Preparing Adolescents Attending Progressive and No-Excuses Urban Charter Schools to Analyze, Navigate, and Challenge Race and Class Inequality

Abstract

Background/Context Sociopolitical development (SPD) refers to the processes by which an individual acquires the knowledge, skills, emotional faculties, and commitment to recognize and resist oppressive social forces. A growing body of scholarship has found that such sociopolitical capabilities are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes, including resilience, academic achievement, and civic engagement. Many scholars have long argued that schools and educators have a central role to play in fostering the sociopolitical development of marginalized adolescents around issues of race and class inequality. Other scholars have investigated school-based practices for highlighting race and class inequality that include youth participatory-action research, critical literacy, and critical service-learning. Objective of Study The present study sought to add to the existing scholarship on schools as opportunity structures for sociopolitical development. Specifically, this study considered the role of two different schooling models in fostering adolescents’ ability to analyze, navigate, and challenge the social forces and institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Setting The six high schools participating in the present study were all urban charter public high schools located in five northeastern cities. All six schools served primarily low-income youth of color and articulated explicit goals around fostering students’ sociopolitical development. Three of these high schools were guided by progressive pedagogy and principles, and three were guided by no-excuses pedagogy and principles. Research Design The present study compared the sociopolitical development of adolescents attending progressive and no-excuses charter high schools through a mixed methods research design involving pre-post surveys, qualitative interviews with participating adolescents and teachers, and ethnographic field notes collected during observations at participating schools. Results On average, adolescents attending progressive high schools demonstrated more sig-nificant shifts in their ability to analyze the causes of racial inequality, but adolescents attending no-excuses high schools demonstrated more significant shifts in their sense of efficacy around navigating settings in which race and class inequality are prominent. Neither set of adolescents demonstrated significant shifts in their commitment to challenging the social forces or institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Conclusions Both progressive and no-excuses schools sought to foster adolescents’ commitment to challenging race and class inequality, but focused on different building blocks to do so. Further research is necessary to understand the pedagogy and practices that show promise in catalyzing adolescents’ analytic and navigational abilities into a powerful commitment to collective social action—the ultimate goal of sociopolitical development.

Critical consciousness in children and adolescents: A systematic review, critical assessment, and recommendations for future research.

“…In addition, school engagement was higher in the high critical consciousness group than in the low critical consciousness group. In contrast to others, Seider et al (2016) found no relation between grade point average (measured at the beginning of 9th grade) and critical reflection skills (measured at the end of 9th grade).…”

“…Research on these curricula—including, for example, case–control studies comparing schools implementing a particular curriculum to matched schools that have not implemented the curriculum—could shed light on how content and pedagogy contribute to the development of critical consciousness and would be policy-relevant, given that several states now mandate the inclusion of ethnic studies in K–12 settings (see Dee & Penner, 2017). The work of Seider and colleagues (Seider et al, 2016) provides foundational knowledge on how different schooling models (progressive vs. no excuses) promote growth in distinct dimensions of critical consciousness (critical reflection and critical motivation, respectively), raising exciting prospects for work that examines how practices from each model might be integrated into the other to promote broader growth in critical consciousness. In addition, work examining alternative pedagogical models and work examining traditional public and private schools (in contrast to the charters that were the focus of Seider et al’s study) will extend this critical area of research.…”

“…Across studies, school climate has most often been operationalized with respect to whether teachers in the school promote open discussion of social and political issues. However, some studies have examined other aspects of school climate, including the relationships between students and teachers (Pérez-Gualdrón & Helms, 2017), principal support for sociopolitical development (Diemer et al, 2009), and the overall educational model in place at the school (Seider et al, 2016; Seider, Tamerat, Clark, & Soutter, 2017).…”

Critical action as a pathway to social mobility among marginalized youth.

“…This study provides rigorous longitudinal evidence suggesting that experiences that engage youth in challenging rather than avoiding societal inequalities may foster career development and occupational attainment among marginalized youth. This evidence supports conceptual (e.g., Ladson-Billings, 2009) and empirical arguments (e.g., O’Connor, 1997; Ramos-Zayas, 2003; Cabrera et al, 2014; Dee & Penner, 2016; Seider et al, in press) for directly addressing the inequalities constraining marginalized youth—for example, via engagement in critical action. There are various avenues that may engender this engagement, such as ethnic studies curricula, participatory action research, and other critically informed practices that focus on social action and inequality, both inside and outside of schools.…”

“…Collectively, these findings suggest that policies and practices, including interventions, that target the social identity threats and sociopolitical constraints that marginalized youth face may, somewhat paradoxically, foster educational and occupational success. CC-informed interventions such as Tucson’s Mexican American studies (MAS) program (e.g., Cabrera et al, 2014; Cammarota & Romero, 2009), San Francisco’s ethnic studies curricula (Dee & Penner, 2016), social psychological interventions (Rapa, 2016), and schooling approaches (Ramos-Zayas, 2003; Seider et al, in press), as well as reviews of these approaches (Watts & Hipolito-Delgado, 2015), suggest specific program elements and strategies to target the development or enactment of critical action.…”