Armed Love as a Foundation for Freedom Schools' Work

• In Event: Roundtable Session 57
  In Roundtable Session: Transgressive and Transformative School Contexts

Abstract

Results are reported from the first year of a 2-year case study of community cultural capital circulating in a Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)-sponsored Freedom School (FS) summer program in Lakeview, a mid-sized city in western NY. FSs emphasize academic and social learning, civic engagement, intergenerational leadership development, and cultural competence. This case study examines varied forms of cultural capital as criteria for youth development grounded in community goals and standards for their school-aged children. Analyses of data from the first year show that armed love is a foundation on which this FS’s practices lie. In this paper, we relate this finding to notions of community cultural wealth to connect the first-year analyses to larger understandings of community-based resources.

Authors

• Nancy Ares, University of Rochester

• Jeremy S Smith, Northeast Area Development, Inc