The Violence of Low Expectations and Poor Educational Outcomes Jen Ryan, PhD (c) Research Coordinator ACT for Youth Project Learning Circle – United Way June 15th, 2012
The Violence of Low Expectations “We have to make a simple but powerful commitment to all of our students- that the opportunity to pursue their dreams will be constrained only by the limits of their imaginations and never their postal code” Dr. Chris Spence, Connecting with Education, 2012 TEDx Stouffville “Perceptions about the neighbourhood in which people live are just as important as the neighbourhoods themselves” (Wilson et al, 2000) “The people looking in from the outside won’t resist or rebel against the injustices that are occurring because they already have a negative image of the people there, and feel like err, umm, the things that are happening to them are what they deserve” (Youth Participant)
Outline • Spaces of Exclusion and Stigma • The Staging of Stigma Cycle – The Production of Negative Discourse – The Violence of Low Expectations – Performance of Expectation/Marginality • Disrupting the Cycle of Stigma
Spaces of Exclusion Some communities/neighbourhoods/spaces suffer because they lack full and equal access to political, social, cultural, economic and educational institutions and structures key to long term wellbeing There are a multitude of reasons for relations of exclusion - institutionalized racism, decline in social supports, discrimination, capital flightrarely a clear path and usually a number of intersecting factors.
ACT for Youth Reframing the Discourse
CDA-148 texts Interpretive Policy Analysis 30 Interviews
Youth Voices
Photovoice projects 33 Interviews 15 Focus Groups 50 Mobile speakers Interviews
Youth Employment and Education Strategy
3 Focus Groups 36 in-depth Interviews
Youth Survey
1706 youth surveys Customized Census Data Secondary Police Data
Evaluation and Monitoring
Self Assessment 4 Focus Groups Feedback from Youth
Stigma “stigmatized individuals possess (or are believed to possess) some attribute, or characteristic, that conveys a social identity that is devalued in a particular social context” Crocker et al., 1998 p. 505 Convergence of… 1) People distinguishing and labeling differences 2) Links between differences and negative attributes 3) Notions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ 4) Status loss and discrimination 5) Power differences- it takes social, political and economic power to stigmatize (Link & Phelan, 2001). “limiting access to important life domains, discrimination directly affects the social status, psychological well-being, and physical health of the stigmatized” (Major & O’Brien, 2005,p.396)
Staging of Stigma 1.Stigma and the Production of Negative Discourse IDEAS
3. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy/
2. The Violence of Low Expectations
Performance of Marginality
PRACTICES
The Production of Negative Discourse - IDEAS IDEAS
1.Stigma and the Production of Negative Discourse IDEAS
3. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy/
2. The Violence of Low Expectations
Performance of Marginality
PRACTICES
“No single causal pathway by many different mutually reinforcing parts all of which interact like cogs to create cycles of disadvantage. There is no single agent to disrupt, no simple fix” (Stuart 2011,P.1)
• Mainstream Media: CDA • Misguided Policy: Priority Neighbourhoods • It’s Here, It’s There, It’s Everywhere: Academics, Media, Policy, Service Providers
The Violence of Low Expectations - PRACTICE PRACTICE/EXPERIENCE 1.Stigma and the Production of Negative Discourse IDEAS
3. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy/
2. The Violence of Low Expectations
Performance of Marginality
PRACTICES
• • • •
Education Employment Community Personal
“It doesn't matter if you have a university degree, or you have a college degree, once you are living in Jane and Finch and you apply for a job, your postal code becomes an issue” C1 “There is a lack of employment. There’s a lack of opportunities for education. There’s also a lack of role models in the community, as well”
Practice “The guidance counselors, I don’t think they did their job in trying to, or they weren’t able to do their job, in trying to get children motivated for post-secondary education or college or whatever, or careers, because they were so focused on trying to get kids in courses, like they just wanted to deal with issues like people not having enough credits and that sort of thing. And they weren’t able to do their job as a guidance counselor, they weren’t able to guide you. Because of those things, I don’t know maybe they were understaffed. Maybe they couldn’t handle it? I don’t know” YS 15.
Practice “It really hurts other people when people say these things” The people um looking in from the outside won’t resist or rebel against the injustices that are occurring because they already have a negative image of the people there, and feel like err, umm, the things that are happening to them are what they deserve kind of thing” Y4 “Career class was a joke. In careers class, the teacher we had everyone was running around wild and no one cared. Like it wasn’t inspirational”
Self-fulfilling Prophecy: Performance of Marginality Performance of Marginality/to Expectation
1.Stigma and the Production of Negative Discourse IDEAS
3. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy/
2. The Violence of Low Expectations
Performance of Marginality
PRACTICES
Expectancy Confirmation Process: “Perceptions of negative stereotypes and expectations can lead perceivers to behave toward stigmatized targets in ways that directly effect the targets thoughts feelings and behaviours. The targets behaviour may confirm the initial erroneous expectation” (Major and O’Brien, 2005, p.396)
Performance…What Happens “One of the major insights of a social psych perspective on stigma is the tremendous variability across people, groups, and situation in response to stigma. The emerging understanding of factors that make people resilient as well as vulnerable to stigma and identification of effective coping strategies for dealing with identity – threatening situation holds some promise for improving the predicament of the stigmatized” (Major & O’Brien, 2005, p. 412)
Performance…What Happens • Embracing/Reinforcing: Conscious and unconscious internalization of the messaging, buying into the stigma, performing to low expectations • Rejecting the Stigma by Embracing the Frame: Turf, hyper-masculinity, ‘commodification of the thug’ • Overcompensating: Overachievers who recognize the negative frame and try to aggressively counteract that image. • Transcending: Do not appear to be impacted by stigma (Foster, 2006) • Resisting: Telling another story through activism, art and finding one’s own voice. • Opting Out: Don’t identify, remove themselves from community, go to other schools
Performance…Youth Voices • “If you keep hearing the same thing over and over about you or about where you live, a part of you is gonna start believing that you know? And accepting that type of stuff. Um, Jane and Finch is full of gangsters, and drugs, and, and all that type of stuff. Like if you’re hearing that all the time and you’re living in that community, a part of you is going to”. • “So what happens now when you have all these negative thoughts and-- and negative things happening in-- in the newspapers or in the media about the residents of Jane and Finch or the youth there? They automatically assume that role, like I said when I was a kid I seen-- I seen so many things happen and—I was just like okay this is the easiest thing to do, it’s-- it’s-- natural-- It’s like you assume the role that society wants you to play, right? It’s just so easy to assume that”
Performance…Youth Voices • “And what I do to help change perceptions is I go out and perform and I speak to anyone that is willing to listen about my experiences and I do it in a creative way. Through music, through my music and through my poetry…There’s always more than one side to a story” • “I’m always told by other people to not say you’re from Jane and Finch, to not bring the hood or the community wherever you go. But I’m like, that’s a part of me. So why should I put on this mask? Or why should I pretend that I’m something that I’m not right?”
Disrupting Cycle of Stigma: Getting to Over, Under, Through “No single causal pathway but many different mutually reinforcing parts all of which interact like cogs to create cycles of disadvantage. There is no single agent to disrupt, no simple fix� (Stuart 2011, P.1) 1) Multilevel (Individual, Sociocultural, Institutional) 2) Multifaceted (multiple mechanisms) 3) Get to the roots of stigma (Link & Phelan, 2001)
Connecting the Dots‌. The data is telling us: • Family and personal supports are in place. Youth feel cared for by parents and guardians who take an interest in their education. • Youth feel powerful and optimistic and report liking themselves (84%), glad to be themselves (86%), motivation for achievement (79%), positive view of personal future (72%).
Connecting the Dots…. Above numbers appear to be very positive indicators but… • When we look to the future and speak with youth who are now out of school, they describe feelings of hopelessness, being unprepared for the realities of the labour market and regretful that they didn’t pursue further post-secondary education.
Connecting the Dots….. • There is a very real disconnect between how youth imagine their future and how they experience it…there is a resilience and optimism that is not translating into personal success and wellbeing. WHY? Stigma is playing a critical and sometimes paralyzing role in this process as it is contributing to a lack of institutional investment in youth. • From what the survey says- communities are not creating or effectively communicating opportunities for service, volunteerism and mentorship & the education system is not sufficiently daring youth to excel. These are just two examples of how to bridge that optimism and resilience we see at earlier ages with long-term wellbeing…and according to youth, these supports are lacking.
Connecting the Dots‌. • So, when we want to better understand asset development in youth, we have to flip this modelstop looking into the community of J/F and asking how youth and families are lacking/different (even when it is well intentioned) and consider systemic institutional failures. • It is about using the concept of stigma to inform our own practices- as educators, researchers, service providers, policy makers and media (inside and outside the community). We must understand how we are all implicated in cycles of low expectation and make visible the limits we are creating and communicating to youth.
Questions? Comments? Jen Ryan Email: ryan_jen@hotmail.com