Bianca Baldridge | University of Wisconsin-Madison (original) (raw)
Papers by Bianca Baldridge
Sociology of Education: An A-to-Z Guide, Jul 8, 2013
American Journal of Sociology, 2018
Her research and writing have focused broadly on issues of race and education and, more specifica... more Her research and writing have focused broadly on issues of race and education and, more specifically, on educational policies such as school desegregation, school choice, charter schools, and tracking, and how they shape and constrain opportunities for students of color. Bianca J. Baldridge graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2005 with a B.A. in American Studies and a minor in African American Studies. After graduating from Berkeley, Bianca moved to New York City and earned an Ed.M. in Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student. Her research interests include race and inequality, urban sociology, Black youths' access to social and cultural capital. Jacquelyn Durán graduated from Pomona College, one of the Claremont Colleges, with a degree in Psychology. She is currently in her fifth year of doctoral work in the Sociology and Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, studying the schooling experiences of Latino immigrants, with a focus on their adaptation processes and spatial theory. Courtney Grzesikowski recently completed her first year in the Sociology and Education Ed.M. program at Teachers College. Her research interests include educational equity, teacher quality, policy reform, mixed methods, and school desegregation. Richard Lofton graduated from San Jose State University in 2001, with a B.A. in Communication Studies and a minor in Sociology. He received a Master's degree in Communication Studies from the University of Utah and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Sociology and Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, studying the role of education, politics, and race in maintaining social inequalities.
![Research paper thumbnail of On Educational Advocacy and Cultural Work: Situating Community-Based Youth Work[ers] in Broader Educational Discourse](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/104548073/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2018
Background/ContextThe current educational market nestled in neoliberal and market-based reform ef... more Background/ContextThe current educational market nestled in neoliberal and market-based reform efforts has shifted the nature of public education. Community-based educational spaces are also shaped within this context. As such, given the political and educational climate youth workers are situated in, their role as advocates, cultural workers, and pedagogues warrants greater exploration within educational scholarship. Although previous scholarship captures the significance of community-based youth workers in the lives of marginalized youth, their voices and experiences are absent from broader educational discourse. Subsequently, community-based youth workers’ relationship with schools, engagement with youth, and their pedagogical practices remain underutilized and undervalued.PurposeThe purpose of this article is to highlight the critical space youth workers occupy in the academic, social, and cultural lives of Black youth within community-based educational spaces. This article crit...
Review of Research in Education, 2017
Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizatio... more Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizations, etc.) have a long history of interrupting patterns of educational inequity and continue to do so under the current educational policy climate. The current climate of education, marked by neoliberal education restructuring, has left community-based educational spaces vulnerable in many of the same ways as public schools. Considering the current political moment of deep insecurity within public education, this review of research illuminates the role community-based educational spaces have played in resisting forms of educational inequality and their role in the lives of minoritized youth. With a review of seminal education research on community-based spaces, we intend to capture the ways these diverse out-of-school spaces inform the educational experiences, political identity development, and organizing and activist lives of minoritized youth. Further, this piece contends that reimagin...
Race Ethnicity and Education, 2016
Abstract As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education r... more Abstract As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education reform, deficit narratives characterize the education of Black youth. Such narratives present deep challenges for educational policy and community-based educational spaces. This article explores the ways in which community-based educators resist narratives of damage and struggle in their own personal and professional narratives in order to prevent the cycle of deficit-oriented discourse that follow Black youth through myriad educational spaces. By situating the narratives of community-based educators within a broader policy context shaped by race, class, and gender, this article illustrates the challenges that arise for community-based educators that seek to frame Black youth beyond deficit narratives and who avoid framing themselves as heroes and saviors of Black youth.
American Educational Research Journal, 2014
After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse a... more After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse as institutions that “save” and “rescue” Black youth. Such rhetoric perpetuates an ethos of pathology that diminishes the agency of youth and their communities. Through ethnographic research with 20 youth workers at a college completion and youth development after-school program in the urban Northeast, findings indicate that tensions arise as youth workers strive to reimagine Black youth in humanizing ways despite pressures to frame them as broken and in need of fixing to compete for funding with charter schools. Data also reveal deep tensions in youth workers’ experiences as they critique neoliberal reforms that shape their work; yet, at the same time, they are forced to hold students to markers of success defined by neoliberal ideals. These tensions result in youth workers downplaying the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of their work.
Race Ethnicity and Education, 2020
ABSTRACT This paper examines how Black community-based youth workers navigate anti-Black racism i... more ABSTRACT This paper examines how Black community-based youth workers navigate anti-Black racism in their educational programming with Black youth in a majority white college town widely recognized as ‘nice,’ ‘liberal,’ and ‘progressive’ with stark racial disparities between its Black and white residents. With racial liberalism and BlackCrit as theoretical guides, this paper draws on in-depth interviews with Black youth workers and observations at city events addressing racial disparities facing Black youth to understand how anti-Black racism within the larger city informs community-based educational programming. Findings indicate a 1) disregard of Black suffering, 2) deliberate shutdown of critical race dialogue and programming, and 3) the exploitation of Black youth workers’ labor and the denial of advancement to positions of leadership within organizations to do white discomfort. This paper challenges liberal and progressive claims of social justice in education within predominantly white cities that reify anti-Black racism.
Equity & Excellence in Education
Educational Researcher
Community-based youth work, through which young people are engaged in community-based educational... more Community-based youth work, through which young people are engaged in community-based educational spaces (CBES; e.g., after-school programs, out-of-school time settings, youth organizations, etc.), is celebrated for supporting youth academically, socially, culturally, and politically. However, when these spaces receive attention, their social and political complexity is often overlooked. Studying the complexity of community-based youth work in education requires interrogating the multiple systems of oppression that impact young people’s lives. It also demands examination of the sociopolitical context of youth work, including how race logics and economic pressures inform the construction of CBES and how these forces surface and intersect with market logics and educational policy reform. Building on existing scholarship on community-based youth work and my current research, I present the youthwork paradox, a framework that captures the complexity of the field and its relationship to s...
Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizatio... more Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizations, etc.) have a long history of interrupting patterns of educational inequity and continue to do so under the current educational policy climate. The current climate of education, marked by neoliberal education restructuring, has left community-based educational spaces vulnerable in many of the same ways as public schools. Considering the current political moment of deep insecurity within public education, this review of research illuminates the role community-based educational spaces have played in resisting forms of educational inequality and their role in the lives of minoritized youth. With a review of seminal education research on community-based spaces, we intend to capture the ways these diverse out-of-school spaces inform the educational experiences, political identity development, and organizing and activist lives of minoritized youth. Further, this piece contends that reimagining education beyond the borders of the school is a form of resistance, as community-based leaders, youth workers, and youth themselves negotiate the dialectical nature of community-based educational spaces within a capitalist and racialized neoliberal state.
As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education reform, de... more As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education reform, deficit narratives characterize the education of Black youth. Such narratives present deep challenges for educational policy and community-based educational spaces. This article explores the ways in which community-based educators resist narratives of damage and struggle in their own personal and professional narratives in order to prevent the cycle of deficit-oriented discourse that follow Black youth through myriad educational spaces. By situating the narratives of communitybased educators within a broader policy context shaped by race, class, and gender, this article illustrates the challenges that arise for community-based educators that seek to frame Black youth beyond deficit narratives and who avoid framing themselves as heroes and saviors of Black youth.
Literature on community-based youth programs generally depicts these spaces as valuable settings ... more Literature on community-based youth programs generally depicts these spaces as valuable settings that support the academic, social, and emotional development of young people . However, little research has explored how these organizations and youth workers "frame" and "imagine" the youth they serve. This study employed a critical ethnographic methodology at Educational Excellence (EE), a non-profit community-based educational program, to understand how youth workers' understanding of social, political, and educational problems inform their framing and imagining of Black youth. Participant observation data were triangulated with semi-structured interviews with all youth workers at EE (N=20), focus groups, and document analysis of organizational literature.
After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse a... more After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse as institutions that ''save'' and ''rescue'' Black youth. Such rhetoric perpetuates an ethos of pathology that diminishes the agency of youth and their communities. Through ethnographic research with 20 youth workers at a college completion and youth development after-school program in the urban Northeast, findings indicate that tensions arise as youth workers strive to reimagine Black youth in humanizing ways despite pressures to frame them as broken and in need of fixing to compete for funding with charter schools. Data also reveal deep tensions in youth workers' experiences as they critique neoliberal reforms that shape their work; yet, at the same time, they are forced to hold students to markers of success defined by neoliberal ideals. These tensions result in youth workers downplaying the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of their work.
Race Ethnicity and Education, 2011
... Special Issue: The Education of Black Males in a 'Post-Racial&am... more ... Special Issue: The Education of Black Males in a 'Post-Racial' World. New possibilities: (re)engaging Black male youth within community‐based educational spaces. ...
Sociology of Education: An A-to-Z Guide, Jul 8, 2013
American Journal of Sociology, 2018
Her research and writing have focused broadly on issues of race and education and, more specifica... more Her research and writing have focused broadly on issues of race and education and, more specifically, on educational policies such as school desegregation, school choice, charter schools, and tracking, and how they shape and constrain opportunities for students of color. Bianca J. Baldridge graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2005 with a B.A. in American Studies and a minor in African American Studies. After graduating from Berkeley, Bianca moved to New York City and earned an Ed.M. in Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student. Her research interests include race and inequality, urban sociology, Black youths' access to social and cultural capital. Jacquelyn Durán graduated from Pomona College, one of the Claremont Colleges, with a degree in Psychology. She is currently in her fifth year of doctoral work in the Sociology and Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, studying the schooling experiences of Latino immigrants, with a focus on their adaptation processes and spatial theory. Courtney Grzesikowski recently completed her first year in the Sociology and Education Ed.M. program at Teachers College. Her research interests include educational equity, teacher quality, policy reform, mixed methods, and school desegregation. Richard Lofton graduated from San Jose State University in 2001, with a B.A. in Communication Studies and a minor in Sociology. He received a Master's degree in Communication Studies from the University of Utah and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Sociology and Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University, studying the role of education, politics, and race in maintaining social inequalities.
Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 2018
Background/ContextThe current educational market nestled in neoliberal and market-based reform ef... more Background/ContextThe current educational market nestled in neoliberal and market-based reform efforts has shifted the nature of public education. Community-based educational spaces are also shaped within this context. As such, given the political and educational climate youth workers are situated in, their role as advocates, cultural workers, and pedagogues warrants greater exploration within educational scholarship. Although previous scholarship captures the significance of community-based youth workers in the lives of marginalized youth, their voices and experiences are absent from broader educational discourse. Subsequently, community-based youth workers’ relationship with schools, engagement with youth, and their pedagogical practices remain underutilized and undervalued.PurposeThe purpose of this article is to highlight the critical space youth workers occupy in the academic, social, and cultural lives of Black youth within community-based educational spaces. This article crit...
Review of Research in Education, 2017
Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizatio... more Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizations, etc.) have a long history of interrupting patterns of educational inequity and continue to do so under the current educational policy climate. The current climate of education, marked by neoliberal education restructuring, has left community-based educational spaces vulnerable in many of the same ways as public schools. Considering the current political moment of deep insecurity within public education, this review of research illuminates the role community-based educational spaces have played in resisting forms of educational inequality and their role in the lives of minoritized youth. With a review of seminal education research on community-based spaces, we intend to capture the ways these diverse out-of-school spaces inform the educational experiences, political identity development, and organizing and activist lives of minoritized youth. Further, this piece contends that reimagin...
Race Ethnicity and Education, 2016
Abstract As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education r... more Abstract As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education reform, deficit narratives characterize the education of Black youth. Such narratives present deep challenges for educational policy and community-based educational spaces. This article explores the ways in which community-based educators resist narratives of damage and struggle in their own personal and professional narratives in order to prevent the cycle of deficit-oriented discourse that follow Black youth through myriad educational spaces. By situating the narratives of community-based educators within a broader policy context shaped by race, class, and gender, this article illustrates the challenges that arise for community-based educators that seek to frame Black youth beyond deficit narratives and who avoid framing themselves as heroes and saviors of Black youth.
American Educational Research Journal, 2014
After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse a... more After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse as institutions that “save” and “rescue” Black youth. Such rhetoric perpetuates an ethos of pathology that diminishes the agency of youth and their communities. Through ethnographic research with 20 youth workers at a college completion and youth development after-school program in the urban Northeast, findings indicate that tensions arise as youth workers strive to reimagine Black youth in humanizing ways despite pressures to frame them as broken and in need of fixing to compete for funding with charter schools. Data also reveal deep tensions in youth workers’ experiences as they critique neoliberal reforms that shape their work; yet, at the same time, they are forced to hold students to markers of success defined by neoliberal ideals. These tensions result in youth workers downplaying the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of their work.
Race Ethnicity and Education, 2020
ABSTRACT This paper examines how Black community-based youth workers navigate anti-Black racism i... more ABSTRACT This paper examines how Black community-based youth workers navigate anti-Black racism in their educational programming with Black youth in a majority white college town widely recognized as ‘nice,’ ‘liberal,’ and ‘progressive’ with stark racial disparities between its Black and white residents. With racial liberalism and BlackCrit as theoretical guides, this paper draws on in-depth interviews with Black youth workers and observations at city events addressing racial disparities facing Black youth to understand how anti-Black racism within the larger city informs community-based educational programming. Findings indicate a 1) disregard of Black suffering, 2) deliberate shutdown of critical race dialogue and programming, and 3) the exploitation of Black youth workers’ labor and the denial of advancement to positions of leadership within organizations to do white discomfort. This paper challenges liberal and progressive claims of social justice in education within predominantly white cities that reify anti-Black racism.
Equity & Excellence in Education
Educational Researcher
Community-based youth work, through which young people are engaged in community-based educational... more Community-based youth work, through which young people are engaged in community-based educational spaces (CBES; e.g., after-school programs, out-of-school time settings, youth organizations, etc.), is celebrated for supporting youth academically, socially, culturally, and politically. However, when these spaces receive attention, their social and political complexity is often overlooked. Studying the complexity of community-based youth work in education requires interrogating the multiple systems of oppression that impact young people’s lives. It also demands examination of the sociopolitical context of youth work, including how race logics and economic pressures inform the construction of CBES and how these forces surface and intersect with market logics and educational policy reform. Building on existing scholarship on community-based youth work and my current research, I present the youthwork paradox, a framework that captures the complexity of the field and its relationship to s...
Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizatio... more Community-based educational spaces (CBES; afterschool programs, community-based youth organizations, etc.) have a long history of interrupting patterns of educational inequity and continue to do so under the current educational policy climate. The current climate of education, marked by neoliberal education restructuring, has left community-based educational spaces vulnerable in many of the same ways as public schools. Considering the current political moment of deep insecurity within public education, this review of research illuminates the role community-based educational spaces have played in resisting forms of educational inequality and their role in the lives of minoritized youth. With a review of seminal education research on community-based spaces, we intend to capture the ways these diverse out-of-school spaces inform the educational experiences, political identity development, and organizing and activist lives of minoritized youth. Further, this piece contends that reimagining education beyond the borders of the school is a form of resistance, as community-based leaders, youth workers, and youth themselves negotiate the dialectical nature of community-based educational spaces within a capitalist and racialized neoliberal state.
As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education reform, de... more As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education reform, deficit narratives characterize the education of Black youth. Such narratives present deep challenges for educational policy and community-based educational spaces. This article explores the ways in which community-based educators resist narratives of damage and struggle in their own personal and professional narratives in order to prevent the cycle of deficit-oriented discourse that follow Black youth through myriad educational spaces. By situating the narratives of communitybased educators within a broader policy context shaped by race, class, and gender, this article illustrates the challenges that arise for community-based educators that seek to frame Black youth beyond deficit narratives and who avoid framing themselves as heroes and saviors of Black youth.
Literature on community-based youth programs generally depicts these spaces as valuable settings ... more Literature on community-based youth programs generally depicts these spaces as valuable settings that support the academic, social, and emotional development of young people . However, little research has explored how these organizations and youth workers "frame" and "imagine" the youth they serve. This study employed a critical ethnographic methodology at Educational Excellence (EE), a non-profit community-based educational program, to understand how youth workers' understanding of social, political, and educational problems inform their framing and imagining of Black youth. Participant observation data were triangulated with semi-structured interviews with all youth workers at EE (N=20), focus groups, and document analysis of organizational literature.
After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse a... more After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse as institutions that ''save'' and ''rescue'' Black youth. Such rhetoric perpetuates an ethos of pathology that diminishes the agency of youth and their communities. Through ethnographic research with 20 youth workers at a college completion and youth development after-school program in the urban Northeast, findings indicate that tensions arise as youth workers strive to reimagine Black youth in humanizing ways despite pressures to frame them as broken and in need of fixing to compete for funding with charter schools. Data also reveal deep tensions in youth workers' experiences as they critique neoliberal reforms that shape their work; yet, at the same time, they are forced to hold students to markers of success defined by neoliberal ideals. These tensions result in youth workers downplaying the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of their work.
Race Ethnicity and Education, 2011
... Special Issue: The Education of Black Males in a 'Post-Racial&am... more ... Special Issue: The Education of Black Males in a 'Post-Racial' World. New possibilities: (re)engaging Black male youth within community‐based educational spaces. ...