"The Only Thing Different About Us Is Our Life Story": High School Students Refute Misperceptions

• In Event: 67.067 - MTCC Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: 67.067-4 - Special Populations: Critical Issues of Underserved Adolescents and Youth of Color

Abstract

There are over 500 continuation high schools in California that serve more than 100,000 high school students each year. However, the schools and the students they serve are often far removed and even invisible to public discourse (Kelly, 1993a; De Velasco et al., 2008; Nygreen, 2013). Due to such a dearth of education research focusing on students’ positive experiences within continuation high schools, stigmatized ideologies of alternative schools and the students themselves are reinforced. Using youth participatory action research as a theoretical lens, this work examines student experiences in a continuation high school, highlighting and amplifying youth-led research that exposes counternarratives that refuse racialized stereotypes and the circulating negative public perception within their communities.

Author

• Jenny Sperling, University of California - Santa Barbara