Toward the School as Sanctuary Concept in Multicultural Urban Education: Implications for Small High School Reform

Abstract

This article describes the school as sanctuary concept through the voices of students enrolled in a small urban high school that curricularly privileges the linguistic, cultural, and sociopolitical realities of its communities. Moreover, this particular school was founded by students and teachers over 30 years ago as a direct response to pedagogically and psychologically colonizing large comprehensive high schools in a major urban school district. According to students, a school becomes a sanctuary when there are four essential components in place. These sanctuary-like attributes include multiple definitions of caring relations between students and their teachers, the importance of a familial-like school environment, the necessity of psychologically and physically safe school spaces, and allowing students a forum in which they are encouraged to affirm their racial/ethnic pride. Implications for forwarding this concept within a larger discourse around urban school reform are discussed.