Sites of Liberation or Sites of Despair?: The Challenges and Possibilities of Democratic Education in an Urban Public School in New York City. (December 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hantzopoulos, Maria
• Is Part Of: Anthropology & education quarterly. Volume 46:Number 4(2015:Dec.)
• Page Start: 345
• Page End: 362
• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Subjects: democratic schools -- youth agency -- critical pedagogy -- empowerment -- social justice; Educational anthropology -- Periodicals; Education -- Periodicals; Anthropologie et éducation -- Périodiques; Electronic journals; 306.43
• DOI: 10.1111/aeq.12115
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0161-7761

Abstract

Abstract : This article considers the possibilities of critical democratic education through the lived experiences of students at an urban U.S. public school. I show how students shape their own educational trajectories amid larger meta‐narratives about schooling to illuminate the complexities and paradoxes of democratic schools. I argue that democratic schools are neither sites of transformation nor sites of despair, but rather sites where agency is negotiated, contested, and remade, often in unexpected, unassuming, and contradictory ways.