American Boarding School Research Articles

To show what an Indian can do: sports at Native American boarding schools

To show what an Indian can do: sports at Native American boarding schools

Two African American Women Graduates of Historically White Boarding Schools and Their Social Integration at a Traditionally White University

This qualitative study explores the saliency of the relationship between White independent boarding schools and postsecondary opportunity for African American students. It specifically focuses on the question: Are Black graduates of elite, independent, historically White boarding schools academically and socially prepared for what they will encounter in traditionally White colleges and universities (TWCUs)? Utilizing multiple data-collection strategies (interview/observation, questionnaires, and journaling), the study explores the experiences of two African American female boarding school graduates and their academic and social transitions to college life at a TWCU in the urban South. The students' reflections illustrate how their boarding school background not only influenced their academic success in college but also affected their ability to integrate into the institution's social systems. INTRODUCTION As the 21st century unfolds, more and more parents in the United States are being confronted by the seeming inadequacies of the nation's public educational system. Reports suggest that it is becoming increasingly difficult for parents and educators to find common ground in their efforts to ensure that students are provided with safe learning environments that foster personal and educational growth (Giles,1995). Moreover, public schools across the nation continue to be plagued by wanton acts of violence, low student academic achievement, teacher apathy, administrative incompetence, and limited fiscal resources (Alexander-Snow, in press). Families, particularly African American families, who were once deeply committed to public education as a moral issue, are increasingly opting to send their children to independent day and boarding schools (Datnow & Cooper, in press). African American parents often find themselves caught in the crossfire of intense political debate when it comes to choosing an elementary and secondary educational institution for their children, and those who opt to send their children to private institutions are no less embattled. On one hand, historically Black independent boarding schools have been touted for their culturally relevant teaching and for providing African American students with a culturally rich academic context that promotes the development of positive self-concept and group esteem (Asante, 1987; Lomotey, 1990). Yet, despite the purported success of these schools, the majority of African American children who attend private schools are enrolled in historically White independent boarding schools (tiles, 1995). Many Black parents compare the abundance of resources, the diverse academic programs, and impressive facilities of White private schools to the less expansive resources, programs, and facilities of Black private schools and conclude that the former are better equipped to prepare their children for collegiate success (Ladson-Billings, 1994). These parents ascribe to the conventional wisdom which suggests that because historically White independent boarding schools in the U.S. mirror the social and academic structures of the larger society and possess the advantages described above, graduates of these institutions will experience little or no difficulties adjusting to collegiate life. Since the 1960s, African American families have increasingly viewed predominantly White, elite boarding schools as viable educational opportunities for African American youth (Foster & Foster, 1994). In general, these schools purport to offer rigorous college preparatory curricula that emphasize social responsibility, actively promote a multicultural and multiracial environment, and strive to build a diverse and pluralistic student body (Speede-Franklin, 1988, p. 22). Despite the vastly different social, cultural, and experiential backgrounds of many of these institutions' African American students compared to their European American classmates, elite boarding schools have achieved a measure of success in retaining and graduating Blacks (Slaughter,1974). …

Charlotte Hawkins Brown and Palmer Memorial Institute

Charlotte Hawkins Brown and Palmer Memorial Institute, by Charles Wadelington and Richard F. Knapp. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. 303 pp. $16.95, paper; $39.95, cloth. Reviewed by Joseph T. Durham, Community College of Baltimore and Coppin State College. If it is true, as Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, that an institution is but lengthened shadow of one man (or woman), then Palmer Memorial Institute (PM) in Sedalia, North Carolina, was its founder, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and she was Palmer Memorial Institute. The authors of this volume, both associated with North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, have reviewed life and times of Brown and her beloved institution, an outstanding African American secondary boarding school that existed for almost 70 years. They paint a fascinating portrait of an indomitable Black woman who founded a school and developed a peculiar philosophy of education that appealed to Black parents and clients as well as to prominent, affluent Whites who contributed financially to PMI. Following essentially a chronological sequence, Wadelington and Knapp place history of Brown and Palmer Memorial in context of their times. At turn of 20th century, they note, African Americans were experiencing a period of racism, rampant segregation, and lynchings. Into this scenario, a youthful, 18-year-old Charlotte Hawkins, a product of a New England classical education, literally jumped from a train and landed in an isolated part of North Carolina, 10 miles from Sedalia. Hawkins had been engaged by American Missionary Association to teach at Bethany Institute, but it closed soon after she arrived. A lesser person might have been discouraged, but Hawkins sensed an opportunity and stayed to open her own school in 1902. Under her firm hand, PMI developed into a model finishing school for children of some of most distinguished African American families in United States. The authors paint Charlotte Hawkins Brown as a study in contrasts. Distinguished by her clipped New England speech and steeped in classics, she could appeal on one hand to luminaries such as Charles Eliot, president of Harvard from 1869 to 1909; President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and Alice Freeman Palmer, second female president of Wellesley College, after whom PMI was named. On other hand, though she did not fully embrace industrial education model of Booker T. Washington, Brown believed that Black youth should be trained to work with their hands. She required PMI students to work on campus farm and to do chores related to upkeep and maintenance of school. She was nonetheless influenced by W. E. B. DuBois's concept of talented tenth and called her own philosophy of education the triangle of achievement. Her goal was to help PMI matriculants become educationally sufficient, culturally secure, and religiously sincere. Brown was also an indefatigable fundraiser who traveled extensively, especially in New England, often working long hours without proper food or rest. As a result, she was frequently hospitalized due to exhaustion brought on by overwork. Yet, PMI was Brown's institution. She was its head for a half-century, and was, in a sense, wedded to school. She married twice, but neither marriage was successful. The first one to Edward S. Brown ended in divorce in 1916; second to John William Moses was later annulled. The authors' unrelenting association of Brown with Palmer has both its bright as well as its low spots. On positive side, they note that Brown successfully garnered funds and support from a wide circle of supporters-the rich and famous of North as well as southern Whites, who had firm ideas about intellectual ability of Blacks but who were convinced that Brown's educational plan was sound and beneficial. …

Alcohol use among male and female Native American adolescents: patterns and correlates of student drinking in a boarding school.

This study examined the patterns and correlates of alcohol use in a Native American boarding school. Specifically, stressful life events, social support and emotional distress were associated with quantity as well as frequency of alcohol use in this population. A sample of 188 students (52% female) in grades 9-12 attending a boarding school in the midwest were administered self-report measures of these above constructs as part of a larger battery. Family support, and to some degree stressful life events and emotional distress, correlated significantly with alcohol use. The implications of these findings for Native American adolescents in general, and in a boarding school population specifically, are discussed. The need for longitudinal research to explore further the temporal sequence of depression, stressful life events and social support in relation to alcohol use is addressed.

The High Church Origins of the American Boarding School

Historians of education have deepened our understanding of the development of American boarding schools by challenging he popular view of them as straightforward continuations of New England academies or as imitations of British public schools and by tracing their actual roots back to a distinctive series of institutions that began in the United States in the 1820s, ‘30s, and ’40s. Sociologists have increased our awareness of the social and economic conditions that contributed to the flourishing of these schools as upper-class domains during the Gilded Age.1It remains for the student of religious history to point out the close connection that existed between the prototypical American boarding schools and representatives of the Episcopal High Church tradition, and to attempt to demonstrate that this association was no coincidence but that the schools were themselves concrete expressions of the High Church outlook.

Characteristics of Native American Users of Inhalants

The authors investigated a population of identified users of inhalants at a Native American boarding school and compared and contrasted the users to a control group of nonusers. The subjects included 62 adolescents of Native American descent (mean age of 16.6), classified into one nonuser control group (N = 20) and two user groups: onetime users (N = 21) and repeat users (N = 21). Measures of traditional Native American characteristics, desirable physical and psychological assets, academic achievement, grade point average, adherence to school policy, and self-concept were collected on each subject. A one-way analysis of variance was computed to determine the relationship that existed between the research variables and the membership of each subject in his or her respective groups. Findings are discussed, and similarities of the Native American inhalant users to inhalant users in the general adolescent population are noted.

The Lessons of Sports: Class Socialization in British and American Boarding Schools

There has been no attempt to compare the sociological functions of organized sports in British and American boarding schools, yet for over a century they have been an essential component of the class ideals taught in the best known schools. This paper examines five critical functions of team games: the extension of institutional control, their role as molder of “manly Christian character,’’ the importance of closer involvement of faculties in games as surrogate parents, the emergence of school leaders from the successful athletes, and their preparation of athletes for elite colleges and universities. Team sports in boarding schools in both England and New England were introduced to teach boys to be gentle men, which is what most of their parents hoped they would become. Team sports socialized boys into class and gender roles that corresponded to moral expectations of legitimate behavior. Success in sports became a crucial prerequisite for acceptance at school; the sports also fostered powerful bonds between classmates and inculcated a strong attachment to the school. The competition of team games in school encouraged the love of winning, which in turn encouraged a concern with success and doing well in one’s later endeavors, derivative of the enjoyment of schoolboy success in sports.

Salt: Or the Education of Griffith Adams

A finely significant novel written with deep understanding of the facts and with a spiritual insight that does not flag even for a moment as it throws light into the dark corners of human nature "Boston" "Evening Transcript "(1918). A naturalist novel written in the tradition of Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair, "Salt "has interesting and provocative things to say about the education of American upper-middle-class males and about the power of sex to overcome a man s deep distaste for a woman s personality.As a criticism of life the novel today seems simply the herald of a day when loud voices are less noted because all voices are loud. Today its vivid characterizations are its primary interest. Lester Adams, Griffith s alcoholic half-brother, whose days and nights are mired in an unchanging routine of newspapers and whiskey, manages to preserve a semblance of heart and an odd little spark of integrity. F. Scott Fitzgerald considered Lester, along with George Hurstwood and Tom Buchanan, the three best characters in contemporary American fiction.Griffith s paramour, Clarisse Rumsey, is cheap, lazy, and pretentious; she is dull and almost illiterate; she is absurdly affected, but she has two qualities that enchain her reluctant lover: her obvious passion for him and her skill at dancing. As Auchincloss points out in the Afterword, Today, her dancing would be lovemaking, but before 1914 a girl who tried to be respectable would endeavor to put the latter off at least until she had hooked her man. Griffith and Clarisse are married and Clarisse bears him a son then dies of a pulmonary embolism as Norris manipulates the plot to redeem Griffith and to denounce the American boarding school and university."

Salt: Or the Education of Griffith Adams

A finely significant novel written with deep understanding of the facts and with a spiritual insight that does not flag even for a moment as it throws light into the dark corners of human nature Boston Evening Transcript (1918). A naturalist novel written in the tradition of Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair, Salt interesting and provocative things to say about the education of American upper-middle-class males and about the power of sex to overcome a man s deep distaste for a woman s personality.As a criticism of life the novel today seems simply the herald of a day when loud voices are less noted because all voices are loud. Today its vivid characterizations are its primary interest. Lester Adams, Griffith s alcoholic half-brother, whose days and nights are mired in an unchanging routine of newspapers and whiskey, manages to preserve a semblance of heart and an odd little spark of integrity. F. Scott Fitzgerald considered Lester, along with George Hurstwood and Tom Buchanan, the three best characters in contemporary American fiction.Griffith s paramour, Clarisse Rumsey, is cheap, lazy, and pretentious; she is dull and almost illiterate; she is absurdly affected, but she has two qualities that enchain her reluctant lover: her obvious passion for him and her skill at dancing. As Auchincloss points out in the Afterword, Today, her dancing would be lovemaking, but before 1914 a girl who tried to be respectable would endeavor to put the latter off at least until she had hooked her man. Griffith and Clarisse are married and Clarisse bears him a son then dies of a pulmonary embolism as Norris manipulates the plot to redeem Griffith and to denounce the American boarding school and university.

The Rise of American Boarding Schools and the Development of a National Upper Class

The Rise of American Boarding Schools and the Development of a National Upper Class

The Rise of American Boarding Schools and the Development of a National Upper Class

Very little historical or sociological research has been done on American private schools. I try to rectify that deficiency by examining the origin and early development of the schools at the top of the private school hierarchy—the twelve most exclusive boarding schools. The rise and initial popularity of these schools in the late nineteenth century can be traced to a desire on the part of old established families in the Northeast to create cultural institutions they could use both to define their own cultural identity and to isolate themselves from nouveaux riches industrialists and lower-class immigrants. In the course of their development, however, the sociological function these institutions served came to differ from the one envisioned by their founders and original patrons. Data on the class origins and destinations of a sample of boarding school graduates strongly suggest that these schools came to be places where the children of new wealth were brought together with those of the old families. The result was the integration of both groups into a single cohesive national upper class. The members of this group were able to retain control over America's financial establishment. With their control over the flow of investment capital, they could also exercise a great deal of power over the economy and polity.

American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study

American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study

American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study, by James McLachlan

American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study, <i>by James McLachlan</i>

American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study

American Boarding Schools: A Historical Study

American Boarding Schools, A Historical Study

American Boarding Schools, A Historical Study