Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

This paper presents a multi-year case study of an after-school literacy initiative at an inner city high school. In order to understand the lived experiences and practices of urban girls, this study explores how African American girls, in particular, navigate public and private spaces of their everyday worlds. Spatial limitations, institutional pressures, and teens’ subjectivities shaped an extracurricular literacy program, built on a theoretical framework of participatory research and youth-led digital media production. By considering the politics of after-school programming and the landscape of urban contexts, I problematize programs such as Girlspace, as well as complicate understandings of youth literacies, geography, and participatory research. This paper argues that for youth development programs to succeed, the complexity of socio-cultural and spatial realities facing urban girls-- as well as their perspectives-- must be understood.