{"id":25254,"date":"2022-04-27T16:28:33","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T23:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=25254"},"modified":"2024-02-01T15:06:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T23:06:36","slug":"how-todays-high-school-students-face-high-pressure-in-a-grind-culture","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/how-todays-high-school-students-face-high-pressure-in-a-grind-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"How Today\u2019s High School Students Face High Pressure in a Grind Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Gail Cornwall<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\n

Christina Zhang, 16, averages a couple hours of free time a day, but it\u2019s hard to watch Netflix. \u201cThe whole time you\u2019re thinking about, \u2018Oh, what if other people are working right now, and they are getting ahead?\u2019\u201d she says. After taking eight AP classes as a sophomore and completing a college-like application process, Zhang started her third year of high school at North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, a residential public school for \u201ctalented\u201d juniors and seniors. When she calls her grandparents, she worries that she should be studying instead. Not wanting to squander good brain hours on the task, she does her laundry after midnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zhang, whose mother asked that she use a pseudonym for safety and privacy purposes, is part of a new generation of high-achievers. <\/span><\/p>\n

Six others were profiled by filmmaker Debbie Lum in the documentary <\/span>Try Harder!<\/span><\/i><\/a> Shealand \u201cShea\u201d Fairchild told Lum\u2019s camera crew, without a trace of doubt or irony: \u201cThe kids who are going to higher-level colleges are \u2026 the big players of the world. If I don\u2019t go to one of those big colleges, I will not be able to do what I want to do.\u201d <\/span>In another scene, a teacher asks what multiple rejection letters would mean to a group of seniors.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody hates you,\u201d answers Alvan Cai.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about potentials of your future?\u201d she asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have none,\u201d he answers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Alvan

Alvan Cai (right) and physics group at Lowell High<\/p><\/div>\n

The documentary is set at Lowell High School in San Francisco pre-pandemic, but the high-pressure phenomenon is a national and continuing one. Adolescents today<\/span> perceive<\/span><\/a> parents to be more expectant about academic achievement than past generations. They\u2019re shouldering a more rigorous course load, according to<\/span> transcript studies<\/span><\/a> from the National Center for Education Statistics. And they\u2019re in trouble.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rate of<\/span> death by suicide<\/span><\/a> for ages 10 to 24 increased nearly 60 percent between 2007 and 2018,<\/span> according to the CDC<\/span><\/a>, and other manifestations of psychological distress abound. A<\/span> 2018 report<\/span><\/a> from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation listed \u201cexcessive pressure to excel\u201d alongside poverty, trauma, and discrimination as barriers to adolescent wellness. And, as we\u2019ll see, kids of color can be uniquely impacted.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there are solutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The psychological costs of high-achieving schools<\/b><\/p>\n

Economic inequality and insecurity are growing, <\/span>and, along with them<\/span><\/a>, parental concerns about their children\u2019s futures. It\u2019s often not even about getting ahead. Middle-class parents who see their kids swimming against a financial current think they must sprint like Michael Phelps in the butterfly race<\/span> just to stay<\/span><\/a> in the middle class. Families also <\/span>read about<\/span><\/a> college acceptance rates trending lower. The average at the nation\u2019s top 51 schools <\/span>was<\/span><\/a> 35.9 percent in 2006 but by 2018 it was 22.6 percent. For top-10 schools, that stat<\/span> went down from<\/span><\/a> 16 percent to 6.4 percent. Like Lowell student Shea Fairchild, whole communities come to believe that only a degree from Harvard or Stanford guarantees access to success\u2014and you have to be the best of the best to get in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, scores and grades are viewable online in real-time. Sometimes a teen\u2019s parents, or even their parents\u2019 friends, know their test results before they do. Peers\u2019 stories on Instagram feature the scouts who\u2019ve come to check them out, the nonprofits they\u2019ve started, and how they think they fared on the SAT.<\/span><\/p>\n

Children respond to<\/span> perfectionistic<\/span><\/a> expectations<\/span><\/a> and competition in a variety of ways. Many internalize sky-high goals and subscribe to \u201c<\/span>grind culture<\/b>,\u201d the youth version of \u201chustle culture.\u201d Like Zhang, they feel guilty unless every moment is productive. Beyond developing their<\/span> own perfectionism<\/span><\/a> (which isn\u2019t a good thing for academic performance according to a 2020<\/span> meta-analysis<\/span><\/a> and<\/span> paper<\/span><\/a>), these kids end up living for the future rather than the present and compulsively comparing themselves to others.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ian

Ian from Try Harder!<\/em> holds breath before opening college letter<\/p><\/div>\n

Then they suffer all the detritus of those psychological phenomena: anxiety, depression, inefficiency, lack of intrinsic motivation, contingent self-worth, burnout,<\/span> academic entitlement<\/span><\/a>, somatic symptoms like stomach aches,<\/span> sleep loss<\/span><\/a>, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a professor at Yale over two decades ago, Suniya Luthar first attributed the \u201cdisturbingly higher\u201d rates of<\/span> substance use<\/span><\/a>, anxiety, and depression she found in certain communities to affluence, but additional research later showed \u201cthat it is not so much about family wealth as it is living in a subculture of competitiveness,\u201d she says. These \u201chotbed school environments\u201d are now known in academic studies as \u201c<\/span>high-achieving schools<\/b>\u201d or \u201c<\/span>HAS<\/b>\u2019s.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She says, \u201cThe kids are looking over their shoulder at each other and saying, \u2018Who\u2019s going to overtake me?\u2019 which is a heck of a way to do adolescence.\u201d In<\/span> a study<\/span><\/a> of 1,608 students, published in 2020, her team confirmed that negative social comparisons are tied to bad outcomes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling is that there\u2019s not enough room at the table for all of us,\u201d Luthar says.<\/span><\/p>\n\"Sign<\/a>\n

That description sounds familiar to Zhang. In seventh grade, she wasn\u2019t particularly driven. But she looked around her \u201cvery competitive\u201d magnet middle school and saw others involved in lots of extracurricular activities. \u201cThere was a sort of a shift for me,\u201d she says, \u201cin terms of not wanting to fall behind your friends. So I took pre-calculus the summer before ninth grade.\u201d As a freshman at a magnet high school, Zhang felt \u201ca pressure, a culture, to keep taking AP classes even if they are not necessarily the classes you are interested in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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READ MORE >><\/strong><\/h5>\n

A Wild Two Years Since \u2018Try Harder\u2019: What You Need to Know About Lowell High School<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Not only do enjoyment and fulfillment not drive how she and her HAS classmates spend their time, but they don\u2019t even have room to figure out what they like. \u201cIf we aren\u2019t good at it almost immediately, we don\u2019t allow ourselves to spend time on it,\u201d she says. Other than reading, she doesn\u2019t have hobbies that don\u2019t have competitions attached. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me and a lot of my friends to even think about spending a lot of time on something that doesn\u2019t have to do with college.\u201d In other words, their motivation is not about self-determination, which is the kind associated with happiness and well-being.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rachael

From Try Harder!<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

That\u2019s likely one reason the National Academy of Sciences<\/span> labeled<\/span><\/a> children in HAS\u2019s an \u201cat-risk population\u201d in 2019, saying that studies not just in the U.S. but also in places like Norway have found rates of clinically significant problems much higher than national norms.<\/span> Research<\/span><\/a> on German students ties high-achieving schools to negative self-concept and emotions. Not all struggle, but a disproportionate number pay a nontrivial psychological price.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou are left with a sort of mindset,\u201d Zhang says, \u201cYou attach a lot of your self-worth to your achievements.\u201d Kids judge and feel judged. Growing up in that atmosphere, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say is particularly healthy,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

For some, fear of failing can lead to paralysis which makes it hard to get started on projects. In <\/span>The Disintegrating Student<\/span><\/i>, Jeannine Jannot writes about high-performing kids who give up when they begin to struggle. They\u2019d rather be considered lazy or defiant than dumb.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zhang experiences fear of failure differently. When she doesn\u2019t win a competition, \u201cThe idea that if you just worked a little bit harder you could have gotten it, is amplified a ton,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes I will go back and hyper-analyze\u2026. I really beat myself up over mistakes, like, \u2018If I didn\u2019t win this, then I\u2019m worthless.\u2019\u201d When she does win, \u201cIt\u2019s not a ton of joy.\u201d Mostly, she\u2019s just afraid of what it will mean if she doesn\u2019t win the next one. That contingent, all-or-nothing sense of self-worth is fragile and has been<\/span> proven time and again<\/span><\/a> to be a recipe for anxiety, a <\/span>fixed mindset<\/span><\/a>, and other ill effects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zhang\u2019s older brother\u2019s class at the magnet high school wasn\u2019t quite as competitive, and she says her parents didn\u2019t push him much. But when her cohort took pre-calc that summer, her mom wanted to help. Zhang ended up ranked first in her class. She doesn\u2019t think of her parents as a source of pressure, but says, \u201cMy mother did want me to take as many AP classes as possible \u2026 and maintain that rank.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure<\/span><\/i>, Christopher Thurber and Hendrie Weisinger write, \u201cLoving, well-intentioned parents from all over the world are applying unhealthy pressure.\u201d And that is tied to an additional explanation Luthar and her colleagues give for poor mental health in HAS settings: a key protective factor\u2014strong relationships\u2014can be undermined.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"African

[Picture courtesy of Monstera on Pexels]<\/p><\/div>In<\/span> a 2018 study<\/span><\/a> of sixth-graders at an affluent middle school, researchers asked students to rank a list of parental goals the same way their parents would. Then they compared the kids\u2019 perceptions with their grades, classroom behavior, self-esteem, and whether they displayed symptoms of anxiety and depression. The researchers found \u201ca consistent pattern\u201d of poorer child functioning when children thought their parents prioritized achievement over kindness, possibly because these kids also perceived higher levels of <\/span>parental criticism<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to friendships, Zhang has them. But she says, \u201cThere\u2019s definitely feelings of not being truly proud of your friends for winning something if you wanted that as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Competition, Luthar says, can constrain trust and decrease friendship quality. Robust peer friendships allow adolescents to safely individuate from their parents, but in these settings, peers can feel pitted against each other. This potential supportive factor isn\u2019t just neutralized, it becomes a source of distress in its own right, Luthar says.<\/span><\/p>\n

How people of color are uniquely harmed<\/b><\/p>\n

Black adolescents face multiple stressors, including discrimination and \u201cstereotype threat,\u201d the pressure that comes with knowing that slipping up, even just a little, can confirm the stereotype that students who look like you are inferior. Though not all HAS settings are affluent, this additional stress helps explain why research has found that African American boys<\/span> suffer<\/span><\/a> from significantly higher rates of depression and substance use in wealthy communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kortni Foreman is a junior at Townview Science and Engineering Magnet, a Dallas public school. In her program, \u201cthere\u2019s regular and then fast and then super-fast\u201d math tracks. Recently she realized she\u2019s not just the only Black girl but the only Black person in \u201csuper-fast\u201d in her grade. \u201cIt made me feel like I had an extra purpose to work harder,\u201d she says. She typically gets A\u2019s. \u201cWhen I got an 81, I wouldn\u2019t think, \u2018Oh, this is a bad reflection on the Black community,\u2019 but throughout the classes, it\u2019s more a lingering thought of, \u2018Well, you better try and do good.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One year ahead of Foreman at Townview, but in the School of Business, Iris Rivas identifies as Latinx or Hispanic, like most of the student body. She says she started getting to school an hour early \u201cto finish tweaking whatever I had to do the night before,\u201d because, \u201c<\/span>I knew that school would be my way to make my family proud<\/span>.\u201d Stereotype threat impacts her on a daily basis, she says. \u201cWe have to work twice as hard to pursue our goals\u201d because of the stereotypes that cause Latinx students to be \u201cunderestimated\u201d in Texas.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Iris

Iris Rivas<\/p><\/div>\n

For Asian American students, there\u2019s a different threat. The \u201cmodel minority myth\u201d says that students of Asian descent are quiet, intelligent, and hard-working. In that generalization<\/span> lies<\/span><\/a> erasure. Luthar explains: \u201cIt\u2019s not the same thing that a Black kid might say, \u2018People assume I\u2019m a delinquent.\u2019 It\u2019s more like, \u2018I\u2019m overlooked because of my race. I\u2019m invisible.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Zhang says of academic success, \u201cSince it\u2019s expected of you, you have to be above and beyond your white peers to be regarded the same as them.\u201d That\u2019s especially true when students know colleges<\/span> limit the number of spots<\/span><\/a> they\u2019re willing to give Asian American applicants.<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>Try Harder!,<\/span><\/i> Cai says of his college applications, \u201cI tried to portray myself as less Asian, because Asians are seen as machines.\u201d But the story of his \u201c<\/span>Tiger mom<\/span><\/a>\u201d\u2014who knew he had homework on Sunday and thus wouldn\u2019t let him go to bed one Saturday until they finished working on an application at 3:00 a.m.\u2014confirms a reality Luthar points to. \u201cIn [many] Asian families, whether they are East Asian or South Asian like me, expectations are in fact high,\u201d she says, \u201cand a student\u2019s performance is often a matter of family pride.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Because Zhang\u2019s middle and high school friend groups have been \u201cAsian-dominated,\u201d she says, \u201cI don\u2019t think the model minority myth applies to me as much.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to invisibility, this makes sense. Luthar says, \u201cThe higher the proportion of students who share their background, the lower the risk for feeling like an outsider.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet Zhang may still have internalized societal expectations for performance, according to a 2021 paper in <\/span>American Psychologist<\/span><\/i>. That study on Asian American students in HAS\u2019s looked at data from 2,041 kids. The Asian American students who reported experiencing discrimination also reported higher levels of depression, school isolation, and, often, anxiety. Interestingly though, Asian American HAS students overall seemed to fare better than white HAS students. <\/span><\/p>\n

That could be because of underreporting, the study\u2019s authors say, thanks to \u201ccultural norms on keeping one\u2019s personal and family problems private.\u201d But Luthar says something about their upbringing could be protective, perhaps family cohesiveness. Yet they only fared slightly better, which means they still were worse off than the average U.S. teen on these measures of mental health.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the National Academy of Sciences pointed out, \u201cmany U.S. families of Asian origin actually live in low-socioeconomic households.\u201d They, plus other low-income students of color in majority-white HAS settings, are thus subject to a quadruple whammy: the challenges of poverty, all the HAS pressure, stereotypes, and often additional discrimination on top.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Asian

From Try Harder!<\/p><\/div>\n

Is the pressure all for naught?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Some will read this information and think, <\/span>Well, it may not be all sunshine and rainbows, but if the pressure and grind get a kid into Columbia, it will have been worth it<\/span><\/i>. Research indicates otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

In that<\/span> 2018 study<\/span><\/a> of sixth graders, not only did children\u2019s academic performance not suffer when parents valued being a good person as much as or more than achievement, but their grades and teacher ratings were better than the high-pressure group. Studies from other disciplines confirm that high stakes impair, rather than enhance, performance. Heightened competitiveness also doesn\u2019t pay off.<\/span> Another study of Luthar\u2019s<\/span><\/a> showed that the kids who valued others\u2019 well-being and offered them assistance at ages 12 and 13, by late in high school have higher grades and SAT scores.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Economists come at the question from a different angle. In a<\/span> 2014 Econometrica paper<\/span><\/a> titled \u201cThe Elite Illusion,\u201d a team of researchers including MIT professor Parag Pathak wrote that many students at HAS\u2019s excel, but that may not be because of the HAS. They looked for \u201ccusp\u201d students, the last few eighth-graders who made the cut-off to go to Stuyvesant High School, the test-in public school that is widely considered New York City\u2019s educational \u201ccrown jewel,\u201d and the first few who didn\u2019t. There was very little, if any, difference between these kids academically when they started.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

AP scores and state standardized tests later revealed that the ones who didn\u2019t go to the HAS fared just as well. Pathak’s <\/span>2020 study<\/span><\/a> used a similar method to look at Chicago\u2019s elite exam schools and found that attendance reduced math scores and had no effect on English scores.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, the data calls into question the necessity for all this pressure. Katherine Reynolds Lewis, author of <\/span>The Good News About Bad Behavior<\/span><\/i>, says it\u2019s a myth \u201cyou have to be the best of the best to get into a good college.\u201d She\u2019s heard parents whose kids attend HAS\u2019s express fear that universities increasingly valuing diversity means fewer spots for the children of today\u2019s elite. They think their kids no longer have \u201ca ticket to the good life,\u201d but Lewis says that\u2019s just not true.<\/span><\/p>\n