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“It's the Worst Place to Live”: Urban Youth and the Challenge of School-Based
Civic Learning
Beth C. Rubin a; Brian Hayes a; Keith Benson a
a
Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey,

Online Publication Date: 01 June 2009

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of School-Based Civic Learning',Theory Into Practice,48:3,213 — 221
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 Theory Into Practice, 48:213–221, 2009
Copyright © The College of Education and Human Ecology, The Ohio State University
ISSN: 0040-5841 print/1543-0421 online
DOI: 10.1080/00405840902997436

Beth C. Rubin
Brian Hayes
Keith Benson

‘‘It’s the Worst Place to Live’’:

Urban Youth and the Challenge
of School-Based Civic Learning
Downloaded By: [Rubin, Beth C.] At: 20:32 7 July 2009

One of the primary aims of education in the education practices and, by extension, the civic
United States is to prepare youth to contribute mission of schooling.
to civic life in a democracy. Urban youth have
daily school and community experiences with
poverty, violence, and injustice that complicate
their relationship with civic life. In this article It’s dirty. People always fighting. People always
the authors explore the ramifications of these dying. If you just walk down the street you see
drugs being handed out. It’s the worst place to
experiences for youth civic identity development
live. (Narciso, 12th-grade student, Surrey High
and consider how new understandings of the School)1
civic learning and identity development of urban
adolescents might be used to rejuvenate civic

Beth C. Rubin is an associate professor, and Brian

Hayes and Keith Benson are graduate students, at the
Graduate School of Education at Rutgers, the State
University of New Jersey.
Correspondence should be addressed to Beth C.
Rubin, 10 Seminary Place, Rutgers, The State Uni-
versity of New Jersey, Graduate School of Education,
New Brunswick, NJ 08901. E-mail: beth.rubin@gse.
rutgers.edu
O NE OF THE PRIMARY AIMS of education
in the United States is to prepare youth to
contribute to civic life in a democracy. Narciso’s
description of his community is bluntly evocative
and deeply felt. Yet most civic education (and
schooling in general) does not take into account
this particular vantage point on civic life. Urban
youth have daily school and community experi-
ences with poverty, violence, and injustice that
complicate their relationship with civic life. In

213
 Urban Youth’s Perspectives on School, Teachers, Pedagogy, and Curricula
this article, we explore the ramifications of these
experiences for youth civic identity development
and consider how new understandings of the
civic learning and identity development of urban
adolescents might be used to rejuvenate civic
education practices and, by extension, the civic
mission of schooling.
Civic Learning and Identity
Development of Urban Youth
There is growing concern about the disen-
franchisement of youth, particularly urban youth,
from civic life. The topic is frequently inves-
tigated through statistical analyses of large na-
Downloaded By: [Rubin, Beth C.] At: 20:32 7 July 2009
tional data sets, studies in which civic knowl-
edge is generally defined in terms of students’
mastery of facts about national, state, and local
government, and civic engagement is assessed
through indicators such as newspaper readership
and intent to vote. Multiple studies suggest that
differences in the civic achievement of U.S.
students appear to be linked to the racial and
socioeconomic backgrounds of the students being
tested (e.g., Baldi, Perie, Skidmore, Greenberg,
& Hahn, 2001; Niemi & Junn, 1998). Yet these
statistics do not capture what a number of re-
searchers working in other research traditions
have noted: Many urban youth show passionate
concern for civic issues (Fine Torre, Burns, &
Payne, 2007; Jackson et al., 2004–2005; Morrell,
2004; Rubin, 2007).
Sociocultural researchers find that larger so-
cial forces and young people’s daily experiences
in schools and communities affect their emerging
senses of themselves as civic beings in ways that
large-scale, quantitative measures are unable to
capture (Bhavnani, 1991; Ginwright & James,
2002; Nasir & Kirshner, 2003; Rippberger &
Staudt, 2003). To understand this process, we
must consider how students’ daily experiences
in a society marked by racial and socioeconomic
inequalities become part of their evolving under-
standings of themselves as citizens. This reframes
discussion of civic learning to include the notion
that civic identity (Youniss, McLellan, & Yates,
1997) is constructed or developed amid particu-
214
lar structures and practices (Holland, Lachicotte,
Skinner, & Cain, 1998). An examination of what
young people do know about civic life from their
daily experiences as citizens, rather than what
they do not know, can inform our understand-
ing of the development of civic identity among
diverse students.
In an interpretive study of civic identity con-
ducted at four different public middle and high
schools (for a detailed description, see Rubin,
2007), Rubin found that students’ daily expe-
riences and social positions informed their un-
derstanding of civics in powerful ways. Many
urban youth of color in the study pointed to
disjunctures between the civic ideals expressed
in civics textbooks and the reality of their lives.
The results of this study and others indicate that
young people make sense of their identities as
civic beings through the particularities of their
experiences as members of specific communi-
ties. It also suggests that teaching practices that
engage students in discussion, investigation, and
analysis of the civic problems they encounter in
their daily lives hold potential for fostering more
aware and empowered civic identities in youth
(Kahne & Westheimer, 2003; Parker & Hess,
2001).
This article focuses, in particular, on the
thoughts and experiences of students at one
of three schools participating in a follow-up
study to the one described above, the imple-
mentation of an approach to civic learning in
the U.S. history classroom designed to engage
students’ perspectives and experiences (the cur-
riculum, a problem-posing approach to civics
education, is described in detail in Rubin, 2008).
This was a low performing comprehensive pub-
lic high school in one of the state’s most
impoverished and violence-ridden urban areas.
At Surrey High School, civic learning was a
complex endeavor, taking place in a context
rife with disjuncture. Students experienced the
failure of civic institutions on a daily basis.
Their desire to work for change and to par-
ticipate in civic and community life was in-
tertwined with a sense of despair and lack of
hope in being able to fight the overwhelm-
ing problems faced by the community. Through
 Rubin, Hayes, and Benson
the problem-posing approach, students partici-
pated in discussions, investigated pressing civic
problems, and expressed themselves through
writing.
Civic Identity in the Crossfire:
Disjuncture and Possibility
Surrey High School serves 1,314 students,
with a student body that is 50% Latino, 46%
Black, 2% Asian, and 1% White. Reflective of a
city in which 50% of youth under 18 live below
the poverty line and the mean family income is
$36,197, 65% of Surrey’s students receive free
or reduced-price lunch. The high poverty rate
Downloaded By: [Rubin, Beth C.] At: 20:32 7 July 2009
and a depressed local economy contribute to a
26.6% mobility rate at the school, far above the
state average of 10.1%, and 22.5% of the school’s
students are designated as special education stu-
dents. In the 2006–2007 school year, 41% of
students tested at the proficient or advanced pro-
ficient level on the state’s language arts/literacy
assessment, compared to 83% students statewide.
In mathematics, only 12% of students had scores
that were proficient or advanced proficient, com-
pared to 73% of students statewide.
Kevin Brooks, the participating teacher, is an
African American man in his late 20s who lives
in the community and is in his fourth year of
teaching at Surrey High School. His two U.S.
history II classes, both designated as special
needs classes, had a shifting population that
hovered at around 15 students per class, all of
whom were African American and Latino, with
the exception of one Arab American student.
Mr. Brooks was excited to teach his students
what he hoped would be a more relevant history
curriculum, and even more so, he wanted his
students to actually see that they could do things
to make a difference. He also hoped that, through
the civic action project (described below), “he
would be able to give them a moment where
a lot of attention is brought to them for doing
something good.”
The next section describes the disjuncture Mr.
Brooks’ students experienced on a daily basis,
their hopes for change, their discouragement,
Urban Youth and School-Based Civic Learning
and their experiences with the problem-posing
approach.
Disjuncture
Disjuncture is a contrast between the civic ide-
als of the United States and students’ daily lives.
Surrey High students participating in this study
had daily experiences with violence, drugs, injus-
tice, and inadequate schooling, and expressed low
levels of trust both in the civic institutions in their
lives and in their fellow community members that
demonstrated such disjuncture.
Drugs and Violence
Surrey students participating in our study had
seen a great degree of violence, drug use, and
other forms of law breaking in their community,
and they expressed little faith that the police were
willing or able to improve the situation. Of stu-
dents surveyed, 86% had experienced violence in
the neighborhood. Eighty-four percent disagreed
or strongly disagreed that their neighborhood was
one of the safest in the state, and 68% disagreed
or strongly disagreed that their neighborhood was
safe at all.
Each student interviewed at Surrey High ex-
pressed concern about the danger in their city.
Esteban described his surroundings in grim detail
in one of his scrapbook entries:
My first entry is about the needles that you see
in the streets all over Surrey. I don’t see why
the state won’t clean it up. Children could be
walking to and from school and see it. They
might pick it up and hurt themselves or catch
a virus or disease. If I were mayor of Surrey, I
would get people who are determined to clean
up the city and make a difference: : : :
Every day after school I walk home. On the
streets that I live on, there is a house where I
think they do and sell drugs. People have parties
there. And I also think there is prostitution
going on. There are fights inside and outside
of the house all night long. There should be a
police rundown on the house and arrest all the
criminals.
215
 Urban Youth’s Perspectives on School, Teachers, Pedagogy, and Curricula
Illegal drug sales and use were also prevalent,
according to the students. Stacey told us, “The
problem we have is that they’ll sit on the corner,
and they’ll do their drugs right there and a child
will walk by and be like ‘Oh mom, look.’ ”
Students had experiences with violence that
were immediate and dramatic. Narciso explained,
Look, my brother got shot in the stomach 7
times : : : all over his body, 7 times. His friend
got shot 4 times in the heart because he was in
front of him: : : : He’s OK. He’s still living, it’s
just that his arm is paralyzed right now.
Hope wrote in one of her scrapbook entries,
I attend Surrey High School. People call it
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the R.I.P. school because so many people are
dying. Dying because people hanging with the
wrong crowd. People are being pressured by
their peers to join gangs. Parents having to bury
their children before their time. I think that this
violence stuff makes no sense at all.
These teens, many of them parents themselves,
had a keen sense of the impact on the com-
munity’s children of the pervasive violence. As
Hope explained in writing, “Another reason I
want to move out of Surrey is if I choose to
have kids in the future, they won’t be exposed to
this violence.” Violence was so endemic that one
student, Manuel, told Mr. Brooks that he didn’t
think that serving in Iraq would be worse than
living in Surrey. Asked if he’d go to Iraq, Manuel
replied, “Hell, yeah—I’d see crazy people but it’s
not like I don’t see crazy stuff here. There’s a war
going on here, dawg. Sometimes you get a nice
paycheck when you come back.”
Perceptions of School
Most of the participating students did not
experience Surrey High School as a completely
safe, caring, or educationally compelling envi-
ronment. Seventy-one percent of the students sur-
veyed said they had received unfair treatment by
a teacher or school official at Surrey High School
and 86% of students said they had experienced
violence at school. Ninety-two percent disagreed
216
or strongly disagreed that their school was “one
of the best in the state.”
When asked if he felt safe at school, Narciso
told us, “Unsafe. Because last year we had a
riot; my cousin got beat up.” Manuel did not
feel welcome, saying, “I don’t like this school at
all. Sometimes I feel like I’m coming into a jail,
you’ve go to come in through metal detectors.
They search you no matter what.”
In interviews, students suggested that many
teachers did not care about them. Manuel told
us, “Like, some teachers in this school don’t
even care; they don’t care if you go to class or
not. They just pass you just to pass you.” When,
during a class discussion, Mr. Brooks asked the
students if anyone in the class had learned about
the day’s topic (abuses of power during wartime)
before, Narciso replied “No one, because people
at this school don’t give a f*ck about us. Because
teachers aren’t like you. They sit on their asses
and get paid.” Manuel, when asked what advice
he would give to a new student coming to Surrey,
replied, “Choose another school.”
Low Levels of Trust
Students expressed a very low level of trust in
both the institutions in their lives and the people
around them. In the participating class, 0% of
the students surveyed said they always trusted
the national government, the local government,
Congress, the schools, and people in this country,
and 64% said they never trusted people in this
country. Only 15% said they always trusted the
police, and 83% disagreed or strongly disagreed
that police in the community treated people fairly.
This lack of trust was evident in our interviews
with the students. Benny told us, “Half the people
don’t even follow the laws.” Narciso, when asked
how good a job the police were doing keeping the
community safe, responded
No, negative, like, 20 points. They don’t do
nothing about it. Look, my brother got shot
in the stomach 7 times: : : : They’ll say they’re
working on it, but next thing you know, two
years went by and they don’t know nothing
about it.
 Rubin, Hayes, and Benson
He felt the police were corrupt, “All you got to
do is give them a thousand dollars to turn their
heads and they do it.” Benny agreed, telling us,
If the cops stop killing people and start do-
ing what they’re supposed to do [things might
change]. The cops, if they’re right down on your
block, they might not even look for drugs, they
might come out there just to mess with you.
Would he go to the police if he had a problem?
“No.”
Daily survival was on the conscience of many
of the participating students, and their writing
often provided an opportunity for them to express
these concerns. In a scrapbook entry, Benny
reflected on the increased violence in the Eastside
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of Surrey, his neighborhood, concluding, “People
don’t care if you live or die, so you can’t trust
anybody.”
Injustice
Students were keenly aware of unjust treat-
ment and differences between their community
and others. Of students surveyed, 86% said they
had experienced unfair treatment by a police
officer, and 71% reported unfair treatment by
a school official. In response to the statement
“It makes me angry when I think about the
conditions some people have to live in,” 84%
agreed or strongly agreed. Eighty-five percent
agreed or strongly agreed with the statement,
“When I think about the hard times some people
are going through, I wonder what’s wrong with
this country,” and 77% agreed or strongly agreed
with the statement, “I get mad when I hear about
people being treated unjustly.”
Students described the relative lack of oppor-
tunity to be found in Surrey, compared to other
communities. Manuel told us,
I got a lot of friends who are drug dealers: : : :
They’re smart, you know, they’re good at sports,
but there’s no sports for them to go after. Yeah,
they played for the school, but here there’s
nothing else in the summer for them to do, you
know, except do nothing and selling drugs, and
then they forget all about their talent. You know,
Urban Youth and School-Based Civic Learning
there’s not enough jobs for them to work, you
know?
Poignantly, Manuel told the interviewer, “We’re
all human beings. You know, why should some-
body be treated better just because they live
in another place?” Benny, comparing Surrey to
a neighboring affluent, White community, said,
“The air : : : it’s just better there. It just smells
better in Pine Bluff. You can tell when you’re
there. It’s just different. Better.”
Desire to Participate in Civic
and Community Life
Despite the strong expressions of disjuncture
described above, students also expressed pride in
their community and had strong desires to par-
ticipate in civic and community life, to improve
the community’s situation for themselves and for
others.
Of the students surveyed, 94% said they would
probably or certainly volunteer time to help poor
or elderly in the community, and 92% said they
would probably or certainly work with a group
to solve a problem in the community in which
they lived. Seventy-one percent said they would
probably or certainly try to talk to people and
explain why they should vote for or against one
of the parties or candidates during an election,
and 66% agreed or strongly agreed “I think it’s
important to protest when something in society
needs changing.” Sixty-five percent said they
would probably or certainly collect money for a
social cause, and 60% agreed or strongly agreed
that “by working with others in the community, I
can help make things better.” Fifty-seven percent
said they would probably or certainly participate
in a peaceful protest march or rally, and 50% said
they would probably or certainly get involved
in issues like health or safety that affect their
community.
Students felt deep connection to, and some
degree of pride in, their community, complex
emotions, given the violence and lack of oppor-
tunities they faced. The best thing about living in
Surrey, according to Benny, was “being around
217
 Urban Youth’s Perspectives on School, Teachers, Pedagogy, and Curricula
my friends and family. The people I like.” The
worst? “It’s dangerous and dirty.” Manuel, who
confided in an interview that he had once dealt
both drugs and guns, credited Surrey for “making
him the man he is today.” When asked to describe
Surrey, he replied, “I mean, yeah, Surrey has a
big murder rate and drug rate, but you can’t bring
that amongst everybody in Surrey, you know
what I’m saying? I’m proud of Surrey, I’m glad
I come from Surrey.”
Students had ideas about how to solve the
problems, many of which involved improvements
in policing. Estaban wrote,
In Surrey, I wonder why the police never arrest
the drug dealers on the corner. The police
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always just drive by and never do anything. If
the police stop by them and check them, I bet
they would have something illegal on them. If
I were the police, I would stop at every corner
in Surrey, and arrest the drug dealers in Surrey.
Then I would make sure they never get out of
jail.
Despite his frustrations with law enforcement in
his city, he wrote that “After high school, I want
to go to the United States Marine Corps. And
after that, I would like to become a Surrey police
officer.”
The problems in the community fueled stu-
dents’ desires to remedy them. Manuel wrote in
his journal, “My plan after high school is to go
to the Air Force for about 4 years. After I finish
the Air Force I want to go to the police academy
so I can help stop the drugs in Surrey. So the
kids in the future won’t have to go through what
I went through.” He wanted to change things for
younger children,
I don’t really talk for myself, because I can
handle my, I can work, you know? I really
talk for the younger people. My brother, I want
things better for my brother. I don’t want to see
my younger brother go on a bad path. So I don’t
really talk for me, I’m already 18; I’m ready to
hit the real world. You know. I’m talking for the
younger kids that got talent, that actually want
to be somebody.
218
Discouragement and Hopelessness
Despite their desire to help, however, many
students expressed discouragement and hopeless-
ness based on the situations they faced. In inter-
views and class discussions, students described
solutions as elusive, beyond their control, and
personally dangerous.
The quandary of civic action in this setting
was on full display during a class discussion in
the midst of the Conflict and Resolution theme.
What follows is an excerpt from a discussion, led
by Mr. Brooks, on the Edmund Burke quote “The
only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing.”
Mr. Brooks: Was there ever a time when you
didn’t do anything about a problem in your
community?
Evan: I was picking up my nephew and some
dudes were fighting and people called the cops
and no one said anything. No one gave cops
info about the fight.
Mr. Brooks: If I asked you that, what do you
think it [the quote] means? For evil to happen,
good people must sit back and do nothing.
Manuel: It’s true. Yes, there’s a lot in this com-
munity that you see that you can’t do something
about—drugs.
Mr. Brooks: Suppose you thought something
was right—is it always right to get involved?
Evan: You know drugs are bad but you can’t
fix it.
Mr. Brooks: What about drug dealers : : : you
see them in the same spot, same day, all the
time : : : What if you were to report them?
Manuel: You can’t snitch in the hood. You get
popped.
What for those living in more affluent commu-
nities might seem to be an obvious action, calling
the police to report drug dealing, for Surrey stu-
dents, would involve great personal risk. Students
frequently encountered what they knew to be
dangerous and illegal activity, without feeling
as if they could do anything about it. Manuel
 Rubin, Hayes, and Benson
reflected this sense of hopelessness, saying, “One
person can’t make a difference. If it’s one, don’t
get involved.” “I can’t do anything where I live,”
echoed Evan. Narciso wavered a bit, telling the
interviewer that “if a lot of people get together,
they could like stop it [drug dealing] a little bit,”
before concluding, “but it ain’t never going to
stop.”
Implications for Teaching:
Lessons From Mr. Brooks
Many of Mr. Brooks’ students had difficult
lives outside of schools, including heavy home
responsibilities (many with children of their
Downloaded By: [Rubin, Beth C.] At: 20:32 7 July 2009
own), arduous work schedules, and family con-
flicts. Mr. Brooks reflected, “That’s the hardest
thing to overcome, is their outside issues. Outside
things that they have to deal with day to day.”
Yet the problem-posing approach Mr. Brooks
employed in his social studies classes engaged
students in a way that they reported was com-
pletely new to them, allowing them to express
their ideas and experiences, through discussion
and writing and considering issues that were
timely and relevant.
New Approach, Different Experiences
In a survey conducted at the beginning of the
year, 75% of Mr. Brooks’ students reported that
in their social studies class last year, teachers
mainly lectured and students took notes, 56%
said they worked mostly from a textbook, and
53% said they did not talk about racism and
discrimination. When asked if they had discus-
sions in social studies last year, Benny replied,
“No, all book work.” Such practices appeared to
be dominant in other classes as well. Manuel
told us that, “We basically never do that [have
discussions] in none of my classes except Mr.
Brooks’. Mr. Brooks’ class is like one of the best
classes I have because he actually sits there and
listens to me.”
This year, according to the students, was
different. Benny told us,
Urban Youth and School-Based Civic Learning
In our class we’re doing things that are happen-
ing, or about to happen, or already happened,
like recently though. And in the other classes,
we talk about things that happened like 13,000
years ago, that don’t got nothing to do with
today. So it don’t make no sense.
Narciso had a similar analysis, saying, “We
learn more in Brooks’ class. Other classes like,
teachers just give you the book, read out of it,
do the work, that’s it.” They connected history to
the present, discussing questions like “Where’s
the guns made at? What’s causing this? Why is
everybody dying nowadays? Who’s in charge of
all of the drugs?”
Narciso enjoyed class discussions, saying
Like, if we have a discussion, people actually
got to learn about it more, like we’ll know a
little bit about it, and that’s not right. So like,
the next day, we’ll focus on that one topic that
we was talking about, so we’ll know a lot about
it. And we won’t say the wrong stuff and we’ll
know what we’re talking about.
The Scrapbook
No project during the year did more to stim-
ulate students’ desire to engage with issues of
grave and personal importance than the scrap-
book project. Originally conceived to be a civic
action project where students would research a
local problem in their communities and formulate
an action plan to address the issue, Mr. Brooks
modified the project when a strong consen-
sus emerged around two community problems—
murder and drugs. The scrapbook became a way
for each student to document the ways in which
their lives have been impacted by murder and
drugs. He motivated his students to write for
an audience of school, community, and state
officials. Benny, one of Mr. Brooks’ students,
created the title: Listen: An Anthology of Student
Voices.
Students explored the chosen community
problems through journal entries based on per-
sonal experience and original research. The
scrapbook is a heartbreaking compendium of the
daily injustices faced by these young people. In
219
 Urban Youth’s Perspectives on School, Teachers, Pedagogy, and Curricula
interviews, Mr. Brooks’ students raved about the
opportunity to work on a product like Listen.
“We’ve never done anything like this before in
school. We’ve never written this much. I’ve gone
through two whole notebooks this year!” More
impressive than the quantity of writing that went
into developing the scrapbook was the quality
and authenticity of the writing. As Brooks wrote
in the scrapbook’s foreword,
What my students have presented here in Listen,
are their own perspectives, opinions, and expe-
riences concerning the drug trade and murders
here in the city we call home. To their credit,
my students in Listen explore and share deeply
personal stories and experiences; some they
still feel very uncomfortable sharing verbally.
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Communication through ink however, as most
people could agree, is intimate and safe; a
place emotionally and/or physically, many of
my students [and others like them] may have
not been since childhood, if ever.
Their writings reflect the grammar of a school
system that has failed them, the dialect of cultures
that have provided them security, and the urgency
with which they wish to see these problems
eradicated. As Brooks wrote,
But what Listen hopes to communicate with all
of its slang, profanity, and disturbing content,
is that my poorer, minority students too have
voices, thoughts, and dreams. They are not all
the same. They are not stereotypes. They do
desire to see positive changes in their city, their
country, their world.
Conclusion
Studies of young people’s development of
civic identity frequently overlook the meaning
that youth, and urban youth in particular, make
of their daily experiences with civic institutions
and their agents amid the cultural practices and
structural inequalities that surround them. New
research suggests that civic identity is embedded
in young peoples’ everyday experiences with
civic life, and that school contexts and classroom
220
practices are deeply implicated in shaping these
identities in particular ways. For students in
Surrey, who knew the system had clearly failed
them, civic learning was fraught with complexity
and contradiction. This makes civic education in
such a setting at once complicated, difficult, and
essential.
Note
1. All names of people and places in this article are
pseudonyms.
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