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Passing Time : An Exploration of School Engagement among Puerto Rican

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Article  in  The Urban Review · September 2007

DOI: 10.1007/s11256-007-0063-9

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The Urban Review, Vol. 39, No. 3, September 2007 (Ó 2007)
DOI: 10.1007/s11256-007-0063-9
Published online: July 7, 2007

Passing Time: An Exploration of School

Engagement among Puerto Rican Girls
Rosalie Rolón Dow

This article presents data from an ethnographic study focused on the school engagement
of Puerto Rican girls. I explore the school engagement of Puerto Rican girls through the
metaphor of passing. The findings demonstrate that despite variation between individual
girls in academic achievement, all of the girls in the study suffered negative conse-
quences from the limited ways that school engagement was constructed at their school. I
argue that to understand and address the opportunity and achievement gap between
Puerto Rican girls and other students, we must pay close attention to how this group of
students is passing their time at school and to what passes as school engagement.

KEY WORDS: Puerto Rican girls; School Engagement; Urban Education; Passing.

INTRODUCTION

They [the teachers] tell us, you know, if you want to be somebody then you
have to go to school every single day and pass every subject. (Daisy1)

[My goals are] to pass [be]cause if I donÕt pass IÕll be, oh my God, another year
with the same teachers. (Beatriz)

1
Names of students, the school and teachers are pseudonyms.

Address correspondence to Rosalie Rolón Dow, School of Education, University of

Delaware, 213 D Willard Hall, Newark, Delaware 19716.
E-mail: rosa@udel.edu

349

0042-0972/07/0900-0349/0 Ó 2007 Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, LLC

350 THE URBAN REVIEW

[My goals are] to get good grades and pass. (Yanira)

Passing is important. I guess [be]cause you want to hurry up and finish school.
(Reina)

I want to pass the grade because I donÕt want to fail no more. I hate failing.
ItÕs really tough. (Maria2)

As an ethnographer trying to understand the schooling engagement of

Puerto Rican girls, I asked the main participants in my study to describe
their goals for the school year or to discuss what was important at their
middle school. I was intrigued by how often the main participants (nine
Puerto Rican girls) spoke of passing as they responded to my questions
about their schooling experiences. Passing, as explained in the above quotes,
was both a means to achieve certain credentials or goals (move on to the
next grade level, finish school, ‘‘be somebody’’) and a way to avoid par-
ticular outcomes (spending more time with the same teachers, staying in
your grade, and failing). This article emerges from my efforts to understand
the meaning and significance of passing in the educational journeys of
Puerto Rican, middle school girls. What does passing mean in the educa-
tional experiences of the Puerto Rican girls in this study? Why is it signifi-
cant? How can passing serve as a metaphor to help us more fully understand
and enhance the school engagement of Puerto Rican girls?
Puerto Rican, low-income, urban girls, are one of the groups most neg-
atively impacted by the unequal nature of schooling achievement and
opportunity in our country. Puerto Rican girls are less likely to finish high
school, attend post-secondary education, and obtain a college degree than
their White, African-American, or Asian-American counterparts (Bauman
and Graf, 2003; Flores-González, 2002, Ginorio and Huston, 2001). Addi-
tionally, Puerto Rican girls are likely to attend overcrowded, under
resourced schools (Darder, Torres and Gutierrez, 1997; Orfield and Yun,
1999). Despite the troubling statistics about the educational achievement of
Puerto Rican girls and despite their long presence in United States schools
(Nieto, 2000) there is a dearth of research that focuses on their experiences
and that reveals the details of their educational lives. This article, drawn
from a two-year ethnography, enhances our understanding of how daily
interactions and processes within school sites contribute to the significance
of passing in the schooling experiences of Puerto Rican girls.
Several meanings of passing are relevant to the data and analysis pre-
sented in this article. A common meaning of passing present in the school

2
Emphasis added by author on preceding quotes.
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 351

site I studied and in most educational settings is the understanding that

students need to meet prescribed standards and requirements to obtain
certain educational credentials (e.g. particular grade, promotion to next
grade level). This meaning of passing is useful as I explore how an emphasis
on passing a class or passing to the next grade, as compared to learning and
excelling, influenced the experiences of the girls in this study. Another
meaning of passing is the practice of playing a false role or of masquerading
as something one is not. In American history, this use of passing has often
been associated with crossing racial lines to both transgress legal, social, or
economic boundaries imposed on particular racial groups and to secure the
freedoms and privileges associated with a White identity (Ginsberg, 1996;
Piper, 1992). Given that identities are socially constructed, individuals
sometimes choose to pass or they may pass unintentionally, and perhaps
unknowingly, as others ascribe characteristics to them that do not match
their own self-defined identity. Drawing on this meaning of passing, I ex-
plore how students can pass as engaged students depending on particular
classroom practices and on what is valued and rewarded in classrooms. I
also use the metaphor of passing time as I describe classrooms where stu-
dents and teachers are simply spending time doing meaningless activities to
meet particular requirements or as they wait for something else to happen.
Before turning to a further discussion on passing as it relates to the
findings of this study, I outline the theoretical framework I use for analysis
and describe the setting and participants of this ethnographic study. I then
provide snapshots of the classroom experiences of two of the studyÕs main
participants, Yanira and Daisy, to illustrate how understanding passing in
their school experiences provides a window for analyzing some of the chal-
lenges that Puerto Rican girls face as they strive to become educated. I show
that despite variation between the girls in academic achievement, all of the
girls suffered negative consequences from the limited ways that school
engagement was constructed at their school. I argue that to understand and
address the opportunity and achievement gap between Puerto Rican girls
and other students, we must pay close attention to how this group of students
are passing their time at school and to what passes as school engagement.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Gaining a better understanding of how students engage with school is
important because of its connection to academic achievement and because it
may serve as an alternative entry point for enhancing the educational
experiences of minority students (Johnson, Crosnoe, and Elder, 2001).
OgbuÕs (1974, 1987) cultural ecological model has been influential in
explanations of the differential schooling achievement and engagement
352 THE URBAN REVIEW

patterns between minority students and white students. Ogbu makes a sig-
nificant contribution by claiming that to understand the engagement of
students in schools, we must also understand the socio-historical context in
which that engagement takes place. Ogbu distinguishes between voluntary
minorities who have immigrated to the United States of their own free will
and involuntary minorities, such as Puerto Ricans, who have been incor-
porated into the United States through slavery, conquest or colonization.
According to Ogbu, the historical and social experiences of involuntary
minorities lead them to develop a cultural model that views discrimination
as permanent and institutionalized. As a result of this, they are pessimistic of
what they will gain through education within AmericaÕs opportunity
structure. An important component of the cultural ecological model is the
acting White hypothesis. Fordham and Ogbu (1986) and Ogbu (1987)
explain that involuntary minorities tend to equate particular practices and
activities of the school that enhance academic success with ‘‘acting White.’’
Consequently, involuntary minority students are more likely to avoid such
practice and activities and to under-perform in school as compared to white
students. OÕConnor, Horvat, and Lewis (2006) argue that the acting white
hypothesis has powerfully influenced how the educational achievement of
minority students is understood both in the academic literature and in the
imagination of the American public.
Despite OgbuÕs understanding of school engagement and achievement
within a socio-historical context, his conclusions are troubling because they
essentialize the engagement of involuntary minority students without ade-
quately examining school context factors that influence student engagement.
Various scholars have challenged OgbuÕs model, explaining that it is overly
deterministic (Erickson, 1987; Espinoza-Herold, 2003; OÕConnor, 1997),
does not adequately account for the significance of variability in school
performance within ethnic groups and across generations (Flores-González,
2002; Hayes, 1992, OÕConnor, Horvat, and Lewis, 2006), and it downplays
the role of school processes on engagement and achievement (Conchas,
2001; Mehan, et.al., 1996; Trueba, 1988; Valenzuela, 1999). Additionally,
the data Ogbu (1974) and Fordham and Ogbu (1986) utilized to create the
cultural ecological model focused primarily on African-American students
in relation to their White counterparts. Given the increasing presence of
Latino, Asian, and mixed-race students in U.S. schools, it is imperative to
study school engagement in contexts that include these additional ethnic
groups.
Various scholars (Conchas, 2001; Davidson, 1996; Newmann, Wehlage,
& Lamborn, 1992; and Phelan, Davidson, & Yu, 1991) have suggested more
nuanced and multidimensional understandings of school engagement that
consider historical, economic, and political realities as well as the day-to-day
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 353

practices of particular schools and classrooms. In contrast to Ogbu, Con-

chas (2001) argues that studentsÕ critical consciousness of social inequality
does not necessarily lead to negative school dispositions for Latino students.
Through a case study of a high school with various academic programs,
Conchas highlights the ways that school structures and school cultures can
mediate school engagement and success for Latino students. Conchas found
that a school-based program that promoted engagement and success among
Latino students included intentional efforts to create racial and ethnic
integration among students, the implementation of curriculum that was
attentive to the social and historical experiences of the student body,
exposure to the job market through paid internships, and a pedagogy of
collaboration that promoted teamwork among students and teachers.
Newmann, Wehlage, and Lamborn (1992) outline several factors that
affect school engagement. They suggest that to elicit positive school
engagement, educators need to address studentsÕ and teachersÕ sense of
membership or belonging in the school and they must structure academic
work in a way that maximizes the authenticity of schoolwork. By authentic
work they refer to ‘‘tasks that are considered meaningful, valuable, signif-
icant, and worthy of oneÕs effort, in contrast to those considered nonsen-
sical, useless, contrived, trivial, and therefore unworthy of effort’’ (p. 23).
This model makes an important distinction between compliance in com-
pleting school work and investment and interest in learning. Research by
Gamoran and Nystrand (1992) and Newmann (1992) on the role of
instructional discourse and higher order thinking provides concrete
examples of how authentic work is a necessary component in encouraging
students to engage meaningfully with their schoolwork.
I study the experiences of Puerto Rican girls with the understanding that
sociohistorical factors intersect with school contextual factors to influence
the ways that the Puerto Rican girls understand and experience school. The
findings that I analyze in this article focus on the daily school experiences of
Puerto Rican girls. While studentsÕ attitudes towards school and education
develop in a context that is larger than the school itself, my argument is that
certain possibilities for engagement with school and dispositions towards
schooling are heavily influenced by what students actually experience within
classrooms on a daily basis. By looking at the lives of Puerto Rican girls
within the school walls, I explore the limits and possibilities of what it
actually means for these girls to engage in school.

SETTING, PARTICIPANTS AND METHODOLOGY

Data for this article are drawn from a two-year ethnographic study
(1999–2001) that addressed the vexing dilemma of differential and
354 THE URBAN REVIEW

inequitable educational achievement along race/ethnic, class, and gender

lines through a contextual exploration of the schooling engagement of
Puerto Rican, low-income girls. The primary site for this study was James
Middle School (JMS), a public school located in a low-income, racially and
ethnically diverse, urban neighborhood in the Northeastern United States.
The changes produced in this Northeastern city as it transitioned from an
industrial to a service economy had dramatically transformed the neighbor-
hood where JMS was located. Ample employment opportunities for low-
skilled laborers had been replaced by more limited service jobs in the retail
shops or fast-food restaurants found in the neighborhoodÕs commercial strips.
These changes in the political economy of the neighborhood had also led to
rapid changes in the ethnic/racial make up of the neighborhood with Whites
increasingly moving away from the neighborhood and poorer Latinos/as and
African-Americans moving in. The 1100 students that attended the school
reflected the demographics of the neighborhood with almost equal numbers of
students from European-American, African-American, and Latino back-
grounds making up the student body and ninety-two percent of the students
qualifying for free or reduced lunch programs.
It was within this neighborhood and school context that I got to know
the main participants of this study, nine Puerto Rican middle school girls. I
used purposeful convenience sampling to ensure that the participants chosen
for the study varied in their academic and social performance at school.
With the help of teachers, I chose second generation, Puerto Rican, low-
income girls who had attended United States schools for the majority of
their kindergarten through middle school experience. Even though each girl
represented a unique set of background experiences, personality, and set of
behaviors, there were some commonalities amongst their experiences and
characteristics. All of the girls identified as Latina females (most often
choosing the label Puerto Rican). The connections that each girl made with
Puerto Rico varied, but their ethnicity played a central role in the way they
identified themselves.
The girls were also similar in their socioeconomic background. In clas-
sifying families as low income, I considered parentsÕ socioeconomic self-
descriptors obtained during interviews alongside their level of education,
employment, yearly income, and the sources of their income. The jobs the
girlsÕ parents held were concentrated in the service industry, yielding limited
incomes and medical benefits for family members. In addition, several
parents were physically disabled leaving them dependent on government
help as their main source of income. ParentsÕ level of education ranged
from elementary school to college. In the case of most of the parents, their
education level or limited English-speaking skills (or both) precluded
attainment of higher-paying jobs with medical benefits.
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 355

In building relationships with the girls, I emphasized my role as a student

at a local university and I sought to spend time at school in places and
activities that the students frequented. While being a bilingual Puerto Rican
woman seemed to facilitate some connections with the participants and their
parents, there were other factors in building rapport and trust with the girls.
Visiting the girlsÕ homes and speaking with family members seemed
important in demonstrating to the girls that I was interested in what their
life was like and it was also helpful in contextualizing what the girls shared.
Being in the field for the course of two years was also helpful in adding detail
and depth to the data shared by and about the girls.
I spent extensive time as an observer at JMS, documenting each visit
through field notes. Visits varied in length from one-hour long observational
classroom visits to six-hour visits when I shadowed each girl throughout her
school day. I conducted hour-long interviews with the girls during their
seventh grade year and held weekly individual and focus group discussions
during their eighth grade year.3During interviews and focus group conver-
sations I used open-ended questions to encourage interviewees to discuss
issues relating to identity (ethnicity, social class, gender); the family, peer,
and community contexts of the girls; school life; and educational success,
failure, and opportunity. Additionally, I created and utilized fictional sce-
narios about the lives of various middle school students4. After presenting
the scenarios to the girls, questions were used to generate discussion about
social class, success, and opportunity. Interviews and field notes were
transcribed and coded using categories derived from the research questions
and the theoretical framework. Additionally, feedback was obtained from
the participating girls on preliminary findings and analysis during the last
months of fieldwork.
In this article, I highlight the experiences of two girls in the study, Yanira
and Daisy. Differences between these girls in their school performance,
behavior, and in the ways they were perceived by others at JMS were made
obvious in my early visits to JMS. During one of my first visits to one
classroom, while I was still selecting Puerto Rican girls to be part of the
study, Ms. Morgan, a math teacher, recommended that Daisy should be
included in my study because she was a ‘‘perfect’’ student. She described
Daisy by saying, ‘‘Everything she does is always very neat and nice. SheÕs a
very good student.’’ In contrast, the teacher recommended Yanira because

3
I also recorded individual interviews with each of the girlsÕ parents and twenty members of
the JMS staff, 13 of which were with the girlsÕ primary subject teachers (Social Studies, Math,
English, Reading, and Science).
4
Each scenario provided a studentÕs name, race/ethnicity, and gender as well as the parentsÕ
occupation, educational background, and income level.
356 THE URBAN REVIEW

she was performing poorly academically and because the teacher was
displeased with YaniraÕs classroom behavior. I focus on these two girls
because, despite differences in their achievement and classroom behavior,
their experiences reveal themes of passing I observed at their school site.
Thus, I highlight the divergent ways that these two girls experienced and
responded to common classroom experiences, while also pointing to the
commonalities in their engagement with school.

FINDINGS
What passes as engagement? Who gets to pass?

In the beginning of their seventh grade year, Daisy and Yanira were
placed in the same learning community. Students in a learning community
were assigned to groups of 30 to 34 students that stayed together for their
main subject area classes (Math, Science, Language Arts, and Social Stud-
ies) and then were split into different groups for other classes such as
Physical Education, Art, and Technology. While Daisy and Yanira spent a
large portion of their school days in the same classrooms with the same
teachers, their classroom behaviors and interactions with teachers were
often different. For example, in math class Daisy was able to complete
assignments and class activities with little intervention from the teacher
while Yanira struggled to understand daily tasks and assignments. The
following field note describes a typical day in their 7th grade math class,
which was taught by one of the most experienced teachers at JMS.

The lesson for the day follows Ms. MorganÕs usual pattern. She begins with
several review, or warm-up problems (today she is reviewing fractions), intro-
duces new material by demonstrating several problems on the board, and then
leads students in several problems through which they can practice the newly
learned concepts. This structure provides a predictable routine for students. In
turn, her students seem to know what to do as soon as they come into the
room and they settle down fairly quickly, unpack the materials they need for
class and (with some reminders from Ms. Morgan) begin conducting the warm-
up for the day. Ms. Morgan spends a lot of time up at the board, illustrating
problems at a rapid pace. She calls on students for responses, offering quick
explanations and mini-lessons. Students who raise their hands are called on
frequently, which means that perhaps one-third of the class participates on a
regular basis in answering questions.

DaisyÕs ability to keep up with the work in this class was evident in the AÕs
she received on most of her math tests and her overall grade for math class.
Daisy entered this class with the confidence she gained from past successful
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 357

experiences in math (her records showed AÕs and BÕs for math from kin-
dergarten to seventh grade). Her typical behavior in this class was to spend
the entire class period quietly figuring out the problems from the board and
doing the seat work that was required of her. In this way, she appeared to be
engaged in learning because of her willingness and ability to comply with the
academic and behavior requirements and to complete the tasks set before
her. In this classroom, Daisy could easily pass for an engaged student.
However, in describing this class she said: ‘‘IÕm good at math but itÕs boring.
I passed with AÕs on my report card. I have always been an A-student in
math.’’
On the other hand, YaniraÕs experiences in this organized, fast-paced,
teacher directed classroom were marked by frustration and incompetence.
She had struggled with math in previous grades and repeatedly told me that
she was simply not good at math. As I observed, YaniraÕs struggles became
evident early in the lesson:

Ms. Morgan reads the first problem and asks the students to solve it. Yanira
softly comments, ‘‘I donÕt know how to do this.’’ Ms. Morgan continues to
solve the problem on the chalkboard. Yanira watches and after the problem is
solved, she proceeds to copy it in her notebook. Yanira continues this pattern
of waiting until the problem is solved to copy it into her notebook. After sev-
eral problems, Yanira becomes less diligent in copying each problem and she
takes out a mirror and hairbrush and begins combing through her hair while
also attempting to initiate a conversation with a classmate. I go and sit at an
empty desk beside Yanira to try and help. I start guiding her through the next
problem. She begins to respond immediately, trying to understand what she is
to do. However, before we can even read through the entire problem, Ms.
Morgan starts to go over it on the board, calling on students who have already
completed the problem.

YaniraÕs inability to understand and follow the instruction at the teachersÕ

pace was evident in this classroom. Clearly, her lack of understanding of the
subject matter hindered her ability to learn the material and complete the
required work. While she voiced her sense of incompetence by stating that
‘‘I donÕt know how to do this,’’ her cry for help from her back seat went
unheard in this classroom. While Yanira sometimes refused to do her work
or was disruptive in her behavior, these situations seemed to occur most
frequently when Yanira did not understand how to proceed with her work.
Following OgbuÕs model, Yanira could be described as a student with a
negative or oppositional disposition towards schooling who put limited
effort into her school-work and was minimally engaged because she asso-
ciated the schoolÕs demands with the culture and behaviors of dominant
358 THE URBAN REVIEW

cultural groups (Forham and Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1991). In other words,
Yanira would probably not pass as an engaged student. However, I believe
that looking below the surface of YaniraÕs behaviors and listening to what
she said about her schooling experiences suggests a different conclusion.
Contrary to descriptions of Yanira as a student who was unconcerned with
her academic progress, a close look at her behavior during this math class
showed moments where she did voice her need for help as well as glimpses
of her responsiveness and willingness to engage when she was offered
assistance.
There were other instances when YaniraÕs verbal requests for help were
heard by teachers but not necessarily heeded. In asking for help, Yanira
communicated her inability to independently engage with lessons or tasks.
In the following exchange with Ms. Morgan, Yanira expressed her lack of
understanding of a math concept and her need for assistance in order to
engage with the assignment successfully. My field notes read:

The students from section 704 come in quickly. Ms. Morgan has a chart on the
board that she wants the students to copy. Ms. Morgan starts checking home-
work. When she comes to Yanira, Yanira doesnÕt show her anything.

Ms. Morgan says, ‘‘Let me see it.’’ Yanira opens her notebook, where she has
completed her work. Apparently, she did not sufficiently show the steps to her
answer and Ms. Morgan says, ‘‘You didnÕt do any cross canceling on any of
this, I canÕt give you credit.’’ Yanira replies, ‘‘I donÕt know how to do it.’’ And
Ms. Morgan concludes, ‘‘Well, youÕre going to have to learn.’’ As Ms. Morgan
moves to check the work of the next student, Yanira just sits in silence and
closes her notebook.

This interaction illustrated the frustration that Ms. Morgan and other
teachers felt when students were unable to master standards at the appro-
priate pace. Admittedly, the challenge of teaching students with a range of
skills and background knowledge was particularly salient at JMS because
students were not tracked into classes based on academic performance.
While Ms. Morgan always told her students that she was available to help
them with their math work after school, Yanira did not take her up on these
opportunities. This was not surprising given the academic difficulties that
Yanira experienced in school and the resulting negative feelings that she had
towards school. Yanira wanted to pass as an engaged, smart student both in
front of her teacher and her peers. She stated:

I donÕt want her to put me in a little slow class. IÕm not slow. ItÕs just that I
gotta get used to the work. [Be]cause I am kind of smart once I get knowing
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 359

things but sometimes the teacher she be embarrassing people too much... SheÕs
going to put me down. And then thatÕs what makes me not to get into the
work.

By conducting class with the assumption that all students could master the
material at the same pace, Ms. Morgan put responsibility for learning on
YaniraÕs shoulders. What was missing from numerous interactions between
Yanira and her math teacher was the scaffolded instruction that would equip
Yanira with the understanding of math skills and concepts that she needed to
complete the work that the class was engaged in. Already lacking confidence
in her ability to do the work, Yanira tended to respond to interactions where
she felt incompetent with a stony silence and refusal to do further work or
with an aggressive verbal response directed at the teacher. These observa-
tions of Yanira and her teacher in math class demonstrate that moment
to moment interactions between students and teachers are significant in
constructing who gets to pass as engaged or disengaged in learning.
Ironically, Ms. MorganÕs response to students like Yanira could partially
be attributed to her desire to equip students with the grade level math
instruction that they needed for high school. Ms. MorganÕs curriculum and
pace of instruction reflected her attempts at presenting her students with
grade level math work. However, students who were unable to keep up with
the pace faced difficulties in her class. For instance, Ms. Morgan explained
how she viewed students who failed to ‘‘get it:’’

IÕll tell you one thing. It doesnÕt matter how long I spend on something. There
are kids who will get it and there will be the kids that no matter how long I
spend on it, they will not get it. Because they donÕt take the time to pay
enough attention or concentrate and focus on it for a while.

Yanira was one of the kids that often did not ‘‘get it.’’ As Yanira explained,
‘‘I stink at math. I donÕt know why.’’ Ms. Morgan believed that if students
like Yanira would only pay more attention, concentrate more, or come for
tutoring after school they would be able to do the work. The burden of
failure was thus placed on the students as they were expected to figure out a
way to learn the material. In attributing failure to studentsÕ work habits such
as paying attention, concentrating, and focusing on schoolwork, the
schooling and classroom practices that constructed some students as
successful and engaged and others as failures and disengaged were left
unquestioned. Thus, a student like Yanira who did not pass the academic
requirements also did not pass as being engaged in learning because she
supposedly did not exhibit certain behaviors conducive to success like
paying attention or being able to concentrate and focus.
360 THE URBAN REVIEW

While YaniraÕs learning engagement may have appeared to be minimal

when she did not complete work that was required of her, she was, at times,
failing to engage in tasks because she did not understand how to do
something. Additionally, the focus on competence and achievement, as
measured by the ability to complete assignments and to obtain passing
grades, served to limit what could be known about studentsÕ engagement
with the subject matter. For instance, what was Daisy, who willingly com-
pleted the work after minimal instruction, actually learning about the math
concepts being taught? How was her interest in math and development of
higher order thinking skills being nurtured though this type of instruction?
At first glance, Daisy could easily pass as an engaged student in this math
class. Daisy completed all the work set before her. However, what was
unclear in this classroom was whether Daisy actually had to exert any effort
to complete the required work and whether the instruction was nurturing
her love and curiosity for math as well as her analytical thinking skills. This
was of consequence given Ms. MorganÕs description of the approach that
she took to teaching math. She said, ‘‘you have to make everything simple
for the students in order for students to understand it.’’ Thus, students were
presented with formulas to follow but were not exposed to the principles
behind those formulas and the rationale for using particular formulas. In
her attempts to ‘‘keep everything simple,’’ Ms. Morgan chose to use a
teacher-directed, lecture form of instruction. Hands on activities and group
work were seldom used in this classroom. Largely absent from classroom
instruction were activities that would nurture the higher order thinking
recommended by Newmann (1992) as a means of improving student
engagement in learning. Newmann distinguishes between higher order and
lower order thinking in the following way:

Higher order thinking signifies challenge and expanded use of the mind; lower
order thinking signifies routine, mechanistic application, and constraints on the
mind. Challenge or expanded use of mind occurs when a person must interpret,
analyze, or manipulate information, because a question to be answered or a
problem to be solved cannot be resolved through the routine application of
previously learned knowledge. (p. 63)

Additionally, Newmann also suggests that engagement is more likely when

in-depth study is emphasized over superficial coverage of information.
DaisyÕs engagement in math class was constrained by a narrow concep-
tion of what it meant to be a competent math student and by an emphasis
on activities that tended to focus on lower order thinking. While she was
able to complete problems using mathematical equations and formulas, her
potential for developing higher order thinking by exploring more complex
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 361

mathematical content and her ability to apply her math knowledge in a wide
range of circumstances was left unexplored and underdeveloped. Thus,
meaningful learning engagement was limited because of classroom practices
that constructed learning as an individual endeavor that favored lower order
thinking, compliance, and the ability to grasp new concepts at a predeter-
mined pace. That is, as long as students were competent, they could pass as
being engaged without really being interested in or challenged by the subject
being studied.
While engagement in Ms. MorganÕs class was highly dependent on the
ability of students to meet the tasks set before them, students were exposed
to grade-level content material. In other classes, however, the consequences
produced from limited conceptions of teaching and learning were more
drastic and alarming because students could obtain passing grades and pass
as engaged students by simply complying with the minimal intellectual
demands set before them. I illustrate this in the following section as I look at
classroom practices in Yanira and DaisyÕs 7th grade science and geography
class. I show the troubling price that students paid when student engage-
ment was limited by lackadaisical and meaningless classroom practices.

How do students pass time?

The 7th grade Science class was taught by a long-term substitute, Mr.
Smith, who was filling in for a teacher out on sick leave5. Throughout the
school year, the room looked as if school was not in session. Except for a
stack of books on a front table, a few papers and pens on the teacherÕs desk,
and the crookedly arranged rows of student’s desks, the room was bare. The
walls were in need of fresh paint and there were no posters or student work
that hinted at who the students and teachers were or what content they were
learning about in class. Teaching in this classroom seemed to mirror the
unadorned walls of the room. Every time I visited this room, students were
completing seat work exercises from their text books, reviewing these
exercises with the teacher or sitting and socializing with friends. My field
notes provide a glimpse of what this science class was like for Yanira and
Daisy:

5
The difficulties of operating a school without a full, certified teaching staff were often
voiced by administrators and teachers when they discussed teaching and learning at JMS. This
problem was reflective of the School DistrictÕs struggle to employ qualified teachers for all
classrooms. In the academic year 2000– 2001, JMS began the year with 21 teacher vacancies.
These vacancies were the result of experienced teachers who transferred to other schools, retired
or teachers who were out on maternity or sick leave. Classes were thus overcrowded and it was
not unusual for students to have at least one long-term substitute (usually a non-certified,
inexperienced teacher) as the teacher in one of their primary subjects.
362 THE URBAN REVIEW

Today the students are told to turn to page 59 and copy everything under a
heading titled: The Structure and Function of Cells. Mr. Smith explains that
the format for their upcoming test will be ‘‘fill in the blank,’’ and he tells the
students, ‘‘if you memorize each of the statements under textbook section 2.2
you should be able to fill in the blanks.’’ One boy asks if itÕs an open book test
and Mr. Smith replies, ‘‘No, IÕm not giving you those easy tests.’’ Mr. Smith
monitors student progress by walking around the room, asking each student to
show him what they are to copy. Daisy quickly gets to work, neatly copying
the sentences into her notebook. Yanira spends the first part of the period
socializing with other girls around her, although she does have her notebook
open at her desk. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith, who is now sitting at his desk, says,
‘‘IÕm going to make it easy for you. IÕm going to give you the terms for you to
choose from. TheyÕll be written at the top of the page.’’ Mr. Smith proceeds to
give an example, leaving two words out of one of the statements. Another girl
asks him to write the terms that will be selected for each statement on the test.
Mr. Smith says, ‘‘No, thatÕs too easy. Why donÕt you copy all the statements
first and then ask me for the terms so that you can underline them in your
notes.’’ During the last 10 minutes of class, Mr. Smith announces, ‘‘Everyone
sit down and be quiet, IÕm going to tell you the words.’’ Yanira begins writing
the list of terms in her notebook. Daisy is underlining them in the statements
she carefully copied into her notebook. One boy says, ‘‘Mr., you should be let-
ting us guess which terms are going to be on the test.’’ Mr. Smith replies,
‘‘YouÕre going to be guessing enough as it is.’’

This class provided one of the most extreme examples of a pattern that I
observed in several classrooms at JMS. In this classroom, the teacherÕs
practices reflected a belief that for students to succeed in school, they needed
to be presented with rote memorization exercises or completion of simplified
tasks. Students who complied by copying the textbook sentences and terms
that they needed to memorize could easily get an A on the test without
understanding anything about the topic of the test, in this instance, the
function and structure of cells. Newmann, Wehlage, and Lamborn (1992)
distinguish between compliance and meaningful student engagement. They
describe compliance as:

Tasks that students complete in order to succeed in school often involve mean-
ingless rituals, mechanistic reproduction of knowledge, and trivial forms of
learning that offer little opportunity for students to use their minds well or to
develop in-depth understanding and critical, creative mastery. (pp. 12–13)

In this class, one of the messages communicated to students was that passing
time complying with tasks was more important than engaging in the subject
matter by questioning existing knowledge, exploring new information in
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 363

interesting and challenging ways, and expanding what was known about a
topic.
Mr. SmithÕs assessment of his studentsÕ ability to learn and engage
meaningfully with the subject matter was further undermined by his seeming
lack of confidence in the ability of his students to complete rote memori-
zation exercises and do well on the test. For instance, Mr. Smith commu-
nicated this lack of confidence through comments such as, ‘‘IÕm going to
make it easy for you,’’ and ‘‘youÕre going to be guessing enough as it is.’’ In
this classroom, providing challenging work simply translated into giving
students more of the mindless tasks to complete. For example, the teacher
told students that they must copy the whole sentence down because simply
copying the terms would ‘‘be too easy,’’ and replied to a boy who asked
about an open book test by saying that, ‘‘IÕm not giving you one of those
easy tests.’’
The students and teacher in this classroom were minimally engaged in
teaching and learning of the subject matter. Daisy spent the entire period
going through the work as she was supposed to. Yanira waited until the
answers were given out to students at the end of the period to copy them
down. Daisy complied more fully with the behavior expectations in the
classroom (e.g. copying information from textbook, working quietly) but
both Daisy and Yanira were able to meet the academic requirements during
this class period. Was Daisy more engaged in learning than Yanira? Did
Daisy learn more than Yanira? The consequences of the limited engagement
that was available to all students in this classroom were, of course, much
greater for the students than for the teacher. In this class, the students
received the credential (a letter grade) necessary to pass the class and move
on to the next grade level by passing time completing simple activities.
Ironically, Mr. Smith was a good model of what he expected from stu-
dents. It appeared that Mr. Smith was simply passing time in his classroom
by engaging minimally in his teaching, students or subject matter. That is,
Mr. Smith did the minimal amount of work required so that he would be
able to assess students and give them their grade. As Daisy said, ‘‘I do all the
work, but I donÕt know, he doesnÕt teach us. So thatÕs the part I donÕt like
about it.’’ Yanira also stated that ‘‘He just gives us the book and just
basically makes us do the work. So far that IÕve been here, he never teach.’’
The girls were keenly aware that they were not receiving engaging or chal-
lenging instruction from this teacher. The lack of meaningful teaching was
especially problematic with substitute teachers. Students complained when
their routines and schedules were switched because of lack of substitutes,
and articulated the difference between instruction provided by ‘‘real’’
teachers versus substitutes. For instance, after one of my meetings with
Lizzy and Clarissa, two of the other main participants in the study, we
364 THE URBAN REVIEW

headed back to their English class which had been taught by a substitute for
the last two months while the teacher was out on maternity leave. The girls
walked slowly, complaining that they did not want to go back to the class.
They stated:

Clarissa: We donÕt do anything in English or Reading.

Lizzy: We canÕt wait till Ms. DeAngelis comes back. All this teacher does is
give us worksheets. SheÕs not even a real teacher. ItÕs boring. All we do is sit
around and talk.

Students were acutely aware of which classrooms were staffed by ‘‘real’’

teachers and which were staffed by substitutes. Students seemed to desire
engaging pedagogy and understood which substitutes seemed to simply be
passing as teachers by playing a role that they were not certified or prepared
to fill. Although students often said that they enjoyed socializing with
friends in classes taught by substitutes; they also shared concerns about the
effectiveness of substitute teachers to properly prepare them for future
educational endeavors. The girls clearly understood when they were simply
passing time as they waited for more engaging teachers and pedagogy.
While Mr. Smith provided one of the most extreme examples of being
disengaged from teaching and of emphasizing compliance at the expense of
engagement and rigorous work, practices in other classrooms revealed
patterns similar to those in his class. For instance, one day I observed
Yanira and Daisy in their Geography class taught by Ms. Russell. Their task
was to work in cooperative groups to trace a map of Africa and then label
the countries in the map (using the textbook map as their guide). I captured
DaisyÕs and YaniraÕs response to this assignment in my field notes:

The students separate into their cooperative groups. Daisy is working in an

ethnically mixed group that includes 4 girls and 4 boys. As the group gathers,
Daisy quickly opens her book to a map of Africa. Two of the boys in her
group, however, have taken the lead with the project and move to a table
several feet away from the rest of the group to begin the map. Once they do
that, the rest of the group just sits and talks quietly at their circle of desks. Ms.
Russell walks around the room reminding students that all members of the
group should be included in the project task. The students have been placed in
cooperative groups of 6 to 8 students and the simple task has limited potential
for sustaining involvement and participation from all group members. Ms.
Russell turns her attention to students who are disrupting class by continually
getting out of their seats or talking and joking loudly. Although the majority
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 365

of members in DaisyÕs group (including her) are not participating in the group
activity, they are sitting quietly and receive little attention from Ms. Russell.
Yanira chooses to complete the requirements in this class. She even demon-
strates leadership skills as she looks for information in the textbook and tells
others in her group how to draw the map and where to put the names of
countries.

In this class, as in Mr. SmithÕs class, the students were given a simple task
and then graded on their willingness to complete this task. As Ms. Russell
explained to students the requirements for a good grade, her words best
captured the message that compliance with task completion was more
important than intellectual engagement. She said, ‘‘This should be an easy A
for all of you. All you have to do to get an A is trace the map and label the
countries that you are responsible for. This is an easy A, thereÕs no way you
cannot get an A on this unless you sit there and donÕt do anything.’’ Despite
this warning, students who sat and simply passed the class period doing very
little work were not penalized as long as they passed their time complying
with the rules of proper classroom comportment.
When talking about her expectations for students, Ms. Russell denied
that good behavior would position students to pass the class. She said, ‘‘I
think they come in here and if theyÕre nice and theyÕre quiet they expect, Ôwell
I didnÕt bug her, sheÕll just pass me anyway.Õ‘‘ While Ms. Russell expected
students to earn their grades by completing the required work, her expec-
tations centered on studentsÕ willingness to complete simplistic academic
requirements and did not include any discussion of the subject matter and
ways of thinking that students were to develop in her class.
As was evident in the classroom snapshot provided above, even Daisy, a
model student, found a way to meet the requirements while remaining
minimally engaged in the map drawing activity. While there were other
projects throughout the year in which Daisy more fully participated in the
tasks students were asked to complete, this incident illustrated how Daisy
and other students responded to the level of engagement that they were
invited into in the classroom. In doing so, she demonstrated how a suc-
cessful student like herself adjusted her efforts and behaviors based on what
allowed them to both pass the requirements set before them and what al-
lowed them to pass as engaged students. In this case, other members in
DaisyÕs group completed the task and that was enough to earn Daisy a
passing grade. Yanira, on the other hand, exhibited more compliance with
the required tasks and expected behavior in this class than she did in math
or science. Her compliance in the activity showed her willingness to engage
when she was able to complete a task. However, the benefits of engagement
(beyond pleasing the teacher and getting a passing grade) were minimal
366 THE URBAN REVIEW

given the ease with which students completed the activity and the nature of
skills that the activity required of students. In the next section, I provide
another view of a classroom where students where doing more than passing
as engaged students and doing more than passing time in school.

The potential of engaging pedagogy: Beyond passing time

Teachers at JMS varied in their style of interacting with students and the
pedagogies they enacted within the classroom. Some teachers mentioned
their efforts to engage students in activities that encouraged critical thinking
and challenged students to make connections between their lived experiences
and the material they were studying. For example, Ms. Evans, DaisyÕs 8th
grade Social Studies teacher, explained how she attempted to keep students
interested by saying:

Well, in teaching U.S. History, I keep telling them that History is not remote.
This is what I say to them and I relate a lot of things to their lives. Anyway I
can, anything I can think of, I use it. I try to show a relationship between what
is going on today and what happened five hundred years ago.

Ms. EvansÕ effort to engage her students by making learning meaningful and
relevant was also evident in the classroom lessons that she planned for
students. One day in her classroom, I watched as she led a discussion on
United States imports and exports by having students describe the cars that
their relatives drove and discuss where the cars and car parts were manu-
factured. In another instance, she was delighted that she chose to present a
unit on elections during the 2000 presidential election when the electoral
college played such a prominent role. She said,

I call them my little historians now because of the election. I say, ‘‘you lived it,
you should be able to talk about it.’’ I mean, the electoral college and all that
happened. Nobody should be able to say anything to them, about that whole
process, that they would not be able to talk about. And we did a survey and
everything. And it was unbelievable. One of the questions on the survey was,
‘‘Should we use the electoral college process or should the president be elected
by popular vote?’’ DidnÕt it come up again in the [2000 Gore/Bush] election?

Ms. EvansÕ excitement about the learning opportunities that a well-timed

lesson on the U.S. electoral process provided was obvious as she shared her
experiences with me. As she talked about this unit, she emphasized skills
that went beyond completion of rote tasks. For example, she mentioned that
after going through the lesson her students should have been able to discuss
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 367

any aspect of the electoral process. Additionally, she showed how students
were able to make connections between a survey they had completed in class
and the controversy that ensued in the country as a result of the election
results. Daisy showed interest in this unit in conversations she and Beatriz,
another one of the studyÕs main participants, had with me concerning
different aspects of the election they had discussed in class. For example, the
girls asked me whom I was voting for and told me of their parentsÕ pref-
erences. They shared their opinions of the fairness of the electoral process,
and Daisy told me of a speech she wrote and presented in an assembly for
her classmates outlining why she would make a good presidential candidate.
It was unusual for the girls to talk about the content matter of their classes
with me unless I brought it up. Thus, their interest in this topic demon-
strated a different type of engagement with the subject matter than what I
observed in other classes. This engagement was characterized by the ability
of students to make connections between the social studies content that they
were learning and aspects of their own lives or current events.
Ms. Evans and other teachers aiming to engage students intellectually
and rigorously had to work against the overall school culture which
encouraged students to think about school as a place where they simply
passed time as they waited to move on to more important and interesting
experiences and contexts. Emphasizing passing encouraged students to
think of school as a place they tolerated in order to obtain educational
credentials. The emphasis on students passing time as opposed to excelling
and engaging in meaningful learning was pervasive at JMS. Mr. Weiss, a
history teacher, regretfully described the overall attitude at the school:

I kind of wish that we were saying that the most important thing that everybodyÕs
looking for is a superior education. But I think weÕre just trying to get through
the course, get through the year, get through what we have to get through. I wish
that were not the case, but IÕm afraid that it is in at least some cases in this
school. [We] make sure that weÕre accomplishing the majority of what we set out
to accomplish. But not excel. I mean, ideally JMS would be excelling in what we
do... And weÕre certainly not there yet. We have a distance to go.

Mr. WeissÕ description of the ways staff struggled to ‘‘get through the
course, and get through the year,’’ was similar to the way the girls had to get
through many of their classes at JMS. That is, the girls were there to put in
their time so that they could pass to the next grade. It seemed difficult for
students to transition from classrooms where they simply had to comply
with mindless tasks to classrooms where they were expected to build on
what they knew about a subject and where they were to employ analytical
habits of mind. Despite these limitations, however, classrooms like
368 THE URBAN REVIEW

Ms. EvansÕ highlighted the ability and responsiveness of students to engage

in meaningful ways as they respond to particular classroom practices. These
classrooms where students do more than pass time may also serve as a
starting point for challenging the perspective of educators on what is
required for Puerto Rican girls to pass as engaged students.

CLOSING REMARKS
Exploring the multiple meanings of passing in the educational journeys of
Puerto Rican girls is a useful way to understand the boundaries and pos-
sibilities and rewards and penalties that arise out of their schooling expe-
riences. Daisy and YaniraÕs schooling experiences revealed that JMS
classroom practices encouraged a construction of school engagement that
allowed students to pass as engaged students and gain educational creden-
tials by passing time doing class work. In some classrooms, girls who had the
prerequisite academic skills and who were willing to pass time by complying
with work requirements could pass for engaged students. In other class-
rooms, a willingness to pass time completing simplified tasks was all that was
required to pass as an engaged student. This construction of engagement
overlooked the importance of structuring classroom practices in a way that
encouraged students to engage in authentic work (Newmann, Wehlage, &
Lamborn, 1992). Therefore, the development of higher order thinking was
limited and students were seldom engaged in activities that encouraged them
to analytically and critically approach subject matter, ideas, and complex
issues. The lack of interest and intellectual engagement that students (and
some teachers) demonstrated in their classes conveyed a view of schooling as
an imposition that students had to bear and endure to move on to more
important and interesting experiences and contexts.
Daisy and YaniraÕs experiences, while shaped by their unique needs,
personalities, and dispositions, were strongly influenced by school practices.
Davidson (1996) argues that academic engagement is shaped by broad
sociohistorical factors but also by practices and relationships at the school
level. She states:

Literature concerning the relationship between diverse youth and schooling

indicates that academic engagement for children of color is complicated and
dependent on their situations. Engagement appears to depend not only on his-
torical, economic and political realities, but also on day-to-day factors and
practices at the school and classroom levels. (p. 27)

Daisy and YaniraÕs engagement in learning, as well as the engagement of

the seven other girls in the study, was strongly influenced by day-to-day
 PASSING TIME: School Engagement and Puerto Rican Girls 369

classroom practices. Their engagement seemed to vary more between

classrooms rather than between the girls. I was often amazed at the ways
that the girls could transform their behavior in the three minutes that it took
them to move from one class to another. These differences in engagement
between classrooms demonstrate that schooling dispositions and attitudes
towards schooling are extremely malleable in middle school and not nec-
essarily determined by studentsÕ identity or immigrant status, as Ogbu (1987,
1991) has argued. Instead, this analysis suggests that dispositions are heavily
influenced by classroom practices that set boundaries around the type of
learning experiences that students are invited into, the roles that they are
expected to play as students, and the social construction of who passes as an
engaged student.
In studying school engagement it is important to look beneath the surface
of labels such as high and low achievers or successful and failing students.
As Daisy and YaniraÕs experiences revealed, these labels can give false
impressions about who is engaged in learning and how they are engaged in
that learning. Instead, it is critically important for both researchers and
practitioners to closely examine what students are actually doing in class-
rooms, the type of learning that we are inviting them to engage in and how
classroom pedagogy creates limits or possibilities for students with a range
of abilities and background experiences to engage in subject matter.
This analysis also has important implications for those concerned with
the achievement and opportunity gap that exists between White and Puerto
Rican females. Allowing students to pass as engaged students when they are
merely passing time at school without exposure to rigorous work limits the
likelihood that Puerto Rican girls will be able to pass into the upper levels of
educational attainment still dominated by Whites. While a student like
Daisy was able to pass as engaged in a school setting like JMS, she was less
likely to be prepared to pass the requirements needed for further entry into
higher levels of education. For example, few of the Puerto Rican girls at
JMS, including Daisy, were able to meet the necessary requirements needed
to gain access into their school districtÕs top academic high schools. Puerto
Rican girls who pass as engaged students when they are not meaningfully
engaged or who pass time in school doing simplified work may suffer grave
consequences. Disengaging from school because of boredom or being
undereducated through the oversimplification of content and class
requirements may leave girls unprepared or unmotivated to tackle future
educational endeavors in high school and college. The price of passing and
passing time in school thus becomes greater over time. In this way, what
counts as passing in settings where Puerto Rican girls attend school has
important implications in reproducing or resisting educational inequalities
in the lives of Puerto Rican girls.
370 THE URBAN REVIEW

Ginsberg claims that racial passing:

...is about identities: their creation or imposition, their adoption or rejection,

their accompanying rewards or penalties. Passing is also about the boundaries
established between identity categories and about the individual and cultural
anxieties induced by boundary crossing. Finally passing is about specularity:
the visible and the invisible, the seen and the unseen. (Ginsberg, 1992: 2)

Schools serve as sites where particular racial and academic identities, and
their accompanying rewards and penalties, are produced, adopted and
rejected. Differences in school achievement along racial lines have often
been explained by attributing particular identity characteristics to different
ethnic/racial groups and then associating those characteristics with school
success or failure. The metaphor of passing, as utilized in this article, moves
away from deficit and essentialized perspectives of Puerto Rican students by
exposing the ways that the schoolÕs social context and the social construc-
tion of what it means to engage in school influence the school experiences of
Puerto Rican girls. Ginsberg (1992) also reminds us that passing is about
specularity, about what is seen and unseen. To improve the educational
experiences of Puerto Rican girls we must be willing to both examine what is
unseen in their educational experiences and to use that knowledge to
speculate about how we might shape their educational experiences in ways
that will open up more possibilities for transgressing past and current
educational boundaries.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to Sarah Jewett and Erin McNamara Horvat for their
thoughtful feedback on multiple drafts of this article.

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