The ‘Dead Ends’: Reconsidering place for school leaders

• Published in: Theory in action Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 1 - 53
• Main Authors: Boske, Christa, Gershon, Walter, Benavente-McEnery, Lillian, Speights-Binet, Jennifer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Fair Lawn Transformative Studies Institute 01.01.2019
• Subjects: Case studies; Childhood; Classism; Community; Critical theory; Education; Educational administration; Educational leadership; Focus groups; Geodemographics; Human geography; Middle school students; Poverty; Public schools; Qualitative research; Schools; Social justice; Theory; United Kingdom > UK; New York; United States > US
• DOI: 10.3798/tia.1937-0237.1901
• ISSN: 1937-0229

This qualitative study employs a framework that sits at the intersection of the overlapping fields of critical and human in order to examine the ways in which 42 Southern, middle school Students of Color who live in a high-poverty community known as the Dead Ends understand the significance of school as a meaningful place in their development. The case study approach had ethnographic tendencies in that we relied on community maps as a primary data source, conducted interviews, received written narratives from participants, conducted focus groups, utilized demographic data, and engaged in participant observation. Analysis of findings revealed students from the Dead Ends did not identify school as a significant place in either their maps or ecological conceptualizations of their lives. What emerges is a critical-place-oriented model to provide school communities with intellectual tools to examine multiple ways to interrupt uneven geographies and revisit the influence of childhood places.