Continuation High School Girls Disrupt the Deficit Discourse

• In Event: Gender Dynamics in Public Education

Abstract

There are over 500 continuation high schools in California that serve more than 100,000 students each year, the majority Latinx and African American youth (Malagon, 2010; De Velasco et al., 2008). However, the schools and the students they serve are often far removed or excluded from educational research (Malagon & Alvarez, 2010; Nygreen, 2013; Kim, 2011; Kelly, 1993). Grounded in critical race theory in education (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Stovall, 2006; Pérez & Solórzano, 2015) and youth participatory action research, this work challenges deficit discourse surrounding students as failures stripped of their abilities to act and think on their own behalf and makes visible the mechanisms of structural oppressions and inequities faced by racialized youth, specifically girls of color.

Author

• Jenny Sperling, University of Oklahoma