The Social Construction of Urban Students as Unbelievable: A Call for “Disruptive Listening”

• In Event: Critiquing Neoliberalism and Its Impact on Schooling

Abstract

This paper addresses the social construction of urban elementary and middle school students as “unbelievable,” the significance of this construction for the quality of urban school life, an analysis of three contexts that produce it, and one response to it as an intervention for social change. Using qualitative data from a two year study of 5 urban schools, this paper addresses how the construction of “unbelievability” limits how students are heard. The research is framed by the new sociology of childhood, and argues that urban schools construct students as unbelievable on the basis of conflicts around trust, authority and voice.

Authors

• Sari K. Biklen, Syracuse University

• Heidi Katherine Pitzer, Syracuse University