Considerations for Everyday Youth Workers: Broadening the Community-Based Education Landscape through Black Community Member Engagement

• In Event: Reimagining Community-Based Education Spaces: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Black Youth and Youth Workers Disrupting the Youthwork Paradox

Abstract

Community-Based Educational Spaces (CBES) scholarship expands education policy to include youth workers as pedagogues, creating an avenue for scholars to critically examine the role of community spaces and the people within them in community-school relationships. This critical qualitative study aims to expand the CBES landscape by examining the influence of everyday Black community members who engage with Black youth but do not hold a youth worker title. Findings highlight Black community members’ commitment to providing a thriving educational experience for Black youth. This study contributes to scholarship seeking to broaden the discourse on who is part of community-school relationships, centering everyday Black community members as knowledge producers in constructing how scholarship attends to community-centric approaches to educational change.

Author

• Virginia Downing, University of Kentucky