Lived experiences that bring research to life for me and my adolescent students

Khaliq Jolly, PRYDE Scholar

Everything that I’m learning from the PRYDE program reinforces my belief that youth are the future--the ones driving change, stepping outside the box, and challenging social norms. Yet they are rarely given credit for doing so. Working with youth this past summer in the UCLA Youth Research Bootcamp reinvigorated my faith in youth. I saw firsthand how powerful youth can be with guidance as we explored the complexities of social science research and discussed ways to apply it in our own lives. Through the camp, we taught them about research on adolescent sleep and peer relationships, but in many ways, they taught me so much more.

In this research bootcamp, I facilitated discussions about research we were examining. We had a set of lessons to deliver, but what stuck with me most were the moments when youth participants took initiative to launch extended conversations about the world based on those lessons. It was clear that the material was thought provoking and something they could connect to. Not being far removed from high school myself, I shared the same connection that the youth were expressing in our conversations. I was excited to dig deeper into questions that I had myself when I was an adolescent.

One lesson we facilitated that really stuck out to me was the benefits of cross-ethnic friendships. Our campers were from either New York or LA, both diverse cities in their own ways, so youth had a variety of experiences to share with the group. I learned that the diversity in some areas in LA is in fact more homogenous, which leaves less opportunity for cross-ethnic friendships in schools. Researchers at UCLA had found that cross-ethnic relationships are correlated with a wealth of benefits including better mental health, more positive intergroup relations, and better academic achievement. I can relate based on my own experience at a diverse high school because I was exposed to perspectives other than my own through my peers. While there are many benefits, I would also say it is still important to have friends of your own race and ethnicity as there are certain experiences that can only be shared among people that are treated the same by society. While we did not touch on this in the research, I was excited to hear many of the youth bringing similar hypotheses into their own discussions of cross-ethnic and homogeneous friendships.

Another important theme that was brought up in these discussions was the ways in which the public education system facilitates homogeneous school populations. For many of the New York youth, there was awareness of how divided the school system is. Many people spoke of how the specialized high schools are highly selective and do not allow much opportunity for diversity. This has been an ongoing issue in New York City as these specialized high schools act as “feeder schools” into many top colleges, including Cornell University. Any given year you will find hundreds of students from one of the 8 specialized high schools. Yet, the process of getting into these specialized high schools is quite the opposite of the holistic admissions you find in most colleges. The key factor that determines your admission is the score you receive on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), and how it measures up to the rest of the people who took it that year. There are a lot of issues with centering admission to a prestigious high school based solely on testing, but one of the most apparent problems is the severe underrepresentation of Black and Latinx youth in these specialized high schools. Black and Latinx youth make up more than 60% of the public student population, yet they make up less than 10% of the enrollment in the specialized high schools. This has a direct impact on the trajectory and access for these youth to prestigious institutions and opportunities after high school. Tying it back into the research we studied in this bootcamp, the systematic segregation of minority students prevents the organic formation of beneficial cross-ethnic friendships, especially in the specialized high schools where a majority of students are Asian and White, with majority Black and Latinx populations being served by under-funded schools in NYC.

Coming from an underfunded NYC public school myself, I have personal experience with how difficult it is to access prestigious universities without funding or support. My high school graduating class only had 2 people accepted into the ivy league, and I was one of them. Comparing this to the hundreds of students from the specialized high schools that were admitted to ivy league schools that same year, it paints a bleak picture of how much harder it is for black and brown students to access elite educational spaces. Many of these students in the Youth Research Bootcamp were aware of this as well and spoke to the observations I had as an NYC high school student. It is clear that these youth have the ability to think critically of how the school system impacts their lives. I’m curious to see where they will take the questions the bootcamp spurred. The bootcamp was a catalyst for these children to think about problems in their communities that they can work towards solving. If this experience is any indication, the future is in good hands.