Unapologetically Disrupting Systemic Inequities Impacting Black Youth: CBES Leaders Navigating Insider-Outsider Roles in School Partnership
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| Title: | Unapologetically Disrupting Systemic Inequities Impacting Black Youth: CBES Leaders Navigating Insider-Outsider Roles in School Partnership |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Ishmael A. Miller (ORCID |
| Source: | AERA Open. 2025 11(1). |
| Availability: | SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 18 |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | High Schools Secondary Education |
| Descriptors: | African American Students, Youth, High School Students, High Schools, Administrators, Community Education, Partnerships in Education, Race, Power Structure, Cooperative Programs, African American Leadership, School Community Relationship, Racism |
| ISSN: | 2332-8584 |
| Abstract: | Community-based education spaces (CBESs) play an important role in partnering with schools to disrupt systemic inequities that shape the educational experiences of Black youth. However, these collaborations often unfold within unequal power dynamics that limit their potential to achieve transformative outcomes. This study examined how leaders of Voices of Change, a predominantly Black-led CBES located in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Baycrest, partnered with high school administrators to collaborate with and challenge the school system to address systemic inequities impacting Black youth. Specifically, the study examined how the CBES leaders leverage their role within a school partnership and employ community organizing strategies when school and district administrators dismiss the importance of collaboration to advance equity for Black youth. This study used a critical ethnographic approach, drawing on the frameworks of wake work and culturally sustaining leadership to analyze how the CBES and school leaders negotiated power, collaboration, and tension within their partnership. Data were collected through the acquisition of artifacts, documents, interviews, and observations of the collaboration of Voices of Change with a local high school. This study reveals that when the partners engaged in consistent and intentional collaboration, they catalyzed critical changes for Black youth. However, resistance from school and district administrators constrained progress toward addressing systemic inequities. In response, the CBES used community organizing strategies to empower students and staff to address systemic inequities impacting Black students. While prior studies have examined such partnerships, they have not done so through a lens that interrogates the specificity of anti-Blackness. By centering the specificity of anti-Blackness, this study identifies barriers within CBES--school partnerships and illuminates the strategies that Black communities use to navigate and resist the challenges that emerge. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2026 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1494522 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | Community-based education spaces (CBESs) play an important role in partnering with schools to disrupt systemic inequities that shape the educational experiences of Black youth. However, these collaborations often unfold within unequal power dynamics that limit their potential to achieve transformative outcomes. This study examined how leaders of Voices of Change, a predominantly Black-led CBES located in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Baycrest, partnered with high school administrators to collaborate with and challenge the school system to address systemic inequities impacting Black youth. Specifically, the study examined how the CBES leaders leverage their role within a school partnership and employ community organizing strategies when school and district administrators dismiss the importance of collaboration to advance equity for Black youth. This study used a critical ethnographic approach, drawing on the frameworks of wake work and culturally sustaining leadership to analyze how the CBES and school leaders negotiated power, collaboration, and tension within their partnership. Data were collected through the acquisition of artifacts, documents, interviews, and observations of the collaboration of Voices of Change with a local high school. This study reveals that when the partners engaged in consistent and intentional collaboration, they catalyzed critical changes for Black youth. However, resistance from school and district administrators constrained progress toward addressing systemic inequities. In response, the CBES used community organizing strategies to empower students and staff to address systemic inequities impacting Black students. While prior studies have examined such partnerships, they have not done so through a lens that interrogates the specificity of anti-Blackness. By centering the specificity of anti-Blackness, this study identifies barriers within CBES--school partnerships and illuminates the strategies that Black communities use to navigate and resist the challenges that emerge. |
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| ISSN: | 2332-8584 |
