‘Can I Come in Here?’ Winston’s Discovery of Edge-of-school Spaces and Meaningful Literacy Engagement

The Status That Troubled Me: Re-Examining Work With Black Boys Through a Culturally Sustaining Pedagogical Framework

“…As we passed through, he talked about how the neighborhood had changed, how people had moved away, the abandoned houses, and the increasing violence. The pedagogy of these places was hard for us to ignore (Gruenewald, 2003; Johnson, 2014). On the surface, it appeared that people had given up, but underneath, in its history, there were traces of victimization and injustice.…”

“…Because of our exchange, I was interested in knowing how Teamer would explain not being in college, possibly being gang related, and his plans for the future. In an effort to add to the literature that seeks to interrupt deficit discourses around the schooling of Black male youth, elsewhere (Johnson, 2014(Johnson, , 2015, I researched the urban schooling experiences of Black male youth and how various literacy classroom practice informed their literacy participation and identities in and outside of English Language Arts classrooms. I wanted to examine Teamer's narrative against educational discourse that would describe his experiences as pathological.…”

“…My teaching and researching of Black boys has been to challenge the deficit gaze upon them (Johnson, 2014(Johnson, , 2015Johnson & Winn, 2015;Winn & Johnson, 2011). Doing so has meant seeking alternative ideologies and methodologies to deficit perspectives (Irizarry, 2009), employing decolonizing and humanizing research (Paris & Winn, 2014), and conducting retrospective inquiry (Winn, 2015) that interrogates my research and practice.…”

“…On one hand, research blames environmental and cultural factors for their “troubles” in school (Noguera, 2003) and on the other hand, credits social capital for their success (Palmer & Gasman, 2008). However, research that considers culturally responsive and sustaining frameworks (Groenke et al, 2015; Johnson, 2014; Tatum, 2006) and utilizes humanizing research methodologies (Paris & Winn, 2014) seeks to illuminate the numerous possibilities of the Black male youth experience beyond what is perceived as success or counted as failure. Doing so invites researchers (e.g., Johnson, 2014; Kirkland, 2013) to pose critical questions around the individual lived experiences of Black males across this nation, co-constructing other possibilities with them while recovering the narratives that humanize their experiences in and beyond classrooms.…”

Editorial

“…Such inclusivity should include examining the out-of-school and edge of school spaces (Johnson, 2014) to identify individuals' repertoires of practice that might otherwise not be considered as academically relevant in STEM fields. The awareness and consideration of sub-altern ways of learning, doing and working in STEM, through STEM-C, might offer new ways of approaching STEM education for the benefit of all involved.…”