We Are "Family": Care and Activist Literacy in an Out-of-School Debate Community

• In Event: Roundtable Session 62
  In Roundtable Session: Youth Work: Examining Empowered Spaces

Abstract

This presentation explores how care theory and critical literacy connect in out- of- school learning. Using data gathered in City Debate, an out-of-school time debate community, I explore how participants build relationships and foster critical literacy. As a voluntary learning community, City Debate relies on nurturing care in order to help sustain the community and to help youth develop into activists. Critical or activist literacy practices exist within the community; however, both adult and youth participants in the chosen space identify interpersonal relationships as primary reasons for sustained participation. For this space of out-of-school learning, the community simultaneously cultivates caring, learning and activism.

Author

• Susan Anne Cridland-Hughes, Bard College