21.010 - Contested Citizenships: Knowledge, Race, and Politics Within an Educational Context

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

The purpose of this session is to examine the varied and contested meanings of citizenship. We emphasize the notion of “citizenships” to articulate multidimensionality of citizenship-making. Attention will be given to the multiple meanings of “citizenship” to highlight how this construct is enveloped within the countless and contested meanings of race, class, gender, religion and sexuality. Panelists will take on perennial and contemporary issues related to citizenship that grapple with the social realities and conceptual meanings of citizenship as it is engaged within educational spaces.

This session also seeks to deconstruct various notions of “citizenship” as they are taken up through the discourses of national identity, nationality, civil and human rights. Panelists will also explore the utility of “citizenship” as a totalizing framework that encompasses experiential, existential and ontological meanings of space and inclusion. These questions will be explored within curricular, policy, historical and social spaces.

Session Format: The session will consist of a guided discussion around the following questions
1. What does citizenship mean in the context of public policy seeking to provide narrow and racialized definitions of “The American citizen?”
2. What can schools do to challenge the hegemonic practices of citizen making reflected within the current political discourse?

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chairs

• Anthony L. Brown, The University of Texas at Austin

• Alfredo J. Artiles, Arizona State University

Participants

• Zeus Leonardo, University of California - Berkeley

• Gloria J. Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Eve Tuck, University of Toronto

• Nolan L. Cabrera, The University of Arizona