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The Urban Review

, Volume 47, Issue 5, pp 893–913 | Cite as

Toward a Pedagogy of Sociopolitical Consciousness in Outside of School Programs

  • Ira E. Murray
  • H. Richard MilnerIV
Article
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Abstract

Outside of school time (OST) programs are playing an increasingly prominent role in the lives of youth, particularly Black children. Because many schools are not meeting the social, cultural, and academic needs of Black students, the ability of OST programs to support students in these areas is essential. Ladson-Billings (The dreamkeepers: successful teachers of African American children, 2nd edn. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2009) conceptualized three central tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy, a theoretical framework designed to describe instructional practices inside of school that are relevant to, aligned with, and responsive to Prek-12 students. In this paper, the authors build on a tenet of Ladson-Billings’ (2009) culturally relevant pedagogy framework, sociopolitical consciousness (SPC), to make sense of how OST programs can develop instructional practices that build students’ knowledge and understandings of injustices in their communities and work to change them. The authors discuss how youths’ development of SPC can be fostered and operationalized through pedagogy in OST programs. The authors conclude with recommendations that could potentially contribute to a pedagogy of SPC in OST programs.

Keywords

Pedagogy Teaching Youth Sociopolitical consciousness Sociopolitical development 
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© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Center for Urban EducationUniversity of PittsburghPittsburghUSA

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