What do you mean by ‘anti‐oppressive education’? Student interpretations of a high school leadership program

Abstract

Although theories on anti‐oppressive education abound, few scholars have conducted empirical studies of anti‐oppressive educational curricula to test the alignment of theories—constructed largely by university scholars—and practices carried out by K–12 educators and students. While feminist poststructuralist theorists have critiqued critical pedagogy and multicultural scholars for not interrogating their universalist claims and for overemphasizing rationalist discourses, many of their calls for situated, performative pedagogy remain abstract. The following paper attempts to make some of the conceptualizations of social justice education concrete by examining student responses to two experiential activities in a high school leadership program. Comprising students from eight high schools located in a single metropolitan area, this program sought to increase student consciousness of the pervasive prejudice and discrimination in US society and, subsequently, to move these students to action. This paper analyzes the student interpretations of two awareness‐raising activities at the program’s leadership camp to argue that on‐the‐ground anti‐oppressive educational endeavors require significant time, commitment and organizational structures as well as the integration of poststructuralist, critical, multicultural and feminist ideas.