“We can be leaders”: minoritized youths’ subjugated (civic) knowledges and social futures in two urban contexts

Abstract

This article problematizes traditional and critical conceptions of civic knowledge and centers minoritized youth voices. We utilize case studies from two critical qualitative studies in two urban contexts to suggest that minoritized youths’ subjugated knowledges are a type of civic knowledge and necessary for youth to imagine agentic social futures. These case studies indicated that youths’ community-based curricular experiences illuminated and tapped into their racialized experiences and embodied knowledge of gentrification, immigration, and racism. As youth expressed and built upon this knowledge, they discussed policy solutions to the injustices they identified, developed a deeper sense of belonging and solidarity with people in their communities, and articulated a desire to “become leaders” and agents of civic and social change. We offer implications for research and call for civic education anchored in the insurrection of subjugated knowledges and youths’ race-conscious imaginations of more just and participatory civic and social futures.