9400865 Sorensen This is an award under the Grants for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research program. It is a study of the conflict between school values and street values experienced by young black inner-city males. A combination of intensive interviews and participant observation will be carried out among young black males in Cambridge, MA, with the student researcher assisted by research assistants drawn from high school students in the community being studied. These qualitative methods will be used to assess the nature and extent of the conflict between values necessary for survival in inner-city streets and values needed to succeed in school. Much previous research on the academic achievement problems of inner city and minority youths has utilized quantitative data. Such data do not help us understand the values that get attached to schooling in the minds of such youths and how those values are formed. By focusing directly on the conflicting values experienced by young black males in one large city, this project will help us understand the cultural barriers to academic achievement by such youths and may help yield clues about how such barriers can be overcome. In addition to the scientific gains to be achieved by the research, this award will materially assist a highly promising student in completing research for the Ph. D. dissertation. Thus it contributes to the future scientific manpower of the nation and the thorough training of the next generation of social scientists. ***
