Confronting the Civic Opportunity Gap: Integrating Action Research With Youth Into Preservice Teacher Education

• In Event: 16.055 - Salvaging Civic Education: Powerful Teaching and Learning to Address the Civic Opportunity Gap

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Frame
A “civic opportunity gap” marks the experiences of many young people living in underserved urban communities. These youth frequently experience a disjuncture between the civic ideals of the U.S. and their day-to-day experiences within the civic institutions that shape their lives (Rubin, 2007; Abu El-Haj, 2009; Levinson, 2012). This is compounded by a paucity of meaningful civic education experiences in schools, particularly in urban settings (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008).
Youth participatory action research (YPAR), in which young people investigate and act upon issues of concern to them, is one means by which researchers and practitioners have bridged this civic opportunity gap (Fine, Torre, Burnes, & Payne, 2004; Rodriguez & Brown, 2009). Research has shown that through YPAR, youth can gain a sense of civic empowerment as they discuss, investigate, and analyze issues that impact their lives.
This type of civic learning, however, requires teachers to skillfully empower student leadership; design and implement complex curriculum and pedagogy that draws upon the knowledge that young people bring to their classrooms; and understand the larger structural inequalities framing students’ encounters with civic life. Cultivating these teaching capacities is challenging (Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, 2004). This presentation describes a project designed to develop these abilities in new urban teachers by integrating action research with youth into their preservice education.

Methods and Data Sources
For the past six years, in the final semester of an urban-focused teacher education program co-directed by the first two authors, preservice teachers led YPAR programs in the schools in which they student-taught the previous semester. This qualitative analysis draws upon interviews with the preservice teachers, observations of their work with youth, blogs and recordings of discussions from their accompanying teacher education seminar and surveys of program graduates. We use a thematic, content analysis to better understand what preservice teachers learn through the process of leading action research with youth.

Findings and Significance
We found that leading action research with youth supported teacher learning in three areas: cultivating student-centered teaching practices; observing and documenting students’ strengths and capacities; and developing new understandings of the structural inequalities that shaped the lives of the students in urban schools. Drawing on data collected over six years, we argue that leading students in participatory action research projects can contribute to the creation of the transformative civic educators so sorely needed in urban settings.
From this analysis and through our work in this program, we also know that learning to teach in these ways is difficult, complex, and uneven, and must be explicitly learned and practiced. By leading action research with youth within the structure of a program that allowed them time to read, discuss and reflect, our preservice teachers built some of these complex skills and understandings. While leading YPAR does not magically transform preservice teachers into seasoned critical civic educators, it does engage them in considering and addressing in their practice complex aspects of social justice pedagogy for civic learning in urban classrooms.

Authors

• Beth C. Rubin, Rutgers University

• Thea R. Abuel-Haj, Rutgers University

• Eliot Graham, University of Montana - Missoula

• Kevin Lowell Clay, Rutgers University