Strategies for Improving Self-Efficacy: A Qualitative Analysis of Detroit’s Downtown Boxing Gym

Structural inequalities present throughout U.S. public schools are known to contribute to the significant achievement gaps that persist between lower-income students of color and their more financially secure, White peers. Because of this, community programs have been identified as places where typically underserved students can receive the support required for positive development and academic achievement. The current study used qualitative methods to explore how one community program, Detroit’s Downtown Boxing Gym, fosters self-efficacy in school-aged youth from Detroit Public Schools. Focus group participants reported they are indeed experiencing increases in self-efficacy as a result of the mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, and verbal persuasion they receive at the gym. Specific recommendations for how other programs might foster self-efficacy, including establishing a program climate where students feel cared for, ensuring program staff truly believe students can be successful, identifying opportunities for students to have mastery experiences, and utilizing peer modeling, are discussed.

The Shaping of Policy: Exploring the Context, Contradictions, and Contours of Privilege in Milliken v. Bradley, over 40 Years Later

Background/Context Milliken v. Bradley (1974) (Milliken I) is a pivotal Supreme Court case that halted a metropolitan school desegregation remedy between Detroit and 53 surrounding suburban school districts. In a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, the Milliken ruling was a significant retraction from the landmark Brown v. Board (1954) (Brown I) ruling that 20 years earlier deemed state imposed racially segregated schools unequal and unconstitutional. The effects of the Milliken decision neutralized school desegregation efforts in the United States, especially in the North. We, therefore, revisit the significance of Milliken over 40 years later. Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the context and contradictions in Milliken. In doing so, we review select federal school desegregation cases that informed the judicial and plaintiff's thinking in Milliken, and provide an in-depth description of the city of Detroit and Detroit Public Schools, prior to and during Milliken. We also analyze how the Milliken decision reinforced what we refer to as the “contours of privilege” as well as materialized property rights for white, suburban students and school districts at the expense of African American students in Detroit Public Schools. Research Design and Methods A qualitative content analysis was employed for this study. Our analysis draws on a review of existing literature about Milliken beginning in 1970, policy documents, legal filings, and local newspaper articles on the case. We use critical race theory's whiteness as property to guide this analysis. Conclusion The findings suggest that the Supreme Court protected white, suburban students’ educational rights and interests in Milliken. This was accomplished through the contours of privilege as reproduced in Milliken, which include acknowledging inequity but not disturbing racially inequitable systems, restricting black educational rights and perpetuating white privilege, and exercising the right to maintain dual educational systems. The study concludes with policy implications in light of Milliken.

Parental Choice of Schools and Social Stratification in Education: The Paradox of Detroit

Within the contexts of families and school districts, we investigate the effect of parental choice of schools on social stratification in education. We focus on Detroit, one of the few U.S. cities without a major choice plan (1991). Using multilevel methods to analyze data from 710 household heads in 45 Detroit-area school districts, results showed that minority and disadvantaged respondents, especially from the city, favor choice. We concluded that access to low-quality schools—measured either by respondents' perceptions or resource levels for school districts-motivates positive opinions toward choice. We discuss the potential effects on the Detroit public schools of an interdistrict choice plan, suggesting that choice would further stratify an already highly inequitable distribution of social, economic, and academic resources around education in the Detroit area. We question the individualistic premise undergirding arguments favoring choice.

Physical Fitness of Blind and Visually Impaired Detroit Public School Children

In a preliminary study on the relationship between visual handicap and physical fitness, the Kraus-Weber Minimum Physical Fitness Test for children was administered to 111 normally sighted, partially sighted, and blind students in the Detroit public schools. Whereas 95 percent of the normally sighted children and 84 percent of the partially sighted children passed the test, only 46 percent of the blind students did so. Suggestions for preventing or correcting this secondary disability are offered.