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As part of a university-wide
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Year of the Child celebration,
the Record is spotlighting
some of the LBJ School's
work that is related to families
and children. In addition to this
story, this issue contains
articles about ChildFest, a
newly released handbook for
parents, and the Austin
Free-Net Program.
NE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT TRANSITIONS children face during adolescence is the move from elementary to middle school. Hoping to identify the barriers these children face and how these problems affect their achievement, a group of researchers at the LBJ School has been working since 1994 to gather data that will allow them to make recommendations to school administrators.
Using selected schools from the Austin Independent School District, the project has compiled an extensive database on the subject. The results of the work done to date will be published this summer.
According to Professor Richard L. Schott, the policy research project director, the work began at the suggestion of a member of the Austin school board and one of the area directors of the Austin Independent School District, who were concerned about the problems ethnic minority children and children from lower socioeconomic groups face in Austin's urban school system.
"Traditionally minority children have a rougher time in terms of academic achievement and school adjustment," said Schott. "When elementary school busing ended in the mid-1980s and Austin returned to neighborhood schools at the elementary level, children became racially isolated."
The transition into middle school is especially difficult, he explained, because it involves numerous adjustments that include moving from a homogeneous school environment into multicultural, multiethnic schools; taking long bus rides (up to 45 minutes) to school; and dealing with the psychological and sociological problems of adolescence.
The research effort is headed by Schott, who specializes in public policy, administration, and management. Other UT Austin faculty team members are Cindy Carlson, a professor of educational psychology who is an expert in family systems theory and adolescence; Laura Lein, a senior lecturer at the School of Social Work who is an anthropologist and who has worked extensively with lower socioeconomic populations; and Harriett Romo, an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction who has a special interest in Hispanics.
In 1994-95 and 1995-96 the project was funded by the Austin Independent School District, Texas Education Agency, Regional Service Center XIII, and the LBJ School. This year, the project was supported by a two-year $50,000 Carnegie Corporation grant awarded to Carlson and Lein. The Carnegie money is part of a $2.1 nationwide initiative to stimulate research and expand the knowledge of the sources of ethnic prejudice among young people.
"This is the age where prejudice reduction programs are most important," said Schott. "We hope that the current project will provide insights so that we can discover under what conditions one can inculcate or infuse values of tolerance to different groups."
The Study
In an attempt to determine how such factors as peer relationships, family structure, school culture, and classroom dynamics impede or--in some cases--enhance student learning, project members are applying a variety of research methods. These include surveys, classroom observations, focus groups, and interviews.
In the first year of the study, three elementary schools and Lamar Middle School--which is located in north central Austin and is fed by black, Hispanic, and white populations in the northwest and east sides of the city--were chosen for in-depth study. Lamar Middle School was of particular interest because it contains a wide range of socioeconomic and ethnic groups and because most children are bused.
In order to study the culture of each of the campuses the project conducted nearly 100 classroom observations and surveyed about 700 fifth, sixth, and eighth grade students.
As observers, LBJ School students were given a first-hand look at classroom dynamics, which allowed them to see how teachers interact with their students, how discipline is handled, and how groups become segregated or integrated.
Through focus group meetings with fifth grade students, the researchers were able to pinpoint children's basic fears of going to middle school as well as their expectations.
In the second year of the study, the project was expanded to include parent interviews. In addition, children who had moved from the fifth grade to the sixth grade were reinterviewed to see if their fears had materialized and whether new problems could be identified.
This year's work will conclude the research done at Lamar Middle School and its feeder elementary schools. The project has also expanded to Fulmore Middle School, which unlike Lamar is a neighborhood school. In this particular aspect of the study, more focus is being placed on student ethnic relationships.
What has been learned? According to Schott, each phase of the project has unearthed more issues that need further study. Among these are the more well-known challenges, such as reduced self-esteem and the need by adolescents to establish an identity separate from their parents. "They are looking for peer reference groups," Schott explained.
But there are other issues that are being uncovered. For example, children of mixed race have a unique set of problems because they do not identify with a core ethnic group, and recent immigrants to the United States are isolated not only from the general population but from members of their own ethnic groups who are second generation.
Because of these related problems, the project team has concluded that there is a strong need for teachers with multicultural competence. In their report to the Austin Independent School District, the researchers recommend that the school district provide more professional and personal support for teachers.
According to an excerpt from the report, "some faculty appear to have difficulty in effectively reaching students from lower socioeconomic and minority backgrounds." This is attributed to the "unprecedented, sometimes overwhelming, demands on their time and energy" and to the fact that "many teachers were initially prepared many years ago for a different kind of student body."
Other recommendations include: (1) strengthening the preparation of fifth grade students making the transition to sixth grade, and (2) restructuring Lamar Middle School as a learning community along the lines of a model proposed in 1989 by the Carnegie Corporation and now recognized by the education community as an innovative teaching paradigm.
This Carnegie model consists of small learning communities whose features include students and teachers grouped in teams, an integrated academic curriculum designed to enable students to think critically, flexible instruction, greater engagement of families with schools, and heterogeneous groupings, among other strategies.
The study's report will be published in the LBJ School's Policy Research Project Report Series.
Go to: Contents * The Record home page
1 May 97
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