Transnational Youth contest education and seek to learn: A phenomenological inquiry

• In Event: Protesting Violence Across Different Contexts

Proposal

Providence hosts many Youth-led organizations that build awareness and opportunities for Youth power. Protests are often based on themes of identity and deepen Youth understanding of the systems within which they live. Providence offers an interesting case for CIES as a multicultural environment where English is not the dominant language in over 55% of student homes, students hail from 91 countries and represent 55 languages, and over 94% of students are Youth of Color (Providence Public Schools Department website, 2024). Youth lead initiatives to fill educational gaps through non-formal education, and organize campaigns to press the State to improve their formal educational experience. Youth contest the formal educational system, by taking a vocal role in public hearings around the Providence Schools takeover and incorporating Ethnic and Civic Studies into the curriculum. They campaign for investments in Counselors not Cops to arrest the school to prison pipeline dynamic. Youth design education initiatives in non-formal spaces, that include trainings (such as restorative justice and Know Your Rights), awareness events (sexual assault and transgender vigils), and school walk-outs and marches.
This presentation will share findings from a phenomenological inquiry which explored how Youth of Color make meaning of educational initiatives they prioritize. The research is relevant to the conference theme in contextualizing the ‘power to protest’ through the lived experience of Youth participants in contesting formal education. It is further relevant to the SIG on Youth Development and Education as it demonstrates that Youth are critically aware of the decisions adults make for them and the systemic impetus of these educational decisions. In terms of the post-2015 development goals of the Open Working Group, this research study shows Youth deliberately seek to fill gaps in their formal education through non-formal Youth spaces to explore their cultural identity both personally and across cultures, and to build collective agency to pursue their vision of justice.
The theoretical framework of this research is intentionally broad to embrace multiple Youth experiences. Sen (2000) defines freedom as the capacity to “live the kinds of lives that people have reason to value” (p. 295), placing the process of defining what one values with the individual and asserting the process of education is the “expansion of human capability to lead more worthwhile and free lives” (Sen, 2000, p. 295). Sen (2000) further argues the “freedom of agency we individually have is inescapably qualified and constrained by the social, political and economic opportunities available to us” (p. xii). This conceptualization facilitates an exploration of how Youth experience learning in school and in non-formal settings based on evolving definitions of their identity and sense of agency.
Claiming ‘capillary power’ (Foucault,1990), Youth contest education as they seek to learn. Spaces for collective dreaming (Gutiérrez, 2008) influence how Youth develop their identity and cultivate a sense of agency as they engage with peers and design emancipatory educational initiatives. The discussion of societal spaces is informed by scholars of decolonization (see Bhabha, 1994; Fanon, 1952; Jeffress, 2008; Said, 1978; Shahjahan, 2014) who define three societal spaces: personal identity; dominant hegemony; and a third, collective space where domination is critiqued, and collective learning and action for emancipation are imagined (Anderson, 2022; Anzaldua, 1987; Bhabha, 1994; Gutiérrez, 2008). Critical Race Theory (see Kumasi, 2011) enables an analysis of the systemic racism in education that Youth of Color must navigate.
This study was designed to capture the meaning Youth of Color make of their experience in emancipatory education initiatives, broadly defined as learning and action they pursue to advance their sense of freedom. I employed qualitative research, to give primacy to the voice of the participants within the transformative research paradigm (Mertens, 2020) which respects cultural norms, promotes human rights, and acknowledges that social position affects one’s perspective. I chose a phenomenological research approach (Seidman, 2019) to align with the main research question of this study: How do lived experiences of emancipatory education initiatives inform and reflect the processes through which Youth of Color make meaning of their identity and form a sense of agency?
The research approach consisted of a series of three individual interviews with five purposively selected high school Youth of Color who engaged in at least one emancipatory education initiative in Providence. Each participant engaged in roughly four and a half hours of interviews. Youth were selected by contacting Youth-led organizations and the sample of five Youth were young women between the ages of 15-18 who identified as Black and from transnational backgrounds. I intentionally chose to base the research solely on the interview data as further research on the emancipatory initiatives (though possible) would introduce my analysis of these initiatives and diffuse the research objective of understanding the meaning Youth themselves make of their experiences.
The ethical considerations of this research included the risk of contributing to systemic racism. Tuck & Yang (2014b) critique qualitative research to be fixated on the pain of disenfranchised groups (see also hooks, 1990; Youngblood Jackson & Mazzei, 2009). Tuck (2010) posits the antidote to this approach is a desire-based framework which invites the participant to speak “not only [of] the painful elements of social and psychic realities, but also the textured acumen and hope” (Tuck, 2010, p. 644). Conscious of this, I focused on participants’ experiences of emancipatory educational initiatives in which they exercise power and agency.
The preliminary findings show that participants attribute involvement in emancipatory education initiatives to their construction of identity and sense of agency. Participants indicate they apply skills developed in Youth spaces to their personal agency and to effecting changes in their schools. This research presents a unique contribution to the field of comparative and international education by shedding light on how transnational Youth respond to formal educational and design emancipatory initiatives to further an agenda of rights and inclusion. The Youth perspective of learning and protest in formal and non-formal spaces can inform the CIES community in its contribution of the key opportunities and themes that Youth prioritize based on their lived experience in a transnational world.

Author

• Jaya Sarkar, Colege Unbound, University of Rhode Island