Cross Case Features: Context

Evans High School: Community Context

Evans is a working class community where unemployment has been rising in recent years. The social studies chair at Evans High School estimates that “more than 50 percent of our students’ parents have never gone to college. A large percentage of them never completed high school, particularly among the immigrant population.” The population is ethnically diverse, including a growing Vietnamese community. But the social studies chair says that the community does not demonstrate an interest in other cultures: “Trying to convince them that they ought to know about cultures that are so far away is not an easy thing to do. It is one of those things that has to trickle down.”