Making Difference Generative: Situated Meanings of Diversity at an Elite Boarding School Summer Session

• In Event: Learning in Place: Situated Learning in Diverse Contexts

Abstract

While literature on summer learning often focuses on obviating summer learning loss in low-income and minority youth through test-focused remedial programs, this paper refocuses summer learning research to examine enrichment opportunities that bring youth together across common societal dividing lines of class, race, and nation. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of an elite New England boarding school’s five-week Summer Session, this paper explores several key themes related to the meaning and uptake of diversity during the Summer Session from the perspective of a diverse group of participating youth and adults. This work contributes to literature on diverse learning spaces, the goals and value of summer learning, and the situated meanings that multiculturalism has in youth social spaces.

Author

• Burke Scarbrough, University of Minnesota - Duluth