5.5.1 Developing interventions related to individual students' negotiations of home, peer, and school cultures.

If you think that individual students' negotiations of home, peer and school cultures might be contributing to the puzzling situation, Phelan, Davidson, and Yu (1998) provided some suggestions for educators. Their emphasis on borders shifts attention from individual and family circumstances to contextual factors in schools that influence how students connect with school. They identified several ways schools could maximize student engagement in school by reducing borders.

Reducing borders between students and educators is one strategy. Students reported that borders between students and educators can be reduced if educators know and care about students as individuals, if teachers engage students in active learning and value their opinions, and if teachers are committed to helping students learn (Phelan, Davidson, & Cao, 1992; Phelan, Davidson, & Yu; 1998).

Borders among students may also need to be reduced. Phelan, Davidson and Yu (1998) found that where boundaries were fluid and students could easily move across them, tension among students was low and students interacted freely with one another in school. Where borders were rigid between groups, students often developed negative stereotypes of one another, and students were not inclined to work together in school or to support untracking efforts. Tolerance.org provides extensive resources for "fighting hate and creating tolerance."

Reducing borders between home and school is the third approach. Phelan, Davidson and Yu (1998) identified three features of successful home-school collaboration: "parents are viewed as valuable contributors and important resources in their children's education" (p. 206); "an explicit effort is made to involve parents as collaborators and decision makers in their children's education" (p. 207); and "educators and parents together focus their efforts on developing new, nontraditional methods of family/school collaboration" (p. 207).

Another form of intervention might focus on helping students understand their "multiple worlds" better. Phelan and Davidson (1994) discussed how asking a group of high school students in seven one-hour sessions to examine data from the Students' Multiple Worlds Study and to comment on the resulting model resulted in "cultural therapy" (Spindler & Spindler, 1994b) for the students. Their work indicated that discussions of case studies related to students' multiple worlds with groups of students can be an effective means of helping them develop a better understanding their own multiple worlds.

If you haven't read the CIP pages for Step 5 or Step 5.5, please do so because they provide information about developing inverventions for your CIP study.

Success Stories & CIP studies Related to Individual Students' Cultural Negotiations

Reconsider  question: 3.5.1 
Gather more information on this question: 4.5.1 
Step 6-Monitor Intervention(s) 
Guide for Reading Step 4 and Step 5 Pages