ECER 2011 Keynote 02

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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ECER 2011 Urban Education, Freie Universitt Berlin

Urban Education and Segregation.

Responses from young people

Elisabet hrnUniversity of Gothenburg, Sweden

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Content

Urban education and segregation

Schools and teaching in marginalised areas

Lack of support for analysis and critique? Student responses

Targets, strategies and resources

A school supporting student critique Joint responses and political analysis


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Schools leading to acceptance? 1

Young people in the marginalizedneighbourhoods in which we have done our

research generally (with a few exceptions) donot believe they have the same opportunities asSwedes and pupils from other schools in otherareas do, nor do they seem to have these

opportunities. --- At an early age these youngpeople develop a perception of themselves assubordinate and as not belonging.


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Schools leading to acceptance? 2

This is not actually done only or perhaps evenprimarily through the schools. However, by not

challenging this situation and helping to developa critical perception of it, but instead providing anormalization related to individual aspiration andability, schools do lead to an acceptance of the

situation experienced as almost natural... (Beach,D & Sernhede, O. (2011), p. 269-270, British Journal of Sociology ofEducation, 32(2), 257-274)


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Teaching & students experiences 1

the teacher asks the students what theythink a racist is You could hear a pin drop. ---The teacher asks again, this time a girl, Lena:

Do you know what the word racism means?No way, no way The class begins to laugh.Then Mohammed starts to describe a time whenhe was chased by a gang of racists with shavedheads who wore army style clothes. He says, Iknow what that feels like, and looks straight atthe teacher, do you? ---

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Teaching & students experiences 2

The teacher breaks off his presentation andhushes further questions. She says that it was agood example of racism but that they should

think about putting their hands up before askingpermission to speak. Then she asks about theterm segregation and what it means. No onetries to answer. The room is just quiet.(Fieldnotes, April 2007). (Schwartz, A & hrn, E.(forthcoming), in W Pink (Ed), Schools and marginalized youth: aninternational perspective. Cresshill, NJ: Hampton Press).

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Separating or mixing students

hrn: To whom would that [mixing pupils] bebeneficial?Louise: To both groups of pupils, to both social

classes so to speak. So they could understandeach other. Now they say like well, they are suchRich mans children and the others like, well,they are such fucking

Rita: poor ghetto kids.

(hrn, E. (2011), p. 352, Education Inquiry, 2(2), 345-357).


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Students aestethic responses

While the poem does not eradicate the often painfulexperiences with school surveillance, the writingwhether in a poetry club, an after-school organization,

or a poem puts youth in dialogue with a wideraudience and a shared critique. Students poems andraps help them to locate and identify an audiencecomprised of others who refuse to listen, be denied a

voice and impact on their educational lives.(Weiss, J. (2009), p. 72, In Anyon (Ed), Theory and educationalresearch, New York: Routledge).

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Students informal teaching 1

you could say that the group is also a kind ofschool, see like Immanuel, hes a Muslim andhe takes care of his own, Muhammed and

Niladh who are Muslims too, you know, so heteaches them about their history and I teachRonaldo and Pablo and the other little rapperswho hang around us about LatinAmericas

history ---

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Students informal teaching 2

I can talk a little as if lecturing when I tell it wasthis or that Indian tribe living at the time, andthis or that year when it happened, it was then

that the Spaniards came, the Indians had acertain religion and all that. Its fun to talk, yousee, and now theyre going to make a new songabout LatinAmericas history, see....(Sernhede, O.

(2007), p. 472, In A Luke & W Pink (Eds), International handbookof urban education. Dordrecht: Springer).

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Students public political actions

A struggle against the local politicians withresources as:

Access to media Traditions in the school and its neighbourhood

Spaces for meetings

Political knowledge among students Students joint actions

Teachers and teaching


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Teaching political strategies

I had to go to my class and see if someoneshowed up. And some pupils who were fairlystrong chose to come to the lesson. And whilesitting there five people, we might as wellchoose well it was not the time to talk aboutthe subject, but we talked about this [action]

instead. And then they could dash off into reallife and put it into practice. (Teacher C). hrn,E. (2005)


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Teacher support for student critique

The perceived risks (for teachers)

The importance of students target (forsupport)

The implications (for power relations)


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Individualised youth with little potential for

political action?

Schools not supporting youth to analyse

and challenge their situation?


ECER 2011 Keynote 02

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