The Uncritical Pedagogy of the Suburbs: How Students at a Suburban School Learn about Inequality

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Curricular Inquiries in Precarious Times: Student Agency, Transformations, and Place

Abstract

The role of the White wealthy suburb in the persistence of inequality is well known by scholars of suburbia. What people who live in these suburbs know about this is less clear. This study interrogates suburban curricula to better understand how young people learn about inequality in their communities and beyond. Leveraging theories of critical pedagogy, the paper demonstrates limited criticality of suburban high school curricula. In "Playa Linda," students learned deeply about issues of inequality in the U.S. but avoided any meaningful analysis of the role of the suburb in this inequality. As a result, students could speak eloquently about inequality writ large but had little if any knowledge about the role of their own community in perpetuating inequality.

Author

• Suneal H. Kolluri, University of California - Riverside