At the nexus of two terrains: a critical ethnographic case study of an afterschool center for homelessness

Abstract

Little work examines the nexus of student homelessness and afterschool provision. This critical ethnographic case study of organizational culture draws from observation, documents, and interviews with youth experiencing homelessness, staff, and volunteers at a community-based afterschool center for youth experiencing homelessness. It explores how the center straddled the discourses and ideologies inherent in both the student homelessness and afterschool terrains. The center built close connections between and amongst youth and staff and fostered wide-ranging community collaborations, which allowed it to connect youth to various resources and offer flexible programming. Yet, it also suffered from contradictions and tensions in its framing of parents, youth, homelessness, and race. These strengths and weaknesses reflected the center’s position at the nexus of both homelessness and afterschool. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Keywords:

• Student homelessness
• afterschool
• community-based organizations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this study, community-based afterschool centers (CBAs) refer to community-based organizations that provide a range of off-campus afterschool programming. Not only does this phrase help to distinguish them from school-based programming, but it also highlights Hirsch, Deutsch, and DuBois’ (2011) distinction between a comprehensive center (that offers many different programs in the course of a year) and an individual afterschool program. Baldridge, Beck, Medina, and Reeves’ (2017) use the term community-based educational spaces, which highlights their educational value. Community-based youth organizations are also commonly used in the literature (see Baldridge et al., 2017).

2 Color-evasiveness avoids able-ism and aims to address the passivity in the more common phrasing, color-blind racism (Annamma et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by funding from the Sam Taylor Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Alexandra E. Pavlakis

Alexandra E. Pavlakis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership in the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University. Her work explores the social contexts of education, namely around issues of poverty and homelessness. Her work can be found in venues such as Teachers College Record, Educational Researcher, and Urban Education.