Journal of Advanced Academics

The racial, ethnic, linguistic, and economic diversity within urban areas necessitates the creation of scholastic environments that are responsive to the varying academic and social needs of the student population. This qualitative study investigates ways in which teacher and administrator behavior and the school environment contribute to the successes or frustrations of minority students in AP and IB courses. Classroom observations and interviews with 9 administrators, 4 counselors, 43 teachers, and 75 students in 3 urban high schools revealed that consistent, broad-based support scaffolds learning experiences for students, enabling them to experience success and to develop confidence in taking on new challenges in college.

Two key factors seemed to be integral to creating environments that nurture the growth of academic talent among students of diverse backgrounds: (a) a pervasive and consistent belief that these students could succeed, which resulted in instructional and group support; and (b) scaffolding to support and challenge able students (e.g., extracurricular help, lunchtime discussion forums, subsidized college visits). Teachers found ways to flexibly tailor their support and expectations to individual student needs in terms of product and performance expectations and the kind of help that was provided.

The after-school City School Outreach youth program captured the attention of high school male students by offering them a physically and psychologically safe environment to talk about issues they faced. The students of color who attended the program used various forms of creative written expression (i.e., poetry, spoken word, and hip hop) to document and share their lived realities as African American and Latino youth. An analysis of their writings and subsequent interviews revealed a variety of coping strategies and resources that these resilient adolescent males of color used to transcend adversity in their environment. When adolescent males of color have a strong sense of cultural pride and awareness, they are able to construct a healthy self-concept that assists them in acts of agency and resistance against negative psychological forces in their environment. These students used familial and nonfamilial support mechanisms, such as peers, church, and mentors, to assist them in reducing the stressful impact of racist stereotypes and community fragmentation. In light of these findings, teachers who wish to serve as a source of resilience in the lives of youth of color must make a concerted effort to acknowledge and appreciate differences and commonalities that exist among African American, Latino, and European-based mainstream culture. By building a healthy attitude toward their own culture, young people achieve the greater sense of direction and personal coherence needed for positive identity formation. When educators provide time and space for youth to examine and articulate their lives, social and intellectual climates form that can enrich and enliven their educational process.

Seven middle-level schools in a large suburban district created an open enrollment system for advanced English and science courses. The advanced courses provided students with an opportunity to learn through the use of primary sources, high-level literature, and a variety of projects. A vertical teaming process in each middle–high school attendance area was instrumental in promoting teacher collaboration and acceptance of a Pre-AP philosophy intended to expand student access to advanced courses. The vertical teams included representative teachers of advanced courses from across grade levels. The adopted philosophy focused on connecting a wider base of students to the benefits of a rigorous, college preparatory curriculum. Although all students were allowed to enter advanced courses without prerequisite criteria and teachers were encouraged to work across vertical teams to provide scaffolding to prepare students for advanced work, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds were still significantly less likely to enroll in advanced coursework. Qualitative data underscored the importance of positive teacher attitudes in implementing an open enrollment policy. Teachers were encouraged by the success they experienced in teaching students who would have been excluded from a more selective program. Unfortunately, equity of opportunity in open enrollment policies may not be sufficient to encourage greater participation of minority and low socioeconomic status students in academically advanced programs. Educators must maintain high expectations for all students, provide equitable opportunities for all students to engage in curricula that exceed the minimum standards for academic content areas, and provide support for students to be successful in these courses.

Teachers can modify their instructional strategies with minimal training and effort, and this can result in increases in their students’ self-efficacy. Self-efficacy judgments are based on four sources of information: an individual's own past performance, vicarious experiences of observing the performances of others, verbal persuasion that one possesses certain capabilities, and physiological states. Individuals use these four sources of information to judge their capability to complete future tasks. Teachers who capitalize on the influence of the strongest of these sources—past performances, observations of others as models, and verbal persuasion—produce more confident students.

The following instructional strategies increase student self-efficacy: •

Reviewing lesson accomplishments from the previous day, posting the current lesson's objectives prior to instruction, drawing attention to the lesson objectives as they are covered, and reviewing the lesson objectives at the end of the lesson.

Teachers who use these strategies on a daily basis produce students who are more confident in their academic skills.