"This Is for Us, Not Them": Reimagining Who Constitutes the Public Through Youth Organizing and Activism

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Issues in Social Studies Research (Table 3)

Abstract

The gatekeeping of civic life in schools exacerbates the disjuncture racially minoritized youth experience in their efforts to realize the ideals of democratic life. This paper examines what it means for civic education to intervene in this condition of democracy in the United States by reimagining who constitutes public through the actions and organizing of youth. Drawing on critical race methodology and the politics of belonging, this paper explores the racialized experiences of youth in public secondary school after a local police killing of a Black man. Findings suggest that when publicness centers youth lives, the marginalizing effects of schooling are elucidated while also providing a framework for understanding the possibilities of civic education as an anti-oppressive experience.

Author

• Ryan Oto, University of Minnesota