Pedagogies of Black Eldership: Exploring the Impact of Intergenerational Contact on Youth Research

Abstract

This article examines the interactions between a collective of self-described “African American,” “multiracial,” and “African immigrant” high school youth researchers, and two African American community elders. Drawing from a year-long critical ethnographic study of the youth research collective, the author documents how pedagogies of Black eldership overlapped with youth participatory action research to open new possibilities for preparing youth as researchers. The study highlights how an out-of-school educational space afforded alternative pedagogical opportunities by specifically examining how pedagogies of Black eldership helped youth researchers historicize and politicize their research, pushing them to move from embodied knowledge to self-knowledge. Drawing from African-centered and critical theory, the study explicates aspects of the pedagogies of Black eldership. Without bounding these pedagogies, the author uses two narratives of teaching and learning to illustrate how intergenerational contact impacted the trajectory of the youth researchers. They transformed their research after meeting with the elders to be more introspective and examine how their worldviews were being constructed and influenced. The findings in this study serve as an impetus for further research examining the educational context of Black eldership and youth research.

Notes

¹ The Network for the Development of Children of African Descent is the actual name of the organization. My engagement with NdCAD as both an academic and a member of the NdCAD learning community entails that the research produced at NdCAD belongs to the community, thus, there is no need to “protect” the organization through anonymity. At the same time, because of the age of the youth engaged in the research described in this study, they chose pseudonyms that will be used for this writing.

² The youth in the Uhuru Youth Scholars program received both high school and college credit for their participation in the course.

³ I was asked to speak to a graduate-level class of pre-service and practicing teachers at the University of Minnesota about YPAR as a research methodology. I thought it would be useful to bring some of the Uhuru Youth Scholars with me to demonstrate that the purpose of YPAR is to position those most impacted by an issue as the researchers and experts of that issue.

⁴ Elder Mahmoud El Kati is Professor Emeritus of History at Macalester College, in St. Paul. He is a respected community elder who has authored several books and is often asked to speak at important community meetings (http://www.mahmoudelkati.com/biography.html).

⁵ Elder Atum Azzahir runs the Cultural Wellness Center in Minneapolis (http://ppcwc.org/home). She is a well-respected community elder who hosts a weekly radio show and works tirelessly on behalf of African peoples in the Twin Cities.

⁶ “Call and response” (Vansina, 1985) is a traditional African oratorical practice in which the leader “calls” with a phrase, which is then followed by a “response” from the audience by either repeating the phrase or saying a different phrase.