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Created: January 24, 2003
Latest Update: January 24, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Relationships to Encourage Education

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, January 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay is based on the Chronicle of Higher Education article: Black Students Have Fewer Mentors in Schools Than White Students, Study Finds By Jeffrey R. Young. Jamuary 23, 2003.

The first sentence, a whole paragraph in itself, which would probably give your teacher apoplexy, tells us what the study was about:

"Black high-school students are less likely than their white classmates to form strong interpersonal relationships with teachers and other adult school officials, relationships that can help motivate students to attend college, according to a study released last week."

Often a brief summary of a study will give you enough information to satisfy your needs. But I would caution you to be sure that the brief summary answers all the essential questions, like "how do you know that?" and "what does it mean?"

Discussion Questions

Read carefully the Chronicle summary.

1. Does Mr. Young tell you why the study was limited to blacks and whites?

   Consider that for many years all comparative race studies were done in black and white because those two groups were conveniently available. Only recently has sociological research turned to the more general multicultural approach.

2. Did Mr.Young personally observe the relationships between students and teachers? Can you tell from the article what he observed?

   Consider: " "They're less likely than a white student to have teachers talking with students -- actually forming that relationship where a teacher and student are talking," said George L. Wimberly, who conducted the study."

3. Does Mr. Young tell you how the study could tell a "good" relationship from a "not good" relationship?

   Consider the importance of being able to replicate a study. That is, of making the measurement clear enough that other researchers could repeat the study and get similar results.

4. Notice that the study investigated relationships (not yet clearly defined) with teachers and adult school officials. Do you think that means the school secretary doesn't count? What about the attendance clerk?

   Consider the proportion of staff to students. Consider the requirements of time and space for each of the students in a school with several hundred to thousands of students to maintain even minimal contacts. Does class size matter? What has happened to class size in the last decade or so? Has this happened more extensively in impoverished inner city schools?

5. What difference would it make to your conclusions from this article if the data on which these results are based was self-report data?

   Consider the reliability of self-report data. Consider that if you asked a student for a self-report on his/her relationships with teachers/adult officials at school, he/she might not be using the same definition of relationship as the researchers. How would we know that? Consider follow-up interviews.

6. How many students were in the sample?

   Consider: "an analysis of statistics from a U.S. Education Department survey that tracked 14,915 students from 1988 to 1994."

   What's the probability in your mind that the researcher spoke to each of those students? What's the probability that this was a paper and pencil survey. What does that make Mr. Wimberly's observations worth?

7. All methodological and statistical questions aside, how does the conclusion "feel" to you? Think it accurately describes your experience? Those of your friends?

   At this point you should consider critical race theory's tenet that it's important to go with the way "race" actually affects us, not with scientific formulas that express a theorist's hypotheses that don't scan for the participants at all. Remember that critical race theory is both up front and personal, and that it insists that we must make the situation better. Do you see any practical solutions offered by the study?