Valuing youth resistance before and after public protest

Abstract

The tragedies of Columbine and September 11th led public schools to step up surveillance practices in urban schools – producing an environment with less freedom and more control. While students are aware of the seeming powerlessness they face at the hands of security guards and surveillance technologies, they are also engaged in developing new ways to cope with, negotiate, and respond to these practices and injustices. Everyday surveillance is matched by everyday resistance. Not passively succumbing to the programs of surveillance in their schools and communities, students are navigating and responding in surprising, sometimes radical, ways. In an era of punitive public policies and school reforms, when urban teenagers are already perceived as threatening and misbehaving and labeled as deviant and criminals, research in search of resistance needs to seek out hidden transcripts and public protest.

Keywords:

• urban youth
• protest
• hip hop

Notes

1. Poem written by David McNeil.