Tierney, William G. & Colyar, Julia E. (Eds.) (2006). Urban High School Students and the Challenge of Access: Many Routes, Difficult Paths. Reviewed by Casey E. George-Jackson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tierney, William G. & Colyar, Julia E. (Eds.) (2006). Urban High School Students and the Challenge of Access: Many Routes, Difficult Paths. NY, NY: Peter Lang. Pp. vii + 179         ISBN 0-8204-6326-4 Reviewed by Casey E. George-Jackson University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign August 23, 2007 William Tierney and Julia Colyar’s (2006) Urban High School Students and the Challenge of Access follows the lives of five individuals from Los Angeles over the course of one year. On the road to college, they encounter challenges from within their homes, their families, their schools, their classrooms, and their communities, each magnified by a lack of resources. The contextual descriptions and individual stories provided in each chapter are each unique, but also exhibit overlapping themes, which allow for readers a glimpse into the lives of the featured students and to better understand issues of access to higher education. The book successfully demonstrates the multiple avenues students take in their journey towards college, the difficulties they overcome, and the choices they make to achieve their dream of attending college. Due to the small, qualitative design of the study, the findings have limited generalizability, but in addition to providing insight into this important topic, the book will also “provide both policy-makers and practitioners clues about how to improve college access at urban high schools” (p. 82). Overview The introductory chapter, Sí, Se Puede, introduces readers to the structure and purpose of the study. Over the course of one year, researchers followed the lives of five Los Angeles urban high school students. Through observations and interactions with the students, their family members, significant others, and school personnel, the researchers became part of the students’ lives and documented the challenges they encountered and the pathways they took in apply for college. The design of the study is described as a reaction to the dominance of massive quantitative studies on access to higher education that have resulted in a “blur of images void of faces” (p. 2). The book’s main purpose, aside from investigating these challenges and pathways, is to also provide exemplary evidence of the vast inequities facing America’s low-income youth by examining individuals and providing a stage for their stories to be told. The findings are presented in such a way that the reader receives such detailed descriptions and excerpts of dialogues and interactions between researchers and students that they become a witness to the activities and conversations surrounding these students during their year of observation. Chapter 2, Urban Students, Social Ecologies—Part I, begins by providing a contextual description, or what the authors refer to as “social ecologies” of Los Angeles, the communities, and schools the five students live in and attend. By setting the stage of the individual stories, readers gain an understanding of the day-to-day conditions that shape the students’ limited opportunities and their outcomes. These conditions have direct and indirect effects on the students’ educational aspirations, achievements, and realities. The students attend Esperanza High School, which is a highly overcrowded, predominantly Latino high school, serves 5,000 students in multiple tracks offered throughout the year. The few AP courses are mere facades of opportunity for college, given the great inequities within the school and the communities it serves. Esperanza’s head counselor noted that conditions were so poor, “If this were medicine it would be called malpractice” (p. 11). Chapter 3, Mushutuand Juan: A Tale of Two Students, introduces the first two students, both of whom are researched by William Tierney. Mushutu is a 17-year old high school student who emigrated with his parents from Ethiopia. A highly studious, dedicated student, he is self-reliant in terms of applying to and preparing for college, telling the researcher “if you are going to succeed, then you have to make it” (p. 15, emphasis added). He speaks with confidence, knowing what he wants of his college education, and articulates his goal of attending graduate school, even though his world is shaped by a lack of resources and opportunities. His interactions with Tierney revels his acute awareness of world problems and a sincere belief that he can do his part to change them. Colleges actively recruit him, speaking to his many achievements in high school and his ability to overcome the challenges associated with attending Esperanza, including being from a low-income family and the first in his family to receive his education in the U.S. His parents value higher education for their son, and made a number of sacrifices to provide him with the opportunity of receiving an American education. Given that the college-going process requires in the U.S. keen navigation skills and the ability to draw upon multiple resources. Mushutu’s father indicates that he is “mystified by the process” (p. 24). This sentiment emerges as a theme in the book and while the parents of the students who are profiled encourage their children to attend college, they “possess little understanding of what it takes for their children to get admitted to college” (p. 73). In addition to the information-based difficulties of the college-going process, the financial costs of preparing for and attending college also represent significant challenges for Mushutu and other low-income students, particularly considering that “many of the pre-college activities that are necessary [for admission] are impossible for them to afford” (p. 34). Chapter 3 also introduces Juan, a Mexican immigrant who attempts to balance the demands of high school and contributing to his family’s income through his part-time job. Juan aspires to attend college, even though he faces a number of challenges including his family’s low-income status, academic-based struggles, and his own lack of confidence in English as a second language. However, he understands the value of seeking information about college—a driving force in his decision to purchase a computer—and understands that while obtaining a 4-year degree is preferable, the realistic chances of doing so are low. In contrast to Mushutu’s self-confidence and apparent orientation to college, Juan finds the college-going process to be “very confusing” and realizes that his elementary and secondary schooling have failed in preparing him for college entry (p. 29). His parents lack experience in applying and going to college, presenting yet another hurdle to overcome for Juan and other would-be first-generation students. Juan’s undocumented status presents and additional barrier to overcome, including the threat of “La Migra” (Immigration and Naturalization Services) and the inability to qualify for financial aid under state and federal law. However, many states, including California, have adopted laws that grant in-state tuition rates to undocumented students, widening the level of access to this population. Although the cost of college has been reduced, many students remain in limbo without financial aid. In chapter 4, Big Ideas, Small Details: Jenny Acevedo, Julia Colyar profiles a student at San Pasqual High School. The school, which serves diverse neighborhoods including predominately white and upper-income communities, does provide students and their families with college-preparatory information, and staff members assist students with applications, entrance-exam registrations, and other college entrance activities. Jenny’s mother, made a number of sacrifices for the sake of improving her children’s educational attainments, much like Mushutu’s parents. Jenny’s high-aspirations and self-confidence results in submitting 14 applications, including University of California at Berkeley, Stanford, and Brown. Interestingly, her approach to college-admissions is to “apply as if her success as a student depends on the number of acceptance letters” she receives (p. 43), with the acceptance letters serving as “makers of her success and hard work” (p. 59). Although she is self-driven, her family also pressures her to go to college. The combination of this stress, her many extracurricular activities, academic work, and completing her college applications leads to a stomach ulcer and requires hospitalization, causing further stress as she “fell behind [academically] and could not catch up” (p. 56). Through her resiliency, she receives 13 acceptance letters, leading to a San Pasqual staff member to describe Jenny as “a positive role model for other young Latinos who want to pursue higher education” (p. 58). In the process of making a final decision on where to enroll, Jenny must balance the generational and cultural divides that separate her from her parents regarding their expectations and perceptions of college. Torn between her desire to go enter UC Berkeley and her mother’s belief that “Santa Clara is a better school because it is private” (p. 61). In her eventual choice of UC Berkely, Jenny seeks advise from Julia Colyar, highlighting how the research project itself introduced new sources of influence and support to the study’s participants. Urban Students, Social Ecologies begins Part II by returning to Esperanza High School with Paz Olivérez providing a more in-depth description of the school itself, its staff members, and students. These details further highlight the many challenges Esperanza students face and explain Esperanza’s graduation rate of only 48% and college entry rate of only 45%. For instance, Esperanza features a small college office, yet it is staffed by only one full-time college counselor and a part-time assistant who are expected to serve thousands of students. The college office lacks adequate staff, space, and resources to provide students with the level of service they need and deserve, particularly given the inadequacy of their other college preparations originating from their educational experiences. The demographics of the majority of the students points to the lack of resources available to their parents in terms of finding ways in which to improve their children’s chances of going to college, while more “educationally savvy parents…will often find ways to transfer their children to high schools in the more affluent San Fernando Valley or have them attend more specialized magnet high schools within the district” (p.73). Esperanza High School’s dearth of resources and many struggles are evident throughout the school, inside and outside the classroom, creating a cyclical effect on the surrounding low-income communities and vice versa. While the school’s multi-track structure aims to alleviate overcrowding, it presents a unique challenge for students who attend non-traditional tracks, causing some to miss important college-related deadlines. AP courses are only offered during one track, leaving students from other tracks at a disadvantage from taking those courses, as well as simply interacting with and benefiting from peers who aspire towards attend college. A lack of bilingual educators, politics between administrators and teachers, and the government mandates focused on testing performance distract from the school’s ability to provide students with the support and resources they need to succeed in high school and beyond. The students featured in the book are well aware of the struggles their school faces, and the lack of opportunities these conditions present to them, and how their lives are altered by these realities. These school-based challenges, coupled with individual student’s limited support systems, problems encountered outside of school, and the need to financially contribute to their family’s income leads to far too many students to drop out of high school or not prepare for college. However, plans to restructure the school seek to draw upon the strengths that do exist, as well as the success of small communities that have formed within the school in order “to take more opportunities to celebrate student success” and expand access to college information and resources (p. 80). Lily Salazar’s story, as researched and told by Zoë Blumberg Corwin, is featured in Chapter 6. Similar to other students featured in the book, Lily’s parents recognize the importance of education-related activities and Lily’s academic performance, but are unable to help her with the actual process of applying to college, leaving her largely to her own accord. Drawing upon her own experiences, Lily involves herself in her younger sister’s education to ensure she takes college-preparatory classes and maintains good grades, thereby transferring her limited but valuable college-going knowledge into a benefit for her to her younger sibling. The importance of a single teacher is highlighted in Lily’s story, even though a similar occurrence appears in other areas of the book. Mr. Holmby, an AP-level teacher, is able to positively impact Lily’s future, and serves as “a touchstone for her—and many of his other students—in the large school” (p. 88). (Lily is one of many students who must attend school year-round because AP courses are not offered in the track to which they are assigned.) His influence and support assists her in choosing a different path- the path of college- than many of her friends and colleagues take, guiding her to go against the grain. Also of assistance to her is an academic planning guide provided by the school that informs her of graduation and college-preparation requirements. Without this guide, she accurately observes that she would be lost in regards with what courses to take. This points to the lack of academic counseling for the majority of Esperanza’s students and that students are mainly left to their own devices, not only in regards to completing high school requirements, but also in relation to college-specific activities such as applying for FAFSA. Lily is outspoken regarding the lack of support her school offers to its students and their families, and becomes involved in the reform efforts, calling for “programs that aim to empower students and the community” (p. 92). Despite her family’s mere annual income of $14,000, they find ways for Lily to visit college campuses and orientation sessions to help her make a final decision between the schools she was accepted to. This suggests the various ways in which parents who are unfamiliar with the specifics of applying to and attending college can still provide other important avenues of support for their children. Kristan Venegas provides insight into Trinity Borrego’s path towards college in Chapter 7. Trinity, who lives in a Filipino community near Esperanza High School, describes herself as “a woman who strives to succeed despite obstacles in school, socioeconomic disadvantages and living in an educationally apathetic community” (p. 117). Her story begins by being denied to her top college-choice: the University of California at Los Angeles. A strong candidate, and at her brother’s suggestion, she files an appeal requesting her application be reconsidered. Like Lily, Trinity attends school year round in order to be able to attend AP courses and also observes that most students in her school lack accurate and timely information to learn about course requirements that will prepare them to enter and succeed in college. While Lily was able to balance her own college-going aspirations with peers who had different goals, Trinity surrounds herself with a supportive peer group network— likeminded students who also aspire to go to college, are involved in academic clubs such as MESA, and take AP courses. Distinguishing her from other Esperanza students, “her parents are willing-and most importantly able— to help contribute to her education”, giving her a certain advantage in achieving her goal of attending college. Conclusion: Cultural Biographies and Policy-Making, written by William Tierney, describes the researchers’ design of the qualitative study and discusses potential policy implications based on the findings. The authors employ cultural biographies as their main methodological choice, defended by their observation that randomized trials have previously overlooked individual’s stories. Furthermore, in-depth investigations into the many challenges to higher education access are necessary for reforms to be effective. This book effectively reached its goal “to show the complexity of adolescent lives and to embed these lives in the social ecology of the neighborhood to highlight how fraught with peril the path to college really is”, for low-income, minority, and first-generation students (p. 136). Tierney offers readers a list of common themes found across the lives and educational paths of these five students. The first is the importance of social and academic networks, recognizing that students attending low-income serving high schools may need to create their own networks, as compared to more affluent schools which may offer students pre-existing networks to enter into and benefit from. The second commonality found in the study is the importance of peer groups and how schools can nurture these relationships to help students succeed. Thirdly, the role of family members is highly important and can have varying degrees of influence on children’s college-going process, including the amount of information, resources, and support they are able and willing to provide. Not only is what they provide their children important, but so is the timing, particularly given the time-sensitive process of preparing for and applying to college. Finally, the authors observe “college counseling is in disarray” and many teachers do not play a significant role in the college-going process of their students (p. 143). Perhaps the most significant contribution of the book is that by researching the individual’s stories in such detail over the course of the year, the authors effectively demonstrate that the individual alone is not at fault for not attending college, or more specifically, correcting the belief “that what simply needs to change is the individual- that is a students works hard or overcomes a particular character flaw then everything will be all right” (p. 147). The authors’ call for “creating a more systematic framework for peer support and networking” (p. 147), the student’s own aspirations, self-commitment, and persistence, and “the communal commitment that provides the material, economic, social, and cultural support to extraordinary individuals such as Lily, Trinity, Mushutu, Jenny, and Juan” collectively increases the chances of these types of students preparing for and entering college (p. 147-48). The book’s findings can be applied towards creating institutional, state, and federal policies regarding access to higher education for low-income, minority, and first-generation college students found in urban settings, as the ways in which sources of information, support, and resources can be better structured a necessary action in order to increase the probability of these students attending and succeeding in college. Julia Colyar authors the Afterword: The Syntax of Cultural Biography to readers, giving an overview of the technical aspects of the research methodology used within the study. By placing the justification of the chosen methodology at the end of the book, a broader, more general audience will be able to read and benefit from the majority of the book without a lot of technical information, yet researchers and academics will still find value in this chapter by understanding the methods behind the research. The book represents the convergence of individual students and their surroundings, which Colyar refers to as a “bifocal” view of the world (p. 149). Contextualized accounts of individual students’ lives create cultural biographies, whereby “authors explore the contexts surrounding the central figures as a means of further understanding the individuals themselves” (p. 150). The findings presented in the book are part of a larger, two-year study funded by the Department of Education. Participants were selected from a purposeful sample, adhering to a strict inclusion criteria of being a “member of a minority group, first-generation college-goers, enrolled in urban schools, and from low-income families” (p. 161). Researchers met in-person with the students at least once a week for a period of a year, communicated with them by phone and email, and met their families, friends, peers, teachers, and counselors. Excerpts from their correspondence and interactions create the rich information found in each chapter. The role of the researcher and their impact on these students’ lives is evident throughout the book, acknowledged by the authors, and includes becoming a valuable resource to them in terms of finding out information about college, advocating for them at the colleges they aspire to attend, and becoming sources of inspiration and support. For instance, Mushutu’s father asks William Tierney directly for his assistance to aid him in understanding the college-going process, while Julia Colyar edits Jenny’s senior paper. In this way, both researchers and students benefited greatly from the study, in addition to the more significant benefit of the book providing insight into the student’s lives, challenges, and paths they take towards higher education, and the related policy implications based on the study’s findings. Conclusion This book is highly informative in terms of providing insight into the challenges faced by urban high school students, many of whom come from low-income families and communities, and whom are minorities. The book effectively demonstrates the gap between students’ aspirations and realities of going to and being prepared to succeed in college—a major challenge to improving access to higher education in the U.S. Applying the book’s findings to new and existing programs and policies are critical if these types of students are to have the opportunity of pursuing a post-secondary education. The book is recommended to anyone studying conditions of access to higher education, educational inequities, the impact of families, peers, schools, and communities on educational achievements and outcomes, and other higher education-related issues for minorities, low-income, and first-generation college students. Each chapter provides a wealth of information on these topics and can serve as a valuable resource for practitioners, academics, and families. About the Reviewer Casey E. George-Jackson is a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Department of Educational Policy Studies. She is currently researching issues related to the sociology of higher education, access and transitions to college, and is monitoring the outcomes of The Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education. She holds a master’s degree in nonprofit management from Roosevelt University in Chicago, IL.