Story by Maria Klecko
Illustration by Hallie Thornton, TYL ’12

“Yo, yo, yo!” That’s how Mr. Derek welcomed participants to Bell High School’s weekly Instagram Live session one Monday morning during the 2020–2021 school year—when schools were closed due to COVID-19 and students were learning online.

These sessions, which Mr. Derek led throughout the year to keep students engaged in school, were often informal as faculty, staff and students discussed nonacademic topics like pop culture and extracurriculars—always in an effort to build community. Once they even sparked a spirited debate about breakfast cereal.

“For the record, Honeycombs are straight trash,” declared Mr. Derek, director of student support and family engagement. From there, teachers and students chimed in about this hot take and their thoughts about other cereals. Some pondered which is poured first into the bowl—the cereal or milk—as they teased one another about their responses.

During a time marked by decreased engagement and social unrest due to school closures amid COVID-19, these Instagram Live exchanges offered respite for students and educators and helped maintain a sense of community.

And the encouragement from teachers and administrators never wavered. In the last Instagram Live of one semester, Mr. Derek implored students, “Do not lose your fight. We are all in this together. If you feel like you are going to lose your fight, tap into one of us and let us support you, okay? We got you.”

Students echoed the staff’s positivity. During another virtual meeting, a ninth grader named Faraji reminded the group, “Every day there is a situation; there is a bright side with a solution.”

Monday morning Instagram Live sessions are just one example of Bell’s commitment to affirming students and cultivating nurturing relationships that Maia Cucchiara observed during her ethnographic study of two public high schools in Philadelphia serving low-income students.

In the process, Cucchiara and her team discovered how Bell and the other focal school centered students’ needs and promoted agency, or, as they describe it, the ability and inclination to act independently, make choices and exert control over one’s life. The researchers argue that this focus on agency is what makes the schools such important models.

She argues that cultivating a school culture based on respect and autonomy is crucial for low-income students of color because of the negative messages they often receive in other areas of their lives and the structural barriers they face.

“I’ve always cared about equity and wanting to play a role in increasing opportunities for students,” says Cucchiara, who is the author of Marketing Schools, Marketing Cities: Who Wins and Who Loses When Schools Become Urban Amenities, which examines the problematic relationship between public institutions and private markets. Released in 2013, it won the Pierre Bourdieu Award for the Best Book in Sociology of Education from the American Sociological Association’s Section on the Sociology of Education.

“What I’ve observed is when you treat people with respect and take their ideas seriously, they’ll rise to the occasion,” she adds.

Participation counts

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project involved approximately 700 hours of ethnographic field work in which Cucchiara and co-author Sherelle Ferguson, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine—along with graduate students—visited the schools regularly from fall 2019 through the 2021–2022 school year. During COVID-19, the researchers attended virtual sessions such as schoolwide meetings, Instagram Live sessions and professional development events. Cucchiara chose an ethnographic approach because it allowed her team to become participant-observers as they immersed themselves in the daily life of the schools.

Cucchiara and the team also conducted about 100 interviews with students, teachers, alumni and administrators to understand various stakeholders’ experiences with the schools and how unique aspects of the schools’ missions and design affected students and educators. For current students and alumni, the researchers explored what attracted them to these schools, how they feel about their educational experiences and how they assess the impact of the schools.

Throughout the interviews, Cucchiara found it striking that alumni uniformly highlighted how Bell and Parker built their self-confidence, self-expression and self-knowledge. They also spoke intentionally about their future, projecting competence.

“These schools are trying to give students new dispositions and ways of seeing themselves and being,” says Cucchiara. “Our interviews with alumni show that this is powerful. For example, those who went to college said they felt more willing to talk to their professors because they were taught that they were entitled to build relationships with educators. Additionally, another alum explained that she now teaches others how to advocate for themselves.”

At Bell, the principal shouted out students for their accomplishments during morning announcements. Staff meetings also began with shoutouts to recognize individuals for their quality teaching and emotional support.

And adults regularly checked in with students grappling with issues in life. Instead of chastising struggling or disengaged students, teachers at the school incentivized and encouraged them. Ms. Taylor, a special education teacher, developed a system called May Madness in which students who were on the verge of passing could win prizes for participating in class or completing work, and teachers regularly affirmed students who reached out for support or improved their work habits.

Overall, the school used a restorative justice approach to discipline that focused on repairing harm and rebuilding relationships. The Community Council exemplified this practice. At these meetings, a group of students, supported by a teacher, heard cases of minor transgressions and worked with those involved to find solutions.

Similar to Bell, Parker emphasized building positive relationships with students and helping them learn about themselves. In Parker’s project-based curriculum, students collaborated to solve real problems. They reflected on their progress and had exhibitions multiple times each year to share what they learned. Nearly all Parker students reported that this practice helped them feel more comfortable in their post-high-school lives.

Additionally, at Parker, students spent four hours each day in advisories, working closely with one teacher. These advisories were designed to support project-based work and, importantly, to build community. Students began each morning by participating in a circle, a ritual the school viewed as essential to its relational approach. In circle, the students shared aspects of their lives, successes and challenges. Teachers used this time to check in with students, especially those who were struggling. The advisory structure allowed students to build close relationships with one another and with their advisor, who was each student’s point of contact throughout the year.

The findings at the two Philadelphia high schools as well as at other progressive schools in the U.S. serving low-income students indicate a need to broaden the understanding of educational outcomes beyond existing measures of achievement such as graduation rates and test scores.

The research team’s observations and interviews with students and alumni from Bell and Parker indicate that outcomes such as self-knowledge, skill in navigating systems and institutions, self-efficacy, confidence, and active engagement in vocations and avocations are equally important.

“I want this research to raise questions about what school is for,” says Cucchiara. “We talk about education in terms of outcomes, but we also need to pay more attention to what it’s like for students to be in school.

“Ultimately, schools should impact in a positive way how students see themselves and their possibilities. I want schools to teach students that they matter just as much as anyone else and give them the tools to act on it.”

All names have been changed to protect participant confidentiality.