Learning in the Counterspace of Not School

Abstract

This article considers the way that intergenerational familial settings have functioned as counterspaces where deficit narratives are challenged and youth identities are affirmed. These counterspaces support minoritized young people in particular as they learn in socio-spatial and cultural historical contexts, especially during the pandemic. We set out to consider this: What does family as counterspace contribute to our understanding of what it means to make learning more human? With a focus on the strengths of learning (rather than learning loss) during the pandemic and the power of intergenerational testimony and collective witnessing to foster this learning, the writers–ourselves intergenerational as PhD, early-career, mid-career, and late-career scholars–each contribute a story to reflect on that question.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Spencer Foundation and the University of California, Santa Cruz for providing funds to establish and sustain the New Generation Learning research consortium (NGL), directed by Su-hua Wang and co-directed by Barbara Rogoff and Cynthia Lewis. Our interdisciplinary group with a focus on space and learning was led by Cynthia Lewis. We would also like to thank the UC Santa Cruz’s Institute for Social Transformation for supporting the work of NGL.

Notes

1 “Standardized organizational practices in dividing time and space, classifying students and allocating them to classrooms, and splintering knowledge into “subjects” (Tyack & Tobin, 1994, p. 454).