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Slums & Suburbs
viii + 147 pages, commentary on high schools in metropolitan areas, especially black and white students
- GenresSociology
128 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1968
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 5, 2024
Such a characteristic book of the American midcentury! It celebrates the virtues of (ethnically homogenous) middle sized American cities, where the “comprehensive high school functions as an instrument of democracy.” By contrast rural and especially large urban schools are seen as essentially a kind of disaster, especially for the negroes.
“In the suburban high school, from which 80% or more of the graduates, enter some sort of college, the most important problem from the parents point of view is to ensure the admission of their children to prestige colleges; consequently, there is great concern over good teaching of academic subjects. From the educators point of view, however, the most vexing problem is to adjust the families ambitions to the boys or girls abilities. In the city slum, where, as many as half of the children drop out of school in grades 9, 10, and 11, the problems are almost the reverse of those facing the principal and guidance officer of the rich suburban school. The task with the school people in the slum must struggle is, on the one hand, to prepare a student for getting and keeping a job as soon as he leaves school, and, on the other hand to encourage those who have academic talent to aim at a profession through higher education. The task thus stated seems simple. In actual fact the difficulties are appalling.”
“In the suburban high school, from which 80% or more of the graduates, enter some sort of college, the most important problem from the parents point of view is to ensure the admission of their children to prestige colleges; consequently, there is great concern over good teaching of academic subjects. From the educators point of view, however, the most vexing problem is to adjust the families ambitions to the boys or girls abilities. In the city slum, where, as many as half of the children drop out of school in grades 9, 10, and 11, the problems are almost the reverse of those facing the principal and guidance officer of the rich suburban school. The task with the school people in the slum must struggle is, on the one hand, to prepare a student for getting and keeping a job as soon as he leaves school, and, on the other hand to encourage those who have academic talent to aim at a profession through higher education. The task thus stated seems simple. In actual fact the difficulties are appalling.”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews