Julio Cammarota

Youth Activism in the Urban Community: Learning Critical Civic Praxis within Community Organizations.

Research on African‐American and Latina/o youth has been dominated by studies that focus on ‘problem’ adolescent behavior. Typically, they explain youth crime, delinquency, and violence as individual pathological behavior or cultural adaptations stemming from social disorganization in their communities. This article argues for a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between youth‐serving organizations and youth agency in urban communities, which can avoid the pitfall of focusing on the most egregious activities among youth. Rather, it is argued that African‐American and Latina/o youth respond to community and school conditions through civic engagement facilitated by community‐based organizations. Urban youth collectively respond to community and school problems through youth organizing, spoken word, volunteering, and participation in civic affairs. Organizations in urban communities can provide youth with opportunities to develop critical civic praxis through engagement with ideas, social networks, and experiences that build individual and collective capacity to struggle for social justice. This view of youth acknowledges structural constraints in their communities, but also views young people as active participants in changing debilitative neighborhood conditions.

Participatory Action Research for High School Students: Transforming Policy, Practice, and the Personal With Social Justice Education

The authors discuss how participatory action research (PAR) informs the pedagogy and epistemology of the social justice education. PAR facilitates students’ engagement in their social context and acquisition of knowledge to initiate personal and social transformation. The scope of research contains knowledge about social justice issues negatively influencing the students’ experiences. This knowledge is essential for what has been described as social justice youth development in which young people participate in practices geared toward achieving an egalitarian world with safe, vibrant neighborhoods that support healthy,positive youth identities. The article is based on program evaluation data collected for progress reports mandated by the project’s financial backers. Funding supports technical assistance provided by the university in the way of teaching students qualitative research methods. The authors’ roles involve both assisting the course instructor with teaching methodologies and collecting data for evaluative purposes. High school students in small project groups (five to six members) conduct participatory action research with the intent of transforming the personal, policies and practices.

A Barrio Pedagogy: Identity, Intellectualism, Activism, and Academic Achievement through the Evolution of Critically Compassionate Intellectualism.

In this paper we forward our experiences and understanding of how we have used critical race theory (CRT) in our classrooms; more importantly, we bring forth the voices of students as a method of conveying the impact of our CRT classroom exercises. These exercises are parts of three structures that we created to counter the reality of racism and subordination within the American education system. These creations are: the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP); the Critically Compassionate Intellectualism Model of Transformative Education (CCI); and CCI’s Third Dimension. An explanation and description of the SJEP and CCI are forthcoming in the next section of this paper, and in last section of this paper we explain CCI’s Third Dimension.

A social justice epistemology and pedagogy for Latina/o students: Transforming public education with participatory action research

The article reports on Latina/o high school students who conducted participatory action research (PAR) on problems that circumscribe their possibilities for self-determination. The intention is to legitimize student knowledge to develop effective educational policies and practices for young Latinas/os. PAR is engaged through the Social Justice Education Project, which provides students with all social science requirements for their junior and senior years. The mandated curriculum is supplemented with advanced-level readings from Chicana/o studies, critical race theory, critical pedagogy, and, most important, PAR. The intention is for students to meet the requirements for graduation and to develop sophisticated critical analyses to address problems in their own social contexts.

By the Time I Get to Arizona: Race, Language, and Education in America's Racist State.

This article reports on research projects conducted primarily by first and second generation Mexican American high school students who document how school relationships are shaped by Arizona’s racist political discourses. They conducted observations of their school experiences and then wrote up what they were observing in field notes. Field note data focus on how political discourse shapes school climate, especially around speaking Spanish, and the treatment of student researchers by other students and teachers. We also discuss the anti-Latino politics in Arizona that began with the passage of Proposition 203 in 2000. The focus of this political discussion is to identify education and immigration related laws passed by the Arizona legislature that target and negatively impact the Latino community. The article concludes with recommendations to improve education for Latino students who are learning the English language.

The opportunity if not the right to see: The social justice education project

Revolutionizing Education: Youth participatory action research in motion , Revolutionizing Education: Youth participatory action research in motion , کتابخانه مرکزی دانشگاه علوم پزشکی تهران

The Value of a Multicultural and Critical Pedagogy: Learning Democracy Through Diversity and Dissent

. . . Prevents public schools in Arizona from including any courses, classes, or school sponsored activities within the program of instruction that feature or promote as truth any political, religious, ideological, or cultural values that denigrate or overtly encourage dissent from the values of American democracy and Western civilization, including democracy, capitalism, pluralism, and religious toleration.

Notes from the Ethnic Studies home front: Student protests, texting, and subtexts of oppression

The protest against Arizona House Bill 2281 designed to ban Ethnic Studies from K-12 public schools on 12 May 2010 in Tucson resulted in 15 arrests. Students walked out of their classrooms in large numbers to defend their Mexican American Studies curriculum and program. Based primarily on participant observation of the protest, the authors examine the pedagogies of transformational resistance, interrogate HB 2281’s repressive aspects, and illuminate the role of social networking media as expressions of cultural citizenship in the twenty-first century.

Misspoken in Arizona: Latina/o Students Document the Articulations of Racism

This article reports on racism expressed by school personnel (administrators and teachers) and experienced by Latina/o students at a high school located in Tucson, Arizona. Students in a specialized social science research program, called the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP), documented personal encounters with racist articulations at their school. After students conducted observations of their own interactions on campus, they would write (weekly) field notes as part of a research assignment to document racism in education. Most verbal exchanges influenced by racism can be categorized into direct racist statements or racial microaggressions. Both of these racist articulations are tantamount to derogatory comments or slurs that attempt to make an individual from a marginalized group feel inferior to or different (in a negative sense) from the dominant group. This article focuses on the SJEP, implemented at one particular Tucson high school, during the 2010–2011 school year. Excerpts from the students’ field notes pr esent evidence of racist articulations. The article concludes with recommendations on how to ameliorate the educational experiences of students of color with culturally relevant and responsive policies and practices that will move the discourse on marginalized groups in a positive direction.

The praxis of ethnic studies: transforming second sight into critical consciousness

This article focuses on a youth participatory action research (YPAR) program called the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP) that fostered young people of color’s critical consciousness. Their critical consciousness emerged through praxis (reflection/action) while focusing on preserving ethnic studies in Tucson, Arizona. Because the SJEP home was in ethnic studies, the youth also struggled to keep their program alive. The Arizona Department of Education claimed the program bred ‘radicals’ who wanted to overthrow the government and therefore lobbied the state legislature to ban K-12 ethnic studies in public schools. In January 2012, the ban went into effect, shutting down ethnic studies classes as well as the SJEP. Young people’s qualitative research on their struggle led to action to save the education that gave them hope for a more equitable and just world. The article addresses the praxis of YPAR, which sparks a thought process leading to the drive to take action. Observing and documenting educational injustices inspire the need to seek radical change of Self and schools. Through the reflection and action facilitated by YPAR, young people of color construct a message about the importance of ethnic studies for individual as well as social transformation.