“We Have the Power”: Youth, Racial Equity, and Policy in a Predominantly White High School

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dc.contributor.advisorLucero, Audrey
dc.contributor.authorGardner, N.
dc.date.accessioned2019-04-30T21:14:07Z
dc.date.available2019-04-30T21:14:07Z
dc.date.issued2019-04-30
dc.description.abstractKeywords: education policy, racial equity, youth, student voice, power relations The confluence of racial equity work – where district policy, students, staff, and administrators converge – creates significant tensions when enacting an educational racial equity policy that is intended to produce meaningful and transformative racial equity for all students. It is not only critical to analyze how educational policies conceptualize race and equity in relation to students’ experiences in schools, but also how students are positioned as recipients, stakeholders, and/or partners within such policies. This study examines the effects of power “at its extremities” when policy, race, and equity are localized in relation to beliefs, actions, and behaviors between students and adults enacting racial equity work. Using student focus groups with students of color and white students, participant observations from positions as a teacher/researcher, the research considers Foucault’s (1980; 1994) work on power to examine how students identify, engage, and address racial equity issues in their school. Educational equity policies discursively constitute racial inequities by defining “racial equity” from positions outside of schools, away from the very places where policies are enacted. The study explores how students of color and white students navigate tensions between themselves, administrators, and staff members as they organized a student-led racial equity club then leadership class to address racial inequities in a predominantly white high school. Despite the implementation of a six-year District racial equity policy, students’ “lived experiences” questioned enactments of the policy by administrators and staff members (see Dumas, 2014). The study argues meanings about race and equity are caught within “divergent discourses” (see Ball, 2013); that is, who is allowed to participate in conversations about race and equity, and who decides what racial equity issues take precedence in a predominantly white high school. Students are positioned in schools in unstable and contested ways to administrators and staff members, even if invited to participate in racial equity work as “student voice.” The concept of “student voice” in school-based decisions or policy work has inherent tensions between adults and students, however this should not dissuade policy processes that include students. Student involvement is strongly, but cautiously encouraged.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/24544
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregon
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.
dc.subjectEducation policyen_US
dc.subjectPower relationsen_US
dc.subjectRacial equityen_US
dc.subjectStudent voiceen_US
dc.subjectYouthen_US
dc.title“We Have the Power”: Youth, Racial Equity, and Policy in a Predominantly White High School
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
thesis.degree.disciplineDepartment of Education Studies
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregon
thesis.degree.leveldoctoral
thesis.degree.namePh.D.

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