Urban Education and Segregation: The Responses from Young People

Abstract

This article takes as a starting point the segregation of urban areas and discusses schooling in the neighbourhoods typically associated with problems and challenges, in order to explore young people's responses to their schooling and social positions. Such responses include individual acts, such as rejecting further schooling or dismissing the local school in favour of prestigious ones, as well as the development of shared understandings and collective formations. The article focuses in particular on young people's responses through aesthetic practices, informal education and public political actions. Although research suggests that youths in poor areas are increasingly individualised and shows that schools provide them with little help to understand and act upon their circumstances in school, the analyses here also bring to light young people's rather strong belief in collective actions; students' formations of resistance groups and political knowledge appear as crucial resources, and, although scarce, teacher support and teaching about political actions appear as important.Urban education, as a field of research, revolves around contrasts: on one side, the urban associations with poverty, marginalisation and problems, and on the other, the links to opportunities, high culture and capital. This urban-urbane problem also takes the form of physical segregation as people with low income/education and immigrant backgrounds are grouped together in certain areas whereas those with more capital dwell elsewhere. Young people in these respective areas face different conditions for schooling as well as, more generally, for living. This article focus on the young people in marginalised areas, typically associated with problems and challenges, in order to explore their responses to schooling and their social positions.

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