Youth, School, and Community: Participatory Institutional Ethnographies

by Naomi Nichols

Overview

This book examines how young people’s experiences of inclusion and exclusion are shaped by extended social relations, coordinating thought and conduct across time and space. Working with young people and using a range of participatory institutional ethnographic strategies, Naomi Nichols investigates the social and institutional relations which differentially punctuate the lives of youth. While the research begins with what young people know and have experienced, this starting place anchors a deeper investigation of the public sector institutions and institutional processes that remain implicated in social-historical-economic processes of global capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism.

Youth, School, and Community connects the dots between, on the one hand, the abstract objectified accounts produced by institutions and enabling institutional action and accounting practices, and, on the other hand, the actual material conditions of young people’s lives and development, which these accounts obscure. The focus on specific policies and procedures that produce young people’s experiences of racialized inclusion/exclusion and safety/risk make this book particularly useful to academics, professionals, and activists who want to ensure that young people experience equitable access to public sector resources and not disproportionate exposure to public sector punishments and punitive interventions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487522599
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	10/28/2019
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Naomi Nichols is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at McGill University. Nichols’ primary research focus is youth equity. She has published extensively on structural and policy drivers of inequality, poverty, and homelessness. Her secondary research focus is on processes of mobilizing diverse forms of knowledge to influence equitable social and policy change. Her central objective is to generate and mobilize an evidence base, which will drive processes of practice, policy and institutional change

Table of Contents

Foreword by Dorothy E. Smith

Introduction: The Institutional and Policy Contexts That Shape Young People’s Lives

Outline of the Book

1. Experience, Ontology, and Sociologies of Resistance
Social Research and Ideology
Beyond Alienation: Ideology and Processes of Domination
Beginning with Experience
Conclusion: A Feminist Method of Inquiry

2. Participatory Institutional Ethnographies of the State
Project 1: Schools, Safety, and the Urban Neighbourhood
Project 2: Sampling Youth Development
Research Participants
Methods
Analysis
Youth Summer Research Internships

3. The Neoliberal State and the Creation of Race, Class, and Gender
Racism without Intent
The Police “Don’t Care About Us”
Differential Policing Practices
Housing, Policing, and the State
Conclusion: Technologies of Evidence and the Construction of a Post-Racial, Post-Gendered, Post-Class World

4. Evidential Practices in Education and the Negation of Race
Comparing Educational Contexts: Toronto and Montreal
Educational Exclusions and the Evidential Turn in Education
Teachers: “Most of Them Mean Very Well”
Conclusion: The Affirmation of Race, Class, and Gender Categories in Post-race, Post-class, and Post-gender Times

5. Risk, Safety, Inclusion, and the Inter-Institutional Organization of Educational Interventions
Like Moves on a Chessboard
“Special” Education – Assessment, Identification, and Segregation
“Welcome Schools,” Language Laws, and Inter-Cultural Policies
Youth “At Risk”
Negotiating, Coordinating, and Enabling Access to Education
Conclusion

6. State Surveillance and School Discipline
Safe Schools Policy Background: Ontario and Quebec
“Then I Got Suspended:” Young People’s Experiences of School Discipline in Montreal and Toronto
School Discipline, Surveillance, and Educational (Under) Achievement
Institutionally Organized Intersections: Special Education and School Safety
Intersectional Practices of Surveillance: Education, Child Protection, Policing, and Probation

Conclusion

My Next Moves

References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Erin Dej

"Youth, School, and Community is an incredibly well-researched, well-written, informative, and compassionate book that does justice to the difficult conditions facing so many racialized, impoverished, and excluded young people in Canada. Naomi Nichols' commitment and passion for the young people she works with resonates throughout each page."

Henry Parada

"The book's discussions of the youth's experiences through different systems, including education, child protection, and justice, are quite illuminating."

Megan Welsh

"True to the discipline of institutional ethnography, Naomi Nichols foregrounds and prioritizes people's lived experiences."

Editorial Reviews

"The book’s discussions of the youth’s experiences through different systems, including education, child protection, and justice, are quite illuminating."

—Henry Parada, School of Social Work, Ryerson University

" Youth, School, and Community is an incredibly well-researched, well-written, informative, and compassionate book that does justice to the difficult conditions facing so many racialized, impoverished, and excluded young people in Canada. Naomi Nichols’ commitment and passion for the young people she works with resonates throughout each page."

—Erin Dej, Department of Criminology, Wilfrid Laurier University
"True to the discipline of institutional ethnography, Naomi Nichols foregrounds and prioritizes people's lived experiences."—Megan Welsh, School of Public Affairs, San Diego State University

From the Publisher