Bridging Street and School

Abstract

Driving down a city street it is all too easy to glance over at teenagers lounging in public housing doorways and dismiss the young men and women one sees as ignorant, lazy losers. That sort of causal simplicity is attractive-deficient individuals lead to wasted lives. What one sees on the streets, however, is actually complex; the further one pushes beneath the surface texts of teenagers' lives, the more complicated the picture gets. We begin to see that the roots of perceived individual pathologyunruliness in school, alcohol and drug abuse, crime, teenage pregnancy-actually lie deep within the social structure. Yet, if sociological study drives us to acknowledge the degenerative effects of gender-, race-, and class-based structural constraints upon our young people, then educational practitioners are left in a quandary: if the problems go beyond the kids, what can we do? In this article I seek to face that question directly. Drawing on my previous ethnographic study, Ain't No Makin' It (1987), I will discuss the educational implications of the street as socializing agent. My research and community work have shown me that we must listen attentively to those whose years of hard living on the street have convinced them that schooling cannot deliver on its promises. They are largely correct, although I maintain that educational policy and practice can still be improved in the short term. To provide an example of an educational approach that works, I will describe the projects developed by the Rural Organizing and Cultural Center (ROCC) in Holmes County, Mississippi.