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Title Becoming Protagonists for Integration: Youth Voices from Segregated Educational Spaces
Full text http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7791x9tn
Date 2010
Author(s) Johnston-Goodstar, Katie; Nagda, Biren Ratnesh
Abstract We report the preliminary findings of a community-based participatory action research project grounded in the principles of emancipatory education. Born as a grassroots response to profound racial and socioeconomic segregation between the "gifted" and "regular" learning programs, this action research collaboration was centered in a middle school. The project curriculum was built on the premise that youth have the potential to become protagonists of integration. With that in mind, the project provided a space in which to become increasingly conscious about segregation and to imagine and enact new possibilities for integration. Findings from in-depth qualitative interviews with six youth participants reveal various youth efforts toward integration in three distinct layers of consciousness that we refer to as voice: (a) reflective voice as an awareness of self in segregated places and the associated social consequences; (b) dialogic voice as communal recognition of the structural nature of segregation, solidarity in opposition to it, and a common need for healing and reconciliation; and (c) praxis voice as the commitment to transforming segregated educational spaces through a critique of segregation and demand for subdermal diversity. We discuss the implications of these findings for continued transformative action at the local site and lessons for educational pedagogies and actions in general.
Subject(s) critical pedagogy; segregation; integration; advanced/gifted learning; youth; African-American; South Africa; Education; critical pedagogy
Language english
Publisher eScholarship, University of California
Type of publication article
Format application/pdf
Source Johnston-Goodstar, Katie; & Nagda, Biren Ratnesh. (2010). Becoming Protagonists for Integration: Youth Voices from Segregated Educational Spaces. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 6(1). Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7791x9tn
Rights public
Identifier qt7791x9tn
Repository Berkeley - University of California
Added to C-A: 2014-04-03;13:04:59