Youth, Gangs, and Policing: How Formal Education Is Impacted by Anti-Gang Policies

• In Event: Roundtable Session 57
  In Roundtable Session: Policies and the Sociopolitical Environment: Impacts on Lives and Outcomes

Abstract

Students as participants in research are not often considered as also being members of their community; however schools cannot be separated intrinsically from their communities. This paper examines the experiences of youth with an anti-gang program that polices youth through community and school initiatives. Data for this paper comes from a 3 year qualitative ethnographic study that includes observations of and formal interviews with gang-affiliated young people, community leaders and school officials. Youth voices are central to this qualitative study that strives to highlight the barriers to quality education youth face as a result of social constructions and policing within their communities and re-frame the popular discourses about gang-affiliated youth.

Author

• Mary Cannito-Coville, Syracuse University