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Coming Hard: The Primacy of Embodied Stress Responses in High Poverty Schools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2014

Bowen Paulle
Bowen Paulle*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam [B.Paulle@uva.nl]
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Abstract

Informed by nearly six years of teaching experiences in high poverty schools of New York and Amsterdam, this ethnographic comparison examines the following question: Even though they often say they “know better”, why do so many teens from low income neighborhoods behave in aggressively disruptive ways that contribute to the further destruction of their own schools? This article suggests that the long dominant oppositional black culture approach to such questions related to life in distressed urban schools promotes overly mentalist and therefore superficial analyses. A more fully incarnated, collectively impassioned, relational, and processual way of thinking about the gradual socialization and immediate coping processes behind the further devastating of physically violent schools is offered. Interrogating the state and process that students in both settings referred to with terms like “coming hard”, this article brings to life the temporarily seductive yet ultimately maladaptive embodied stress responses of two male students effectively forced to sever visceral connections to themselves. Probing deep into how hardening was both habituated and situated on opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean can help us advance our grip on—and perhaps even our attempts to deal with—the ways in which teenagers’ feelings of empathy and abilities to “think straight” are crowded out during the moments that matter most in and around our worst schools.

Résumé

Six ans d’enseignement dans des collèges pour défavorisés à New-York et à Amsterdam ont conduit à formuler la question : pourquoi tant de préadolescents des quartiers pauvres se livrent-ils avec une telle agressivité à des déprédations qui détruisent leur collège ? L’article suggère que l’approche, longtemps dominante par la culture oppositionnelle a produit des analyses exagérément mentalistes et, en fait, superficielles. En prenant plus en compte les corps en mouvement l’impulsionnel collectif, le relationnel. L’auteur présente une façon fortement différente, de penser la socialisation graduelle et les processus cachés derrière les violences dévastatrices. En faisant parler les élèves sur des expressions utilisées par eux telles que « y aller dur », il fait voir le pouvoir de séduction immédiate et en fin de compte inadaptée des réponses au stress ressenti physiquement de deux gars qui ont in fine payé physiquement un lourd tribut. La similitude des observations des deux côtés de l’Océan donne à espérer une avancée dans la compréhension de la perte sentiments et des aptitudes au raisonnable dans les pires collèges.

Zusammenfassung

Sechs Jahre Erfahrung in New Yorker und Amsterdamer Schulen für Minderbemittelte haben zu folgender Fragestellung geführt: Warum richten derart viele vorpubertäre Schüler in armen Stadtteilen mit einer solchen Aggressivität Sachschäden in ihren Schulen an? Der Beitrag legt nahe, dass die über lange Zeit von einem gegensätzlichen schwarzen Kulturansatz hergeleitete Interpretation hauptsächlich zu übertriebenen mentalistischen und somit oberflächlichen Analysen geführt hat. Der Autor stellt hier eine gänzliche andere Art vor, wie die graduelle Sozialisierung und die den zerstörerischen Gewaltausbrüchen zugrundeliegenden versteckten Prozesse hinterfragt werden müssen. Anhand verschiedener Schüleraussagen zum Begriff, coming hard“ (die Sache hart angehen) verdeutlicht der Autor die direkte Verführungskraft und die unpassende Antwort auf den körperlich empfundenen Stress zweier Schüler, die mit ihrem eigenen Körper dafür bezahlen. Die Ähnlichkeiten beiderseits des Ozeans lassen darauf hoffen, dass ein Fortschritt im Verständnis von Gefühlsverlust und mangelnden klaren Gedankenvorstellungen in verarmten Vierteln möglich ist.

Keywords

StressEmbodimentViolenceHabitusHardnessPovertyUrban schoolsStressViolenceHabitudeMilieux défavorisésÉcoles urbainesStressVerkörperungGewaltHabitusHärteArmutStadtschulen
Type
Modes of Violence
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 83 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2014 

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