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2. Respect and Respectability
- Rutgers University Press
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20 Chapter 2 Respect and Respectability Gender is socially constructed. This perspective underscores the production of gender at the local level of interaction, shaped by particular social forces that manifest there. Thus, it was critical to my project to examine the contours of local context, or place, in enactments of masculinity and femininity at Clayton and Woodrow Wilson. The local history, conditions, and construction of knowledge at both schools created challenges for the education of students but in slightly different ways at each school, especially within the peer culture. At Woodrow Wilson, a large urban school, peers emphasized being known and achieving respect. At Clayton, a small rural school, everyone knew everyone else, and peers emphasized family name and respectability in the community. Both Clayton and Woodrow Wilson, however, suffered from broader negative perceptions of their schools and communities. These local place-based dynamics shaped gender at both school sites. Two Communities: Rural and Urban The two schools were different yet very much the same. I chose to study these particular high schools because of roughly similar economic circumstances in their communities but also because of differences in their location. woodrow wilson high school Woodrow Wilson lay on the south side of a large Ohio city in an area that had once been predominately white and middle class. In the neighborhood near the school, small split-level houses, many still sporting 1970s-era color combinations, dotted the streets at regular intervals. This community had the leafy, suburban feel of a neighborhood that no longer flourished but still held Respect and Respectability 21 promise. Farther away from the school, predominately in one area across a busy city street, lay low-rent, government-subsidized apartments. Some had regal names and appeared to be well maintained, while others had darkened red bricks and a boxy, utilitarian design. Even on the coldest of days, groups of people throughout the community could be seen lingering in front of storefronts and apartment courtyards. The area radiated a sense of restlessness. Street intersections around Woodrow Wilson were littered with signs advertising “We buy houses.” These signs indicated that residential mobility in the area was high and that many people either wanted to move or could no longer keep their houses. Indeed, according to local newspaper reports, the community had experienced considerable economic and racial transition over the past fifteen years. As with many interpretations of neighborhoods in such transition, people linked these demographic changes to rising rates of crime (Farley et al. 1994; Quillian and Pager 2001). A 1991 article in the local newspaper reported on the shooting death of a student at Woodrow Wilson, describing residents as shocked by the shooting in this once “quiet neighborhood ” and quoting a local demographer who stated that the neighborhood was undergoing transition from white middle class to African American and lower income. A 2005 article reported on another shooting death of a Woodrow Wilson student, noting that the homicide apparently involved stolen shoes and members of the Bloods street gang. This article mentioned no community surprise or outrage, implying the normalization—at least from the perspective of the mainstream press—of crime and gang activity in this area. Despite rising crime and falling incomes, the area did appear to have more varied economic opportunities than the rural community surrounding Clayton. Table 2.1 provides an economic overview of the Woodrow Wilson attendance zone. These figures are derived from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2000 data and report the average from five census tracts that roughly matched the school’s attendance zone. This match was imperfect, however, and there was fairly wide variation across the tracts. One tract in particular had a considerably lower poverty rate and considerably higher median income and educational attainment than did the others.1 Moreover, the 2000 data were somewhat dated when I did fieldwork (2006–2007), so they should be interpreted with caution. The figures reported in table 2.1 show a community that was lower income but not desperately poor. Educational attainment in the area was limited, with few adult residents holding bachelor’s degrees (17 percent); but the majority had attained at least a high school diploma. The school itself appeared to be more economically disadvantaged than these census figures would indicate. As shown in table 2.2, 75.6 percent of Woodrow Wilson’s students were economically disadvantaged, a figure that is [35.173.215.152] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:27 GMT) 22 learning the hard way based...