difference to student attitudes and behavior.

Perhaps NAI was in a somewhat delicate position in its partnership with USC

because I did not record mention of many supporters of NAI in the university. It

might be wise to foster socially supportive relationships with more people at the

university. I read the good publicity NAI received in news articles and pamphlets,

but good partnerships depend on people, not just publicity. It is possible that my

research project will have consequences in this area because my committee will

become more familiar with NAI. If more USC students do research at NAI, they will

become a link between NAI and their teachers. This could result in better social

connections if NAI teachers or administrators use it as a way to get to know USC

professors. Pre-college programs should attend to the connections they make to the

university, and should foster relationships with a variety of people on the university

campus. Allowing university students to do research in the pre-college programs can

form the basis of a reciprocal relationship within the university/pre-college program

partnership.

Recommendations for Future Research

Here I will mention some avenues for further research that appeared in the

process of my study. Some of the areas of research developed from data I collected

but did not analyze because I wanted to keep the study focused on teacher-student

interaction, as I described in the limitations section of this chapter. Other research

ideas point to facets of NAI that need more in-depth study.

135

The data I collected revealed some interesting questions. First, the student

selection process for NAI was the subject of some disagreement among the various

people I interviewed. NAI insiders and outsiders differed in their impression of

whether the program recruited average or gifted students. Insiders believed that the

students entered as average and later appeared gifted due to the impact of NAI. Do

students enter gifted, or does NAI make them gifted? Examining the student

selection process in detail could shed light on this issue.

Second, there were several comments about how NAI affected home schools.

NAI teachers and staff expressed the hope that NAI would have a positive effect on

the schools, and several pointed to positive changes because of NAI. An avenue for

research is to study the home schools to find what effects NAI might have.

Third, studying students who are on probation or who left NAI could yield

useful information. At meetings, teachers often expressed concern for students who

were falling behind and tried to understand what life circumstances could be the

cause. Studying students on probation can determine why they end up in this

situation and how best to help them. Studying students who are on probation or who

drop can also address the question of how to reduce the attrition rate. Some NAI

teachers observed that the program has a lasting influence even in the case of

students who leave early. Studying students who left the program can determine the

influence even a few years of NAI might have.

Fourth, the student and parent Saturday programs are subjects for further

study. My research indicated that parents played a very strong role in making

136

students stay in NAI and in overseeing their schoolwork. It would be useful to study

the parent component at NAI, particularly the Saturday program, to see how it

influences parents and subsequent student performance. The student Saturday

classes are another aspect to explore. Teachers and administrators commented that

they were not entirely satisfied with the Saturday curriculum for the students. They

planned to revise it; this process would be a good subject for research.

Fifth, the vertical teaming process used by the teachers to develop curriculum

is an area for study. Teachers and administrators expressed enthusiasm for this

process, which I had the opportunity to observe at the teacher’s retreats. Since

students attend NAI classes from ninth through 12th grades, teachers say it is

important to develop a smooth articulation in the curriculum from year to year. This

is an important goal of the vertical teaming process. It may serve as a curriculum

development model for other programs.

Finally, while I used sociocultural theory as the theoretical basis for this

study, different theoretical lenses could bring new insights. For instance, Bourdieu’s

(1973) theories of cultural and social capital could be useful. The scholarly culture

developed by NAI may be an advantageous change in cultural capital for students.

Mehan, Hubbard, Lintz, and Villanueva (1996) consider the implications of tracking

and untracking students. The design of NAI gives average students a chance to

experience an advanced academic curriculum normally offered only to the upper

track students. Using the lens of tracking could bring new insights about NAI as a

pre-college program.

137

Another useful theoretical lens is Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of

situated learning. NAI students participate in college in a peripheral way by

attending classes on a university campus, even though they are not yet university

students. According to Lave and Wenger, “learners inevitably participate in

communities of practitioners and…the mastery of knowledge and skill requires

newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a

community.” The learning process consists of what the authors call legitimate

peripheral participation; this means that the learner or apprentice starts by observing

the master, then takes on successively more tasks as he or she learns the skills

involved. The intensive nature of student-teacher and student-tutor interaction in

NAI could be viewed as a form of apprenticeship. The university itself could be

analyzed in its role as a mentor. The NAI gives many opportunities for further

research into a wide array of areas.

Conclusion

Overall, student-teacher interaction in the NAI had a strong influence on

learning not only because of its instructional role but also because of its social role.

The teachers spent extra time with students outside class. The students recognized

and appreciated this, even though some students complained. For example, they

made comments like “He has such high expectations of us.” Still, behind the

complaints I detected respect and admiration for the teachers’ dedication. Students

also commented that teachers treated them like adults. Teacher-student interaction

seems to have a strong impact on students in encouraging them to become scholars.

138

Teachers may feel that they receive little thanks for the extra time they put in, but

extra time spent with students is effective beyond its instructional purpose. It

supports the social nature of learning by imparting scholarly values and culture.

In the final analysis, teacher-student interaction at NAI is conducive to

learning and to preparing students for college because of the way the program is

structured and run. The program mission and design supports intensive time spent in

the program by students on a weekly basis throughout their middle school and high

school years. The program takes into consideration the whole student, including the

family and home life. With the student population of NAI, there are often factors

external to school which affect school performance. The NAI staff makes a valiant

effort to ameliorate any family or other external problems students may have.

Students are in close contact with each other, the teachers, and the NAI

administrators, forming a bond and a program culture that supports college going.

The context of the program, supported by its partnership with USC, allows students

to experience the university campus and develop confidence and a feeling of

belonging in higher education. All these factors may contribute to NAI’s record of

having a high percentage of its graduates enter college year after year.

139

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Appendix A: USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative Organizational Chart

July 21, 2005

Executive Director

Assistant DirectorSaturday Academy

Administrative Coordinator

Student WorkersTemporaryEmployeesGraduate StudentJEP Student Volunteers

Saturday Academy EnglishTeachers / Math Tutors

NAI TeachersFoshay & Manual Arts

High Schools

Middle School Liaison

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Appendix B: Research Protocols

Teacher Interview

Research Questions• Considering teacher responses to students, what are the effects of a teacher’s

cultural experiences at work, in teacher education and training, and inchildhood as a student?

• How does a teacher’s social class affect his or her responses? Specifically,does family status, parents’ status, or grandparents’ status have an impact?

• How does school organizational culture affect teacher responses?• What other factors affect a teacher’s responses?

1. Where did you grow up?2. What did your parents do? Your grandparents?3. Could you describe your race, ethnicity, or culture?4. Do you speak any other languages? If so, how did you acquire them?5. Are you currently married? If so, what does your spouse do? Do you

have children?6. How would you describe your childhood experiences in school?7. Why did you decide to teach?8. Tell me about the training you received to be a teacher. If the

interviewee has children: Does being a parent have an impact on yourteaching?

9. Have you taken part in inservice training?10. Has there been any special training for NAI?11. How did you become a teacher at NAI?12. Tell me about the NAI students. How do they compare to other

students you teach or have taught? How were they selected for NAI?Do they ever struggle with the course material? If so, what do youdo?

13. How would you characterize the school atmosphere at NAI? Howdoes your work at NAI compare to other teaching positions you haveor have had?

14. Is there anything you do differently in the NAI classroom comparedto other schools? If yes, why?

15. Is there anything else you would like to tell me?

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Student Interview

Research Questions• What are the effects of a student’s social and cultural experiences on

learning?• How does a student’s social class affect his or her responses? Specifically,

does family status, parents’ status, or grandparents’ status have an impact?• How does school organizational culture affect students?

1. Where did you grow up?

2. What are your parents’ jobs? Your grandparents?

3. Could you describe your race, ethnicity, or culture?

4. Do you speak any other languages?

5. Who do you live with?

6. Outside NAI, how would you describe your experiences in school?

7. How did you become an NAI student?

8. Tell me about the school atmosphere at NAI. What is it like to be an

NAI student?

9. Tell me about the NAI teachers. How do they compare to other

teachers you have or have had?

10. What happens if you have trouble understanding some of the class

material?

11. Is there anything you do differently in the NAI classroom compared

to other schools?

12. Is there anything else you would like to tell me?

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Administrator/Staff Interview

Research Questions

• How does school organizational culture affect teacher-student interaction?

1. Where did you grow up?

2. What did your parents do? Your grandparents?

3. Could you describe your race, ethnicity, or culture?

4. Do you speak any other languages?

5. How would you describe your childhood experiences in school?

6. How did you come to be a staff member/administrator at NAI?

7. Considering your education, what is most applicable to your job here?

8. What do you see as your role at NAI? How do you interface with the

teachers?

9. What atmosphere or school culture do you promote? What impact

does being a part of USC have on NAI?

10. Tell me about the NAI teachers. How do they compare to other

teachers you have worked with? How were they selected for NAI?

11. Describe the ideal NAI teacher. Do any features of NAI help teachers

attain this ideal?

12. Tell me about the NAI students. How do they compare to other

students? How were they selected for NAI?

13. What are the unique features of the NAI curriculum? How does NAI

maximize student learning?

14. Do students ever struggle with the course material? Are there any

standard measures taken if a student is not doing well in class?

15. Is there anything else you would like to tell me?

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Parent Board Member Interview

Research Question

• How does school organizational culture affect teacher-student interaction?

1. Tell me about your family.

2. Where did you grow up?

3. Could you describe your race, ethnicity, or culture?

4. Do you speak any other languages?

5. What is your job? What were your parents’ jobs?

6. How did you come to join the parent leadership board?

7. What is the function of the board? Can you give an example of some

recent board work?

8. What is your role as a member of the board? Can you give an

example?

9. Can you describe the NAI for me? What do you see as its strengths

and weaknesses?

10. What are your expectations for the NAI students? Teachers?

Administrators?

11. Is there anything else you would like to tell me?

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School Principal Interview

Research Question

• How does school organizational culture affect teacher-student interaction?

1. Tell me about your school. What do you see as its strengths and

weaknesses?

2. Tell me about the students. What challenges do they face? What

strengths do they have?

3. Tell me about the teachers. What challenges do they face? What

strengths do they have?

4. How do you see your role as principal? What kind of school

atmosphere do you promote?

5. Are you familiar with USC’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative? (If

no, stop here.)

6. Tell me about the NAI teachers. How do they compare to other

teachers here? How were they selected for NAI?

7. Tell me about the NAI students. How do they compare to other

students here? How were they selected for NAI?

8. Does the teacher and student participation in NAI have any impact on

your school?

9. Is there anything else you would like to tell me?

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Stimulated Recall Protocol

Research Questions1. Considering teacher responses to students, what are the effects of a teacher’s

social and cultural background?2. How does a teacher’s social class (family status, parents’ status, or grandparents’

status) or gender affect his or her responses to students in need?3. How does school organizational culture affect teacher responses to students in

need?4. What other factors affect a teacher’s responses?

Procedure: One class session will be videotaped. After the taping, the

researcher will meet with the teacher and replay the video. Questions will be asked

before, during, and after video replay. Responses will be audiotaped. The procedure

will take approximately 45 minutes.

1. Please tell me briefly about your plans or objectives for this lesson.

2. I’m interested in your perceptions of and interactions with the

students.

3. (Start playing video) Please feel free to stop the videotape any time

you recall your perceptions or thoughts during the class.

4. What were your thoughts or feelings at this point?

5. What made you talk to this student?

6. What was your comment or instruction to the student? Why?

7. Were you satisfied with the results of your intervention? Please

explain.

8. (End video) How do you feel the students performed during this

lesson? Are there any specific students you would like to comment

on?

9. Are there any issues that came up in class that you will follow up on?

10. Do you have any other comments?

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Appendix C: School Staffing Profiles

Foshay Learning Center

Foshay Staffing ProfileCertificated Management 6Certificated Teachers 146Certificated Others 5

Certificated Assignments by DepartmentBilingual-ESL 6 Foreign Language 3Art 1 Health Careers 1Computer Science 1 Industrial Education 1Business Education 2 Mathematics 21Music 3 Physical Education 7Special Education 18 Science 8English 17 Social Science 14

Teaching Experience inLAUSD

Assigned to This Location

Less Than 1 Year 19 Less than 1 Year1 Year 42 1 Year 82-5 Years 30 2-5 Years 636-10 Years 19 6-10 Years 2111 Or More Years 47 11 Or More Years 41

(Los Angeles Unified School District, 2005)

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Manual Arts High School

Manual Arts Staffing ProfileCertificated Management 6Certificated Teachers 93Certificated Others 5

Certificated Assignments by DepartmentBilingual-ESL 4 Foreign Language 0Art 0 Health Careers 0Computer Science 0 Industrial Education 0Business Education 0 Mathematics 12Music 1 Physical Education 8Special Education 6 Science 7English 15 Social Science 10

Teaching Experience inLAUSD

Assigned to This Location

Less Than 1 Year 15 Less than 1 Year1 Year 30 1 Year 72-5 Years 16 2-5 Years 346-10 Years 18 6-10 Years 2611 Or More Years 25 11 Or More Years 22(Los Angeles Unified School District, 2005)

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Appendix D : Model of College Preparation Program Effectiveness(1)

(1) Tierney, W., Hagedorn, L.(2002). Increasing Access to College: Extending Possibilities for All Students. Albany:State University of New York Press.

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Appendix E: NAI Graduate Survey 1997-2004(2)

1997 % 1998 % 1999 % 2000 % 2001 % 2002 % 2003 % 2004 % Total

Total Graduates 46 55 39 45 46 32 32 33 328

USC 22 47.8 25 45.5 16 41.0 8 17.8 11 23.9 4 12.5 15 45 12 36 113

Other Private 4-Yr

College

0 0.0 2 3.6 5 12.8 10 22.2 9 19.6 8 25.0 3 9 3 1 40

UC System 2 4.3 3 5.5 3 7.7 10 22.2 9 19.6 5 15.6 8 24 8 2 48

Cal State System 2 4.3 5 9.1 5 12.8 11 24.4 10 21.7 5 15.6 4 12 7 2 49

Other State Systems 1 2.2 0 0.0 2 5.1 2 4.4 0 0.0 0 0.0 2 6 0 0 7

Total Enrollment of 4-yr

Colleges

27 58.7 35 63.6 31 79.5 41 91.1 39 84.8 22 68.8 32 100 30 90 257

Community College 15 32.6 14 25.5 7 17.9 2 4.4 4 8.7 8 25 0 0 3 1 53

Vocational College 0 0.0 3 5.5 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 1 3.1 0 0 0 0 4

Total Enrollment of Post-

Secondary Education

42 91.3 52 94.5 38 97.4 43 95.6 43 93.5 31 96.9 32 100 33 100 314

Unknown/Working/Military 4 8.7 3 5.5 1 2.6 2 4.4 3 6.5 1 3.1 0 0 0 0 14

(2) These figures do not reflect the number of students who do not go to USC their first year, but transfer in their

second or third years.

Source: Neighborhood Academic Initiative (n.d.)