Relocating the Deficit

2014/04/28 by Bianca J. Baldridge · 196 citations
Social Sciences · #Agency (philosophy) #Charter #Criminology #Desegregation #Disadvantaged #Diverse Education Studies and Reforms #Ethnography #Ethos #Gender studies #Law #Neoliberalism (international relations) #Parental Involvement in Education #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Public administration #Public relations #Rhetoric #Social science #Sociology #Work (physics) #Youth Development and Social Support #Youth studies #Youth work

paper · doi:10.3102/0002831214532514

published in American Educational Research Journal 51(3), 440-472 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2014/04/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse as institutions that “save” and “rescue” Black youth. Such rhetoric perpetuates an ethos of pathology that diminishes the agency of youth and their communities. Through ethnographic research with 20 youth workers at a college completion and youth development after-school program in the urban Northeast, findings indicate that tensions arise as youth workers strive to reimagine Black youth in humanizing ways despite pressures to frame them as broken and in need of fixing to compete for funding with charter schools. Data also reveal deep tensions in youth workers’ experiences as they critique neoliberal reforms that shape their work; yet, at the same time, they are forced to hold students to markers of success defined by neoliberal ideals. These tensions result in youth workers downplaying the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of their work.

Cited by

• Justice-Oriented Visions for Public Education in a Multiracial Democracy: Insights From Research on School Integration
• Applying a Social Justice Lens to Youth Mentoring: A Review of the Literature and Recommendations for Practice
• Transformative Community-Based Education Programs: Reimaging a Sense of Community Through Critically Conscious Programming
• A systematic review of the What Works Clearinghouse's behavioral intervention evidence: Does it relate to Black children
• (Re)Imagining Black Boyhood: Toward a Critical Framework for Educational Research
• “Thank You, Black Twitter”: State Violence, Digital Counterpublics, and Pedagogies of Resistance
• The Potential for Youth Programs To Promote African American Youth's Development of Ethnic and Racial Identity. [europepmc]
• Preparing education for the crises of tomorrow: A framework for adaptability. [europepmc]
• Centering the Heterogeneity of Black Adolescents' Experiences: Guidance for Within-Group Designs among African Diasporic Communities. [europepmc]
• Where's the BIPOC Blueprint for Healthy Youth Development? The Role of Scientific Omissions in Our Struggle for Science Translation and Racial Equity in the United States. [europepmc]
• Freedom dreaming in carceral spaces: Youth care workers' imagined alternatives to anti-Black racism in residential facilities. [europepmc]
• Facilitators of and Barriers to Resilience Among Black Children and Youth in Canada and the United States: Protocol for a Scoping Review. [europepmc]

Related

• Transformative Community-Based Education Programs: Reimaging a Sense of Community Through Critically Conscious Programming
• Out-of-School Time Programs in the United States in an Era of Racial Reckoning: Insights on Equity From Practitioners, Scholars, Policy Influencers, and Young People
• Dispositions Toward (Collective) Struggle and Educational Resilience in the Inner City: A Case Analysis of Six African-American High School Students
• Anti-Black Racism and Historical Trauma: Pushing the Positive Youth Development Paradigm
• The Limits of Representation in Youth Voice Research for Equity