“This is our life”: Race, Stigma, and Educational Inequities in an Interdistrict Dialogue Program

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 17: Equity, Belonging, and Identity: Unpacking the Forces Shaping Educational Outcomes

Abstract

The experiences of students in Syracuse are variable and marked by the racialized stigma carried by the city schools, regardless of many of the positive experiences students have in and with these school environments. Many students living and learning the suburbs of Syracuse, however, have very different experiences and relationships with school and education. Common Ground Dialogue (CGD) is a dialogue program run by a local nonprofit that brings together students from one urban high school and one suburban or rural high school for an interdistrict dialogue experience. In this paper, I analyze the CGD program through an entire session utilizing ethnographic participant observation and interviews with current participants, alumni, and staff. I bring together literatures on racialized organizations theory, social reproduction, and school stigma to examine three activities from the dialogue program to answer the following questions: 1) How does Common Ground Dialogue challenge or reproduce the inequities present in the education system? and 2) How do students communicate, produce, and resist feelings of shame and stigma around their schools and identities as it emerges in dialogue? Through the three described activities, and others, students openly identify these disparities and are keenly aware of the differences between their schools and students from the city high schools and those holding marginalized identities understand the stigmatization of their schools and often communicate feelings of shame or embarrassment in the face of the comparisons present in the program and its activities. I conclude that Common Ground Dialogue largely reproduces the inequities and stigmas present in the education system through laying them bare in front of students with little background in the structural explanations for the material differences present.

Author

• Lauren E Ashby, Syracuse University