School in the ’Heights: Extending Care Through a Participatory Longitudinal Study With Middle School Graduates

• In Event: Caring and Being There: Toward a Framework for Care-Based Research With Youth in Schools

Abstract

School in the Square (S2) is a small, social justice-focused 6th-8th grade independent charter middle school, sitting in a renovated church, tucked into Washington Heights at the mouth of the George Washington Bridge in New York City. This paper reflects, collectively, on a longitudinal participatory study of the transition to high school, undertaken by an inter-generational team of oral historians (largely 9th graders) who have been systematically gathering the stories of 90 urban youth as they navigate high school in one of the most unequal, and segregated school districts in the country, at a time of rapid gentrification, intensified threats on immigrant families and at the peak of police violence. Rooted in critical care studies and critical participatory action research, the S2 research collective (comprised of 20 individuals) is tracing the secondary school journey, over five years -- with oral histories, participatory surveys, vlogs, letters to self, auto-ethnography, mapping, writing retreats and video -- chronicling the wisdom and struggles of immigrant youth navigating high school.

This paper explores year 1 - the transition to high school - and our narratives make evident the centrality of and need for care and relationship, in schooling and in participatory research. We hear in their desires and their fears, their satisfaction and early school transfers, how young people assess academic spaces for care/belonging/safety/trust, and how much the S2 alumni lean back, upon their care-ful middle school, to help them launch forward. With an analytic eye on race, class and immigrant status, and an appreciation of how schools create “good enough” holding environments, this paper reveals through maps, vlogs and oral histories, how young people make sense, self-author and navigate toward a sense of belonging and academic desire in secondary school.

Authors

• Sam Finesurrey

• Michelle Fine, City College of New York - CUNY

• Sherry King, School in the Square

• Camille Lester