Cultural resilience--a currency of social capital: Counteracting student marginalization in two urban--suburban high schools

<p>This qualitative research study began as an exploration of the central qualities of the lived experience of students in two urban-suburban high schools where, as an outcome of rapid demographic change, White students now represent the nontraditional racial minority and Black students represent the racial majority. Semistructured interviews, the primary method of data collection, were conducted with students who had graduated from the high schools under study and with adults who had significant ties to the district. Student informants, in particular, shared high school experiences of marginalization that included silence, rendered invisibility, stereotyping, and bias owing in large part to their racial/cultural status whether White or Black. They revealed a more powerful reality that counteracted the effects of marginalization and enabled them to negotiate identities across boundaries of access to resources supporting social and academic success.</p> <p>Social capital that facilitated development of cultural resilience counteracted marginalizing conditions related to diversity in the high school experience. An articulated and captured vision of leadership for social justice, beginning with and courageously modeled by the educational leaders of the district, is key to the intentioned diffusion of social capital and cultural resilience in support of student success in diverse high school environments.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Leadership and Counseling

Year

2006

Author dc:creator

• Erby, Marci A

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jaclynn Tracy, PhD, Chairperson
• Valerie Polakow, PhD
• Barbara Diamond, PhD

• Minority students United States Social conditions
• Marginality
• Social Cross-cultural studies
• Educational equalization United States
• Social capital (Sociology) United States
• Educational Leadership

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/92

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-1091