Longitudinal Study of an African-Centered School Network: Researchers, Teachers, Families, and Community Collaboration

• In Event: Vice-Presidential Session. Co-Designing Educational Justice in Chicago and Evanston: Examining Learning and Change-Making Across Time and Place

Abstract

This paper traces the 28 year history of collaborative design entailing dialogic relationships between researchers and a community based African-centered charter school network. The network was established by a collaborative of parents, community activists and researchers. The African-centered education (ACE) philosophy of the school was a shared vision among stakeholders from the beginning. ACE has historical roots based on the proposition that inter-generational belief systems and structures of social networks built on the traditions that enslaved Africans maintained despite efforts to destroy such connections are resources for resilience, preparing young people to wrestle with both the normative challenges of development along with the traumatic challenges of racism.

Among the challenges of developing such a model are developing curriculum across content areas integrating academic skills, identity and social-emotional well-being, and embodying African-centered content, modes of reasoning and linguistic repertoires; recruiting and supporting the development of professionals who can teach with this breadth; building collaborations with families around a shared vision for this work; and communicating to broad audiences, particularly in establishing charter schools, the validity of this vision.

The research-community partnership over these 28 years has entailed critically examining what each stakeholder brings to the work, including points of convergence and tension. For researchers, it involved expanding the theoretical grounding from what initially was a focus on cognition and culture to an expanded grounding that included theoretical contributions around human development and attention to ecological systems. Initial thinking that by simply developing African-centered content the full needs of children could be addressed was shaken as relationships with families revealed the breadth of needs that children and families faced, particularly with regard to the intersections of racism and poverty. As the program evolved, parents and teachers assumed formal decision-making leadership roles.

The school-research partnerships included several federally funded projects.

Data:
In order to illustrate this African-centered model data collected include unique curriculum and projects jointly developed to embody African centered content, rigorous skills, and identity development; videos of instruction to illustrate how social-emotional well-being and robust cognition are intertwined; interviews with parent leaders and school leaders; historical records of the public challenges faced by the network; and interviews with young adults who have graduated from the schools.

Findings:
Analyses document the social networks that have sustained the model; the specific nature of pedagogical challenges to and impacts of such teaching and curriculum development; and the collaborations required to navigate the political challenges of implementing ACE.

Significance:
The findings demonstrate the complex issues to be navigated in building community partnerships that involve families, the political structures in communities, and researchers where issues of race, equity and power are at stake. This work contributes to the theme of the conference in that the on the ground challenges highlight both the constraints and affordances of the explanatory power and limits of theories of learning and development to address the complexities of institution building on the ground. The longitudinal findings around youth development demonstrate the long-term impacts of this ACE model.[495]

Author

• Carol D. Lee, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author