The Influence of Diverse Schooling Models on the Sociopolitical Development of Black and Latinx Adolescents

• In Event: 77.043 - Name the World: Teaching Students to Recognize and Resist Racial and Economic Inequity

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Framework: Sociopolitical development (SPD) refers to the processes by which an individual acquires the knowledge, skills, emotional faculties, and commitment to analyze and challenge oppressive social forces (Watts, Williams, & Jagers, 2003). A growing body of research has found that high levels of SPD are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes including resilience (Ginwright, 2010; O’Leary & Romero, 2012), academic engagement (O’Connor, 1997; Ramos-Zayas, 2003), academic achievement (Cammarota, 2007; Dee & Penner, 2016), enrollment in higher education (Rogers & Terriquez, 2013), professional aspirations (Diemer & Hsieh, 2008), and civic and political engagement (Diemer & Li, 2011; Watts, Diemer & Voight, 2011). However, relatively few empirical studies have investigated the schooling practices that contribute to such sociopolitical development (e.g. Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Godfrey & Grayman, 2014).

Methods: The present study contributes to this scholarship by investigating the SPD of adolescents (n = 335) attending urban charter high schools in several northeastern cities that were structurally and demographically similar, but which featured five different schooling models (e.g. expeditionary learning, democratic, no-excuses). Participating students were African American and Latinx youth in the Class of 2017 at each of these schools who completed surveys at five different time points over their four years of high school that included previously validated measured of their ability to analyze and challenge racial and economic inequality (e.g. awareness of structural racism, commitment to activism). For each of these outcome measures, we conducted longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses with effects modeling in order to consider 1) differences in the mean level of SPD between school types; and 2) differences in the mean growth on each SPD measure between school types.

Results & Significance: Analyses of the five waves of data revealed that adolescents attending particular schooling models demonstrated significantly steeper growth (p < .05) on particular dimensions of SPD related to analyzing and challenging racial and economic inequality. For example, students attending the school featuring the Coalition of Essential School’s habits of mind pedagogy demonstrated significantly steeper growth than their peers in the broader sample in their awareness of both interpersonal (p < .04) and structural (p < .0002) forms of racism. Likewise, students attending the school featuring an expeditionary learning pedagogy demonstrated significantly steeper growth (p < .001) in their commitment to activism. In comparing students’ SPD across these diverse schooling models, we seek to offer useful insights to scholars, educators, and other stakeholders about the role of a diverse set of schooling models in contributing to the sociopolitical development of the youth they serve. Other papers featured within this symposium then draw upon qualitative and ethnographic methods to investigate the particular programming and practices within these different schooling models that may have contributed to such sociopolitical development.

Authors

• Scott Clifford Seider, Boston University

• Daren Graves, Simmons College