On the Power of Separate Spaces: Teachers and Students Writing (Righting) Selves and Future

Abstract

The debate on segregated and desegregated schools generally has been framed as an either-or matter, and in fact, legally, this has been the case. What we have not investigated to any great extent are programs within already desegregated schools that serve an identifiable population of students for the express purpose of cultural affirmation and advancement of the targeted group. In this article we provide data that attest to the potential power of such spaces, investigating a girls’ group in an urban magnet school and a homeroom set aside for Vietnamese students in a neighborhood-based urban comprehensive school. Using ethnographic data, we articulate both the power of such spaces and the contradictory impulses within such arrangements.