Rosalyn Black

Student participation and disadvantage: limitations in policy and practice

The public policy of numerous nations, including Australia, articulates a clear expectation that schools will develop young peoples capacities to participate in civic society and its democratic structures and processes. A romantic policy rhetoric hides a reality that is both more complex and less well understood than is typically acknowledged. Young peoples democratic participation is subject to varying interpretations and implementation, and is employed to serve varying agendas. The role of schools in developing this participation is particularly subject to tensions and contradictions that can work to undermine and constrain the participation of marginalised young people. There is an abundance of research and policy literature on this topic. Yet, within this plethora of prescription and commentary, the key threads that might make a difference are not always clear. Moreover, there is little in this supposedly inclusive agenda that considers its implications for marginalised groups. This article provides a meta-analysis of the current policy and research landscape, examining the dominant discourses and their implications for young peoples participation. It focuses particular attention on the position of marginalised young people as it emerges from the literature and outlines an alternative agenda with the potential to challenge an overly complacent policy and practice context.

Between policy and a hard pedagogical place: the emotional geographies of teaching for citizenship in low socio-economic schools

Reflecting an international trend, Australian education policy increasingly charges schools with fostering active citizens who have the will and capacity to improve the democratic fabric and drive needed social change. This policy prescription also resonates with some teachers’ critical commitments to pedagogical practices that encourage young people to see themselves as transformative citizens capable of engineering a more just and equitable society. In particular, in low socio-economic school contexts, however, the pursuit of such practices may be subject to the complex physical and emotional geographies that attend the project of schooling in such contexts. In this article, I consider the empirical data derived from my recent discourse analysis of two schools in which teachers have introduced what I have termed the pedagogies of active citizenship. Both of these schools are located in low socio-economic Australian communities, that is, communities where structural, socio-geographic and socio-economic forms of marginalisation are an issue. I consider what motivates, enables and authorises such teachers, as well as what risks may attend the championing of such pedagogies in contexts that are subject to conflicting or competing education discourses and priorities. Theoretically, I draw on ideas of risk as well as on a growing body of scholarship that is concerned with the emotional geographies of citizenship and schooling.

Zombies, Monsters and Education: The Creation of the Young Citizen

There is a persistent concern amongst contemporary governments about the nature of the citizens that young people will become, a concern that manifests itself in a growing body of education policy which describes, and prescribes, the young citizen whom schooling is to shape. This policy is dressed in the language of freedom, initiative and self-improvement that have become so much part of the neoliberal zeitgeist. It purports to enable all young people to be healthy, active citizens with the capacity to direct their own lives as well as to improve the fabric of society. Such citizens are in contrast with those young people who are seen not only to be undemocratic and unhealthy but also to be deviant and dangerous, even monstrous. In this chapter, we deploy the metaphors of the zombie and the monster as a means through which to unpack contemporary educational policy within the Australian context. In the first section of the chapter, we introduce what we mean when we talk about zombies and monsters and how these metaphors can be used to discuss contemporary policy and the citizen they aim to (re)produce – the zombie citizen. We then bring this analysis to bear upon the policy itself as zombified. Finally, we argue that contemporary classrooms deploy the monstrous in order to encourage young people to become ideal neo-liberal citizens.

Off the Radar Democracy: Young People’s Alternative Acts of Citizenship in Australia

Compared to many other countries, Australia’s young population was shielded from the worst effects of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Perhaps as a result, recent youth protests and unrest witnessed internationally have been less dramatic in Australia. Nevertheless, many young people in Australia are still serious about their citizenship. They continue to be engaged in politics, but they express this in ‘off the radar’ ways that are not captured by current measures or analyses. This chapter explores the growth of youth social enterprise and volunteering as alternative spaces for youth citizenship. It draws upon field research conducted by the authors to consider young people’s attitudes to power, influence and democratic change-making, as well as implications for conventional notions and practices of politics.

Young people’s perceptions of power and influence as a basis for understanding contemporary citizenship

ABSTRACT Persistent simplistic binary discourses of young people’s citizenship portray them either as civically deficit and disengaged citizens or the creators of new democratic modes and approaches. This paper draws on field research with two groups of young people in Australia to better recognise the nuance of young people’s experiences of citizenship, power and influence. The study investigated the extent to which different groups of young people believe that they have the power to influence society; the ways in which they seek this influence; the current barriers to their influence; and what would enable them to have greater influence. Our analysis in this paper draws on Lukes’ concepts of power [2005. Power: A Radical View. 2nd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan] and Arvanitakis’ framework of citizenship engagement and empowerment [in Arvanitakis, J., and E. Sidoti. 2011. “The Politics of Change: Where to for Young People and Politics.” In Their Own Hands: Can Young People Change Australia?, edited by L. Walsh and R. Black, 11–20. Melbourne: ACER Press], but also builds on an emerging scholarship concerned with the geographic dimensions of young people’s citizenship engagement and action, as well as with the affective, relational and temporal dimensions of this engagement and action. Our findings suggest that power works in different ways to both constrain and liberate young people as citizens – sometimes at the same time. The paper concludes with an argument for the continuing need to understand young people’s lived and located experiences of engagement, power and influence in more nuanced and sophisticated ways. This includes reframing the discussion about young people’s experiences in terms of the nature of their democratic engagement and action rather than simply their citizenship.

Walking the talk: youth research in hard times

Series Editor Introduction. Acknowledgements. Introduction 1. Formal Frameworks as Resources for Ethical Youth Research, Kitty te Riele Power and Agency 2. Conducting Research with Young People in the Global South, Ruth Jeanes and Tess Kay 3. When things Go Wrong: A Reflection on Students as Youth Researchers, Judith Bessant, Michael Emslie and Rob Watts 4. Walking the Talk: Youth Research in Hard Times, Lucas Walsh, Rosalyn Black and Naomi Berman 5. Authentic Representations? Ethical Quandaries in Participatory Filmmaking with Young People, Alicia Blum-Ross Protection and Harm Prevention 6. Negotiating Access and Preventing Risk in Youth Domestic Labour Research in Ghana, Peace Mamle Tetteh 7. Knowledge without Harm? When Follow-up Services are Not Readily Available, Monica Ruiz-Casares 8. Young People and Sensitive Information: Managing Protection and Dignity, Sofia Marques da Silva 9. The Possibility of Symbolic Violence in Interviews with Young People Experiencing Homelessness, David Farrugia Trust and Respect 10. The death of a Participant: Moral Obligation, Consent and Care in Qualitative Longitudinal Research, Rosalind Edwards and Susie Weller 11. Research with Young People on Female Circumcision: Negotiating Cultural Sensitivity, Law and Transparency, Mona-Iren Hauge 12. Negotiating the Ethical Borders of Visual Research with young people, Bronwyn Wood and Joanna Kidman 13. Researching Young Peoples Online Spaces, Kirsty Young Conclusion 14. Ethical Challenges of Youth Research: Themes and Issues, Rachel Brooks Endnotes. Notes on Contributors. Index

Harnessing student voice and leadership: a study of one Australian Indigenous leadership program

ABSTRACT Despite growing scholarly interest in student voice and leadership over the past two decades, both terms continue to be used with little consensus about their meaning. They are also often evoked without much clarity or agreement as to how they should be enabled or enacted, for what purposes they should be fostered, or what conditions are necessary for them to take place. This article asks: ‘what are student voice and leadership, and how can they best be fostered in schools to enable disengaged or marginalized students?’ Drawing on the evaluation of a successful Indigenous leadership program in Australia, which works with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, this discussion unpacks certain constituent parts of student voice and leadership, and explores how they can successfully be strengthened through an educational program, and the challenges arising at the interface of the program and school life.

Spatial, Relational and Affective Understandings of Citizenship and Belonging for Young People Today: Towards a New Conceptual Framework

In recent times, globalising processes have disrupted traditional bonds between identity, citizenship and place, affecting how young people today think and feel about themselves as citizens who act, influence and feel they belong within different spatial contexts. This chapter critically reviews research and scholarship to formulate a more geographically-responsive vocabulary of citizenship and shed light on the relationship between citizenship, place and belonging. It argues for a spatial, relational and affective conceptual framework of young people’s citizenship that encompasses belonging as feeling, belonging in the context of others and belonging within places. This approach will provide a more dynamic, expansive notion of citizenship and belonging characterised by flexible social membership (Isin & Turner, Citizenship Studies, 11(1), 5–17, 2007) and spatial affiliations consistent with young people’s lives as citizens today.

Globalisation, Cosmopolitanism and Diaspora: What Are the Implications for Understanding Citizenship?.

Abstract Contemporary global flows of people, ideas and capital have led to profound changes in transnational interactions, affinities, forms of sociality and understandings of citizenship. Traditional vocabularies of citizenship struggle to cope with this rescaling of dimensions of citizenship in an increasingly globalised world. In addition, educational policies and practices remain primarily focused on normative, national conceptions of citizens, thus overlooking the multiple, diverse and plural conceptualisations of diverse young citizens in classrooms today. Arguing for a fresh approach that applies ‘cosmopolitan sociologies’ of education, in this paper, we propose a framework for understanding citizenship that centres on spatial, relational and affective dimensions of citizenship. We review recent research with young people highlighting the multiple ways in which young people are constituted as citizens through a range of social, affective and spatial affinities. The paper concludes by examining the implications of this framework for educational policies and practices.

Educating the Risky Citizen

It has been suggested that “[t]here is an indelible, axiomatic connecting line drawn between youth/young people and the future” (Foster & Spencer, 2011, p 128). This connection is ubiquitous within both the policy and practice of schooling, which commonly constructs youth as a state that is, above all, one of becoming various things: as Kelly puts it, “becoming an adult, becoming a citizen, becoming independent, becoming autonomous, becoming mature and becoming responsible” (2011b, p 48).