Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding Citizenship and National Political Identity Among Youth

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

This study investigates whether and how school classrooms become spaces of citizenship formation. The project focuses on the Arizona Revised Statute (ARS) § 15-112, which is the basis for elimination and alteration of ethnic studies courses in Arizona public and charter high schools. The ban focuses on specific courses, despite research showing how those courses are central to student success. Debates surrounding such courses reflect concerns about the U.S.-Mexico border, migration, and what constitutes American culture. Project investigators inquire into the process by which school classrooms and specific types of school curricula shape national identity, citizenship practices, and educational outcomes. The project focuses on the role of education among underrepresented groups to foster inclusion and national identity, and is directed and conducted by individuals who are underrepresented in STEM fields. The data will be disseminated through conference presentations and publications, reports to participants and through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Ethnic studies courses are currently a topic of similar debate in other states, and an analysis of the impacts of the ethnic studies ban in Arizona is likely to inform decisions made elsewhere. This research examines the following questions: 1) How do high school classrooms function as political spaces, and what are the associated educational outcomes? 2) Does the ban promote a form of whitened citizenship in the United States? If so, how? 3) What are the processes of citizen-subject formation available to teachers and high school students in this context? The project's intellectual merit derives from new disciplinary engagements with the geographies of young people and the role of the school as both a system and a space in constructing and producing the citizen. Until recently social science research on minors emphasized parenting and behavioral studies, and largely ignored the political context of minors. This project addresses the distinctness of political spaces inhabited by teenagers and how they are engaged in the process of citizen formation. The investigators will collect data through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with policy-makers, teachers, activists and former students; narrative analysis of court documents and public records; and direct observation of classes, Arizona House of Representatives Education Committee meetings, and Tucson Unified School District school board meetings. This combination of qualitative approaches is designed to triangulate information about professed beliefs, political narratives, and observed behavior.