Competition and Cooperation as Contradictory Norms in Urban Schools: A Sociological Perspective

Abstract

School and the social adjustment of youth have continued to be a primary concern among educators. Recent national polls point to declining standards and their effective enforcement as the major problem facing American education.' Typically, urban schools, comprising a student clientele who come principally from lowerand working-class homes, are the object of much of this public criticism. Ironically, educators cannot promise schooling as the avenue to economic success for all these youth, many of whom often remain in school for lack of a better place to go or any other thing to do. As a corollary, school response to their presence has generated conflict and challenges to teacher authority, characterized as discipline problems. With little comprehension of the sociological context in which many so-called problems have arisen in urban schools, educators have sought instant panaceas for resolving such problems as challenges to authority and uncooperative attitudes and behaviors among their students. They have romanticized the good ol' days, and sought a return to an idyllic state of reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, (being) taught to the tune of the hickory stick. In addition to these strategies of back to basics and corporal pun-