"Living in a place shouldn't condemn a person to poor health, weak education, unsafe living conditions or segregation from other races, socio-economic classes, and religions. However, in cities around the world urban youth face countless barriers to successful lives." (Fletcher). One of the biggest issues facing social services today is the urban youth problem. Many people believe that this issue with the urban youth is that they are all thugs, poor, and/ or pregnant teens. The truth is urban youth face these issues is because of the disadvantages they are provided with. The stigma against the urban youth just enhances the problem. The education system is lousy, the health system is inadequate, and the segregation is very high. All these issues are not the fault of this group, these systems are completely out of their grasps.
The education system is not as good in urban areas as opposed to the suburbs or rural areas. "the low social status and perceived lack of clout often ascribed to those who are poor and black or Latino may prevent staff in institutions like schools, government agencies, and hospitals from offering respect or proper treatment… a situation that is rarely, if ever, allowed to occur in affluent suburbs." (Anyon) This issue occurs quite often in urban areas, which likely the cause of other issues in urban areas. Most urban youths tend to be criminalized by everyone in their community. According to Victor Rios from his book Punished, teachers are one of the main ways that urban black and Latino youth are criminalized, and these teachers can also influence parents too. The staff in schools is not the only issue in the education system, it's the education itself. Many of the urban areas have a small budget for education, that could mean that there are fewer teachers, larger classrooms, older books, and so on. Many urban youths are limited in educational opportunities because of the funding the government provides them.
Segregation within the community is a large issue as well. Racial segregation has been outlawed since 1954, but segregation continues to exist anyway (Network). People may see it as socioeconomic segregation, but it looks more like racial segregation. One example of this is
Most inner city schools are not challenging their students and not allowing them to be creative. Yet, challenging students is their normal practice in the better school. On the other hand, all inner city schools should give their students with the same amount of education as private schools in order to better their education. There are different methods of teaching between these schools, especially when it comes to economics and geography. “Scholars in political economy and the sociology of knowledge have recently argued that public schools in complex industrial societies like our own make available different types of educational experience and curriculum knowledge to students in different social classes” (Anyon, 1980). Even though years after Brown versus Board of Education, where the Supreme Court declared segregation to be unconstitutional, Caucasian, African and Hispanic Americans continue to learn in different worlds. As long as each race has low incomes, there will always be unequal education.
Anderson notes that two groups coexist simultaneously in the inner-cities which he labels as the “decent” and the “streets.” Although both groups suffer economic difficulties, they differ in values mainly instilled through parenting and the home environment. The decent group seeks to adopt mainstream middle-class values, such as a love,
The book “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz details the challenges two young boy’s face by being raised in the inner city housing project (Henry Horner Homes). These challenges stem from racism, discrimination, the social construction of reality, social location, social class, and the deviance theory, which is due to their location and influences (social control) at which causes many youths to lead a life of crime. The book focuses on the Conflict and Symbolic Interaction theories of sociology. What is the true cause of their struggle? Is it the run down smelly housing project completely taken over by gangs, where murders and shootings are an everyday thing, is their family, school, society, the system, race; or maybe it's because of the economical disadvantages. While others may argue, I believe that it isn't just one of these reasons; it's all of them all together.
Homelessness is a major problem in the United States. An incredibly vulnerable group is the homeless youth due to their young age and lack of education. According to Edidin, Ganim, Hunter, & Karnik (2012) on any particular night in the United States there are ~2 million homeless youth living on the streets, in shelters, or in other temporary accommodation. Youth become homeless for multiple reasons whether it be because they have aged out of foster care, ran from home, were kicked out of their home, or because they have become homeless along with their family members. Within the umbrella categorization of homeless youth there are high at risk subgroups, common misconceptions, and a serious concern of lack of support and medical services.
Social issues are dealt with every day, everywhere in our society. Issues like immigration all the way to climate change. As our world evolves the number of social issues only continue to accumulate. Racial disparity is something that is in every aspect of our society. A repetitive social issue is minorities being targeted in the criminal justice system. Minorities, in specific African Americans receive unequal treatment and punishment in the criminal justice system this causes a split in our society, racist outburst, and million of unjustified incarcerations affecting the environment millennials grow in, and the economy as money is being spent where there should be no need for it.
Adolescent Black males throughout the years have been subject and victim to numerous economic, socioeconomic, and environmental disadvantages. In many inner-city neighborhoods, these disadvantages have led to an increase in violence among these adolescent African American males, especially in the educational system. Violence among African American males in schools is something that increases tremendously each year; a 2010 study in Education Week showed that over 70% of the students involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were African American students. This can be explained
Youth that reside in communities that are deprived socially and economically, have ongoing violence, drugs,
A major issue that is a result of racial tensions in my district is the fact that there are two high schools in the district that have a majority of Caucasian students and a majority of African American students. This has led to the students in those schools not often being exposed to many students of a different race. Therefore these students respond poorly to diversity, and it has led to the minority students in both of those school feeling belittled and overlooked. Similarly, these students feel adverse to diversity, and this has resulted in most of them feeling dislike for students that are different than them.
One issue that we discussed in class that is important and interesting is housing segregation. Housing segregation has been an ongoing issue in the past and still continues to this day since certain races are looked down upon at when buying a house in certain areas. America is always known as a racialized society and being any other race besides white has not carried out any advantages. We watched a documentary, In Race: The Power of an Illusion Part 3, in class that points out that less than two percent of housing in certain areas went to non-white in the past. This percent has obviously increased over time, but it is still not stabilized around fifty percent or higher, which it should be at. The documentary claims “what we perceive as race is what we first notice about each other”, which is false since physical differences don’t make up
In every city there are neighborhoods that struggle with the issue of violence, crime and aggression. These neighborhoods have also taken on the names of slums and ghettos. The same areas where children are faced with growing up too fast because of the violence, crime and drug trafficking that has taken over these communities. Not only do these children and young adult face with these issues, they are also faced with the reality that in these disorganized neighborhoods, there is a breakdown of the traditional family therefore they must learn and master the code of conduct and or the rules of the streets in order to survive. Not to mention learning the demands of socially regarding displaying appropriate behavior when they are outside of the disorganized community.
The book: “Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys” was written by the author Victor M. Rios who was also a gang member in Oakland, California. He selected a total of 40 young men for this investigation, 30 of them had been previously arrested in the state of California. This book has two main sections. Over the first section we find Chapter 1 which sets the different methods and some of the experiences the author lived when he was working on this project. This chapter also deals with the punitive system developed in the city of Oakland, CA. If we turn pages to chapter number 2 we will find a brief description of Oakland along with its high level of poverty and reduced opportunities. Victor emphasizes that Latinos and Blacks have had a strong trajectory in criminal acts and punitive social control.
While all these possibilities from providing increased educational funding to inner city schools seem to provide a solution to the educational difficulties, the underclass is a multifaceted problem with several contributing factors. For example, the issue of students dropping out of school is not only affected by simply the quality of their education and resources. The appealing allure of drug dealing and belonging to a gang, both behaviors that involve criminal actions that could lead to incarceration, severely entice students from finishing their education. Furthermore, many children lack familial support to complete school. Their families tend to consist of numerous high school dropouts, and, therefore, lack the knowledge that comes from past experience leaving the student at a severe disadvantage. Plus, some family members will even remove the students out of school themselves, because they view the school as a waste of time. Even more detrimental to the underclass are the longstanding problems of unplanned pregnancies, single parent families, racial discrimination, and welfare dependency. With all these contributing obstacles that build upon one another in mind, it may seem pointless to fix the educational issues, so why should society and the government still pursue this option?
Throughout the United States, there are a large number of individuals that goes unnoticed. Hidden in right plain sight, but are overlooked. They can be our friends, family, classmates, or the person standing right next you to at this moment. There are young individuals who are facing the tremendous challenge of being homeless. They are overlooked by many in society. However, there have been countless individuals, groups, organizations dedicated to ending youth homelessness. However, they are confronted with challenges due to the lack of interest. The lack of interest found within society can contribute to barriers to ending youth homelessness.
The federal government played a role in establishing and maintaining residential segregation in metropolitan areas. For example, Rothstein states that after the New Deal and World War II, federally funded public housing was explicitly and racially segregated (5). The projects were designated for either whites or blacks, later becoming increasingly black. Neighborhoods that were historically segregated still continue today with the very same characteristics – racially and economically homogeneity. Children who grow up in and attend schools in these neighborhoods encounter what Sherman refers to as “youth disconnection”. In essence, youth disconnection is the lack of exposure to important influences that help with human development. Sherman takes into account statistics about disconnected youth which include being twice as likely to live in poverty, three times as likely to leave high school without a diploma, half as likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree, and etc (“How Disadvantages Caused by Residential Segregation End Up Costing Billions”). How can students thrive in environments that are historically segregated and disadvantaged? Access to a better education along with other influences beneficial to development should to be decided based upon the location in which a student
Do you think social issues still occur in your world today? Just by walking through the neighborhood, issues are able to be seen. Some examples would be family issues, gender inequalities, and economic disparity. While seeing social injustice through three different books, access to housing was very intriguing. Living conditions can vary based on your race. After realizing this, a question came to mind: is my local area segregated like the rest of the world?