Producing Success: The Culture of Personal Advancement in an American High School - Softcover

Demerath, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226142418 ISBN 13: 9780226142418

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2009

Synopsis

Middle- and upper-middle-class students continue to outpace those from less privileged backgrounds. Most attempts to redress this inequality focus on the issue of access to financial resources, but as Producing Success makes clear, the problem goes beyond mere economics. In this eye-opening study, Peter Demerath examines a typical suburban American high school to explain how some students get ahead.

Demerath undertook four years of research at a Midwestern high school to examine the mercilessly competitive culture that drives students to advance. Producing Success reveals the many ways the community’s ideology of achievement plays out: students hone their work ethics and employ various strategies to succeed, from negotiating with teachers to cheating; parents relentlessly push their children while manipulating school policies to help them get ahead; and administrators aid high performers in myriad ways, even naming over forty students “valedictorians.” Yet, as Demerath shows, this unswerving commitment to individual advancement takes its toll, leading to student stress and fatigue, incivility and vandalism, and the alienation of the less successful. Insightful and candid, Producing Success is an often troubling account of the educationally and morally questionable results of the American culture of success.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Demerath is associate professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Producing Success

The Culture of Personal Advancement in an American High SchoolBy PETER DEMERATH

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2009 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-14241-8

Contents

Acknowledgments....................................................................................ixIntroduction: Producing Success....................................................................11 The Wilton Way: Middle-Class Culture and Practice................................................272 Parental Support, Intervention, and Policy Manipulation..........................................483 The Role of the School: Institutional Advantaging................................................634 Identities for Control and Success: The Acquisition of Psychological Capital.....................855 Teaching the "Point-Hungry" Student: Hypercredentialing in Practice..............................1036 "Generation Stress" and School Success...........................................................1297 Alienation, Marginalization, and Incivility......................................................1528 Conclusions......................................................................................169Appendix: WBHS 2002 Student Survey.................................................................185Notes..............................................................................................191References.........................................................................................195Index..............................................................................................203

Chapter One

The Wilton Way: Middle-Class Culture and Practice

Locating Wilton

Wilton is a middle- to upper-middle-class "historic" suburb of Columbus, Ohio, that has long been a favored residential spot for the area's professional class. Located less than ten miles from the city center, it has a quaint downtown where the Wilton Inn and various shops and restaurants border the village green. It also has well-maintained parks and libraries, two country clubs, and an expansive public recreation center. At the time of the study, nearly 60 percent of adult residents had a bachelor's degree or higher (the U.S. average was 24.4 percent), and over 60 percent of households reported gross income of $50,000–$199,999. The median home value in 2000 was $163,000 (the U.S. average was $111,800) (U.S. Census Bureau 2000).

Of its population of approximately fifty thousand, nearly half of employed adults in Wilton at the time of the study were in managerial and professional occupations, and over a third were in technical, sales, and administrative support. The largest employers in the area were in the government, education, insurance, banking, and technology sectors, and included the State of Ohio, Ohio State University, JPMorgan Chase, Nationwide, Ohio Health, Limited Brands, Honda of America, and the Batelle Institute.

This chapter describes the community of Wilton as well as the class cultural ideology known locally as the "Wilton Way." It discusses local views regarding the distinctiveness of Wilton, community members' awareness of competition, associated beliefs concerning competition as a natural social process, and expectations for individual success. Then it describes local beliefs regarding the importance of the maintenance of individual self-worth. Finally, it shows how these class cultural beliefs underlay key tenets of the local educational philosophy. This philosophy functioned as a key linkage in Wilton that authorized the extraction of private goods from public schools. Other key linkages that bind together this cultural system oriented toward self-advancement are discussed in subsequent chapters.

Wilton's ethnic makeup has remained relatively constant over the last two decades: over 90 percent white; less than 3 percent Asian American; less than 2 percent African American; approximately 1 percent Latino; and less than 1 percent Native American (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). However, socioeconomic diversity has increased—more low-income people have moved there largely to take advantage of employment and educational opportunities not found in the larger city. Throughout the study, parents, students, and teachers commented on the fact that there were poor people who lived in Wilton; some expressed concern that there had been an increase in rental properties in the community (in 2000, of the 5,845 homes in Wilton, 904 were renter-occupied). During the 1999–2000 school year, 4.7 percent of students in the Wilton district qualified for free and reduced-price lunches (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). Cindi Criswell was evicted with her father from their home during her junior year because he could not pay the bills on time.

Nevertheless, virtually all of the parents interviewed for the study who were not originally from Wilton said they had moved there for a combination of economic and educational reasons. Parents generally mentioned the quality of life and the reputation of the schools. David Sterling's father said, "It was supposed to be great schools and just a great community." A school librarian mentioned that she had moved to Wilton because the district would pay for her master's degree.

Most Wilton parents were well-off, and many were able to provide a variety of enriching opportunities for their children, such as private music lessons, trips to England with the select soccer team, and family vacations to far-flung locations. Students and parents showed various degrees of awareness of the privileged lives led by residents in the community. One white parent said:

Um, we kind of refer to it as pretty much a bubble, because it's not like living in a—city. I mean it's not like living—even in Pittsburgh, or Cleveland, or even Cincinnati where my daughter lives. I mean you—you don't see anyone that is a different ethnic background! [Chuckles.] It's very ... isolated from the real world." (Interview 7/21/03)

Data from the study suggested that this isolation from other kinds of people seemed to foster a naturalized view of privilege and the social order. One white parent said, "To live in Wilton, you have to be doing a certain amount of good stuff." Parents and students oft en expressed meritocratic beliefs, ascribing success or failure more or less entirely to individual talent or effort. This theme is discussed in more detail later in this chapter, as well as in chapter 4. Typically, Wilton students had little interaction with people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. When taken on a field trip to visit a homeless shelter, two white male students commented repeatedly on how "weird" it was, how it "totally sucked," and how one shelter resident had tried to take one of the boy's money (which turned out not to be true).

Other students, however, demonstrated an awareness of their good fortune to live in such an area and undertook activities to help others who were less fortunate. When one of the researchers commended two freshman girls for the amount of money they raised for the school's "Adopt a Child" program, one of the girls, of Southeast Asian descent, said, "I think it's definitely important to help people.... You're still a very lucky person to be living in this area."

Finally, Wilton had a reputation for an outstanding school system. One of the local metropolitan magazines consistently ranked it as one of the top three suburban districts in the area. The average standardized test scores for students in grades three, five, seven, and ten were between the eightieth and eighty-fifth percentiles nationally. The 2002 Wilton District Profile noted:

Results on state proficiency tests generally are among the top 10 percent in the state. Average scores on the ACT and SAT college-entrance exams are well above state and national averages. Results in 2000–01 were the highest in many years. The district met all 27 state standards on this year's District Report Card, placing Wilton in the top 5 percent of Ohio's 612 school districts. Wilton is the largest district in the state to achieve this status and a rating of "Excellent." (Wilton School District 2002a)

The district also had a strong resource base and had expanded over the years. Wilton's original high school was founded as Wilton Academy in 1808—at the time it was the first secondary school in central Ohio. In 1951 this was expanded to Wilton High School, which served the needs of the community for the next forty years. In 1973 the district opened the Douglas Alternative Program for high school students, which offered a greater degree of curricular choice and emphasized experiential education. Due to rapid population growth through the 1980s the community approved funds to build Wilton Burnham High School (referred to hereafter as WBHS, Wilton Burnham, or simply Burnham), which opened in 1991. The school was named for one of the "pioneering businessmen" who originally established the town in 1803. (Wilton High School was renamed Robert Wilton High School after another of the community's original founders).

At the time of the study, there were 11 elementary schools, 5 middle schools and 3 high schools in the Wilton District, staffed by approximately 620 teachers. In December, 1999 the district bought a 60,000-square-foot glass-and-steel office building for $5.4 million to house its central administration (an additional $2.2 million was spent on renovations and moving costs). The architectural firm that completed the renovations on the building donated a $27,000 conference table for the center's new boardroom.

The Wilton School District's accomplishments and resources should be considered in the context of persistent public education funding inequities across the state. The state supreme court had ruled the state school funding system unconstitutional three times since 1991. However, the state legislature had persistently failed to address the issue and the situation remained unchanged up until the time of the study, when the state had some of the largest disparities in per-pupil funding in the United States. The Wilton School District was at the upper end of this spectrum: in 2001–2002 it had a per-pupil expenditure of $8,681. These funding disparities underscore the fact that at the time of the study, education in Wilton was conducted in a state funding environment rife with inequities.

The Wilton Way

The study generated a great deal of data concerning local beliefs, practices, and appropriate dispositions related to individual success. I have come to understand them in the context of a local saying or trope known as the Wilton Way. The Wilton Way consisted of more-or-less shared beliefs concerning the distinctiveness of the community, the importance of individual self-worth, and competitive strategies for individual and community advancement. It also comprised the local achievement ideology (or "status ideology") through which parents and community members "constructed a symbolic boundary" around their school community (Holme 2002, 194). In this sense, the Wilton Way is a local instance of upper middle class or professional class beliefs and practices. Jim Greylock, a white WBHS AP history teacher in his thirties, described the Wilton Way as follows:

So the Wilton Way is the Upper Alexandria Way, is the Townsend Way [other nearby upper-middle-class suburbs], is the upper-middle-class way. It has nothing to do with what is intrinsic to you, but with what is outside of you. Your consumption. Your capacity to consume. How your capacity for consumption determines your worth. (Interview 4/17/00)

When asked what the Wilton Way was, Gary Linwood, the veteran African American WBHS choir director exclaimed, "Oh my gosh! If I knew that, we'd have it in a bottle."

A central contention of the book is that the Wilton Way provided an ideological basis for the class-cultural beliefs, identities, and practices that characterized its residents' everyday lives.

The Distinctiveness of the Community

While a fairly typical suburb in most respects, Wilton lays claim to a "New England heritage" through the fact that it was originally established over two hundred years ago by settlers from the northeastern United States. The distinctiveness that Wilton attributes to itself and its citizens is apparent in many ways, including the glossy publications and events that were produced to mark its bicentennial in 2003. The motto on the bicentennial brochure was "Wilton—1803–2003—Building the Future with Pioneering Spirit." It announced:

The Wilton community is commemorating our Bicentennial through a series of extraordinary Signature Events. The major events showcase Wilton's pioneering spirit and create a legacy for future generations. (Wilton Historical Society 2003)

Held between October 2002 and October 2003, the events included a costume ball, a commissioned play, a lecture series, a recreated historic wagon train, a homecoming for former residents, and a memory project to archive historical resources. According to John Dorst (1989), "elite suburbs" that devote this much energy to maintaining such a historical identity are motivated in part by an awareness of the commoditized value of their promotional efforts.

Wilton's sense of exceptionality was also present in its schools. The Wilton School District motto was, "Where Excellence is a Tradition," and permanent signs affixed near the main entrance of each school building noted that they were in one of the state's "Best Communities." In 1998, WBHS was recognized by the United States Department of Education as a "Blue Ribbon High School," which some faculty referred to as the school's "crown jewel."

Some residents were critical of this aspect of Wilton. A math teacher identified a central component of the Wilton Way as "Wilton coming up with ways to distinguish itself." An alumnus of Wilton High School referred to the Wilton Way as "the kind of plastic facade that Wilton carries around, and the kids at Burnham carry around." When asked on the survey whether they were familiar with the Wilton Way, twice as many eleventh graders (21.5 percent) as ninth graders (9.6 percent) answered affirmatively. This suggests a growing awareness of this trope as students get older. The open-ended responses to the question asking what the Wilton Way meant to students were generally split between earnest and cynical replies?:

Doing things with pride, excellence and doing them well. (ninth-grade European American female)

The Wilton Way is the way people in Wilton live their lives. It has to do with a certain pride and work ethic for doing well. (eleventh-grade European American male)

The "Wilton Way" is a path of excellence in academics, and a little in sports. We're forced to do more work, harder classes, and less vacation. We [Wilton] want our kids to go to really good colleges so it looks good on the community. (eleventh-grade European American male)

I think it means a snobby, stuck-up way of doing things. Doing things to look good / advance in society. (eleventh-grade American Indian male)

The "Wilton Way" unfortunately implies, to me, a stuck-up, preppy, elitist way of doing things. Image is everything and success is expected. (eleventh-grade American Indian female)

Rich boy snob gets what he wants way. (ninth-grade European American male)

They push us harder, make us work longer, and try and make us learn faster to keep us this "Tradition of Excellence." How stuck up can you get? (eleventh-grade European American male)

No, most likely it means something like people in Wilton are stuck up and are a bunch of posers [sic] but hey—I'd agree with that. (ninth-grade European American female)

Local Responses to Translocal Competition: Status Anxiety and Expectations for Success

At the core of the Wilton Way are preoccupations with socioeconomic status and class mobility and associated beliefs concerning the naturalness and ubiquity of competition. These may be seen anthropologically as adaptive responses to extremely competitive environments and uncertain fates. At the time of the study, residents of Wilton shared an uneasiness about the future with other members of what the economist Robert Reich (1994) several years ago labeled the "anxious class."

Researchers have commented on how many middle-class parents are preoccupied with the possibilities of "declining fortunes" for their children (Newman 1993; Lareau 2003). Consequently, as Varenne and McDermott noted in their comparative study of suburban schools (1998), students and parents in Wilton were generally keenly aware of being in competition with others.

For example, when we asked students in an AP U.S. history class, "What drives you—to work so hard?" A sophomore Asian American student responded, "It's harder for our generation to live the same lifestyle as our parents do." Julie Rice's mother spoke of "wanting her to stay with the flow, caught up with the pack, even with all those other kids." The father of Sofia Rhoades, who was a chemist at a local pharmaceutical corporation, had an especially sobering view of the local culture of competition. He said that he had always taught his daughter to "play the challenge game":

I mean, you're always going to be challenged to do better, or outperform ... because before you show your potential, or what you can do, you're always going to be a negative. And so it's never a level playing surface per se—you're always at an incline, you're always walking uphill. (Interview 12/6/00)

In Wilton there were pervasive and pronounced community expectations for success. A special education supervisor at WBHS said, "Here in Wilton, it's like you will go to high school, you will go to college. You will go to a good college. And nobody wants to go to some teeny, tiny college somewhere." David Sterling said in his first interview in ninth grade, "It's just, Wilton, everyone has to do well in Wilton. It's like, you can't fail if you live in Wilton. And that's what you see." A special education teacher said the local expectation was simply, "the best of the best at all times. Every one gives two hundred percent."

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Producing Successby PETER DEMERATH Copyright © 2009 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226142418
• ISBN 13: 9780226142418
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220