Reconceiving sport and youth culture as bridges to academic success in an urban high school

Research on the performance of poor and working class children continues to seek effective approaches to pedagogy and curriculum that will curb continued trends of failure and diminished hopes. One path that may lead to some answers to these questions is a critical examination of cultural spaces that children already invest themselves in. This will require researchers to gain a better understanding of youth culture. Through that understanding we will need to raise questions as to whether there is potential in those elements of youth culture for increasing the schooling performance of the children that find themselves most alienated from our schools. This ethnographic study embarks on an investigation into the potential of youth culture to increase the connectedness of urban high school students to their academic and personal schooling lives. Through critical qualitative investigation, this study examines a year round sports program for its effectiveness as it attempts to overtly use participation in sport to increase the academic performance and social growth of a group of urban high school students. Relying on scholarship which views youth culture as a powerful, but often times underutilized point of intervention for schools (Apple (1990), Darling-Hammond (2000), Giroux (1996), Gramsci (1971), and Ladson-Billings (1997)) this study seeks to understand if four focal students are impacted by the program's intervention, and whether there is an impact that warrants arguments for the increased use of youth culture as an intervention strategy in urban schools.;Using sport participation to peak student interest, the program provides academic support to participants throughout the school year. Placing students in an academic study table, staffed with tutors from a local university and the surrounding community, a connection is made between success in sport and success in school. Through the development of consistent academic and social networks, a culture of athletic excellence is used to produce a culture of academic excellence. The participants' high level of commitment to athletics, is parlayed into a larger group culture of academic and social achievement outside of the cultural activity of sport.;In addition to documenting the overall structure and objectives of the program, this research examines the program's impact on the personal and academic development of four focal students. Triangulating the data collected (participants, parents, and school and program staff) this study unveils the potential of investing in youth culture to raise academic performance, enhance student personal growth and esteem, and ultimately increase access to college.