Representing spaces of/for "at-opportunity" urban youth.
- ISSN: 03626784
- DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-873X.2010.00521.x
Abstract
In this essay review of four texts, I argue that adolescents and young adults, and the spaces they occupy (including, but not limited to, schools), should be viewed as persons/places capable of engagement, pedagogy, and opportunity. Current schooling and political practices, however, threaten such spaces and adolescents in a way that fractures connections and hinders the development of important relationships that aid in overall identity development. Adolescence has been popularly conceptualized as a troublesome time period filled with angst and confusion. As such, our collective treatment of teens in school settings (on a myriad of issues ranging from recess time to sex-education) has taken a more restrictive stance. At the same time, broader neoliberal politics have fueled an assessment-driven school culture (Dimitriadis, 2007) that prioritizes individual performance on a narrow set of subjects (e.g., math, science and reading) and that trumps teacher creativity and innovation, while limiting pedagogical moments that are organic and student-focused. The four texts reviewed here engage this argument at different levels and further suggest that qualitative ethnographic methods, creative approaches to learning (such as theatre, the arts and collective biography), and a commitment to understanding human interaction and relational connection (what I consider the in-between) can re-focus our efforts on identifying and building spaces for social justice and pedagogical encounters for youth, educators, researchers and communities.
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