| Creating a More Equitable—and Welcoming—Afterschool Ecosystem | GP0|#b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211;L0|#0b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211|Afterschool;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>One of the best parts of my job as director of research at Wallace is to interact with some of the country’s leading scholars and researchers studying our areas of work: the arts, education leadership and youth development. These folks are so committed to and insightful about their respective fields. It’s maybe no surprise that many of them worked as teachers, youth workers, artists and the like, before entering the research world, and that this is partly what drives their passion.<br></p><p>Since I joined the foundation in late 2019, we have awarded 36 research grants, large and small, to 33 researchers, 14 of whom were first-time Wallace grantees. I thought it would be interesting (and fun!) to start an occasional series of interviews with some of them, as we publish their findings on the Wallace website. Kicking off the series with me is Bianca Baldridge, an associate professor of education at Harvard University. Bianca is
<a href="https://www.gse.harvard.edu/faculty/bianca-baldridge" target="_blank">a national expert</a> in out-of-school-time programming (OST), with a particular interest in the youth workforce. </p><p>In 2020-2021, we commissioned Bianca, along with a group of her colleagues, to produce a rapid evidence review intended to inform Wallace’s future work in youth development. High level takeaways from that study are summarized in this
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/from-access-to-equity-making-out-of-school-time-spaces-meaningful-for-teens-from-marginalized-communities.aspx?_ga=2.110720197.1937604982.1650308769-375849283.1649958955">research brief</a>. In addition to a lit review and interviews with experts, their study involved a YPAR (youth participatory action research) project, where a group of older students designed and conducted a research study of their peers involved in afterschool programs, that you can read about
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/youth-perspectives-on-designing-equitable-out-of-school-time-programs.aspx">here</a>. This work also led to a series of podcasts, where youth researchers discuss key issues related to their experiences in afterschool programs and which will be released later this spring.</p><p>This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: How did you come to focus on out-of-school-time?<br> </strong>
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<strong>Bianca:</strong> I came to this work because I was a participant in youth-work programs as a middle school student and started engaging in youth work as a staff member in high school. </p><p>As much as I loved these programs—as a participant and a staff member—and as important as they were in shaping my development, as a Black girl growing up in south-central Los Angeles, I was also troubled by the way programs were making assumptions about who I was. They tended to position themselves as saving me, and that kind of deficit positioning of me, which I consciously felt, was a problem. But I didn’t have the language to name it until I got to college and graduate school and began to study African American Studies and sociology. I started to see how my experiences, and the organizations themselves, had been shaped by the social and political context around them—the broader structures of power like race, class and social-economic policies.</p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: Over the last several years the OST field has started to more explicitly name the “ecological dimensions” of learning and development—in other words, looking beyond the program to understand how it is situated within a broader context, and how that context shapes what is possible. But the social and political dimensions of that ecology are not often articulated. The focus is more on spaces and places and practices.<br></strong><br><strong>Bianca:</strong> I’m glad you said that. Families matter, communities, neighborhoods, all of that matters. And if those things matter, then within that ecosystem what’s happening? How do we not name those things? </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: That attention to the broader structures of power that shape and constrain possibilities is what we call “a critical lens” in the research world. How do you bring that lens to the study of OST?<br></strong><br><strong>Bianca:</strong> Afterschool spaces are important sites of learning and development, particularly for minoritized communities and communities that are multiply oppressed. My research agenda has been to think about how young people experience these programs: Black and Latinx young people or racially minoritized people in general. To understand the role of relationships within the programs—among youth, youth workers and staff members. And to try to legitimize and create scholarship that highlights the pedagogy as well as the philosophies of youth workers, as legitimate pedagogues and educators within the educational landscape. </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: Can you say more about what you mean about youth worker pedagogy?
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<strong>Bianca:</strong> I find that youth workers often have a true pedagogy in the sense that they have a philosophical sort of understanding about teaching, about learning, about youth development, about engagement with young people, and you can see that in practice in how they actually engage. So how they teach, how they cultivate relationships and connect with young people and their families, how they spark interest and ideas and a love of learning that is not just about academics, but also just about the world in general. </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: </strong><strong>It sounds like you’ve seen them recognizing the totality of the young person?
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<strong>Bianca:</strong> Yes. Youth workers can support youth academically, emotionally, socially and politically. They are really significant to “whole child” development. Youth workers are often placed in the position where they are supporting young people through their lives in school, neighborhoods and their families. Young people’s identities are complex and youth workers can be instrumental in nurturing all of who a young person is and who they are becoming. </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: </strong><strong>There has been a lot of research on how social policies and structures affect teachers and schooling, but less on how they impact youth development or afterschool and summer programs. I know you’re currently writing a book about this.<br></strong><br><strong>Bianca:</strong> Yes, my current research is thinking about how displacement and gentrification can lead to school closures or rezoning, which in turn can impact community organizations that have been committed to Black liberation or youth development within Black communities. Part of the premise for me is that community organizations in many ways can be the backbone of neighborhoods and communities, and I’m really struck with the question of what happens when afterschool programs can’t afford high rents. What happens when they’re moved out of neighborhoods, what happens to programming for young people? Where do they go? Where will they hang out, what will they do? </p><p>For youth organizations that are committed to sociopolitical development or critical consciousness, I’m really interested in what they do and how they’re making sense of these transitions and displacement, and how they’re able to maintain a social justice, youth development approach in their work through this change. My new book links Black youth workers to the legacy and traditions of organizers like Ella Baker or Septima Clark, and projects how youth workers approach preparing young people to make sense of the world around them and to navigate a racially hostile, anti-Black world. It also addresses how they navigate anti-Blackness within their profession. How are they simultaneously taking care of themselves and also helping young people to negotiate the same social and political forces?</p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: Your work has made me think a lot about how much our vision of the best out-of-school-time programs depends on youth workers who are profoundly giving: Giving love, giving respect, giving vision, giving support. But it’s not like there’s a bottomless well of giving if the system is not giving back to them. Your work highlights how the structures that suppress wages, limit benefits and sometimes tokenize youth workers can work to undermine the whole vision for what young people can gain from out of school time.
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<strong> Bianca: </strong>Yes. Because the burnout and the turnover are real. And youth workers are everywhere: detention centers, museums, libraries, housing programs, afterschool organizations. I believe that programs and organizations, however they look, need to be able to meet the needs of the young people in their communities. But we need to think about the youth workers, or the people who care for young people, and find systems and structures that support them. </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: The research you and your colleagues did for Wallace, and the research of the youth themselves, really got to how essential building a positive and inclusive context is, and that job is ultimately left to youth workers to create those conditions.<br></strong><br><strong>Bianca:</strong> What blew us away was hearing directly from the youth about how students feel in those programs. They talked about feeling like things were cliquish or tokenistic. This goes back to what do these programs look like, what do they feel like, how are they organized, how are they structured? Not just anybody can run an inclusive OST program, not just anybody
<em>should</em> run a program. I think allowing young people to share their firsthand experiences is just always, always, always sobering.</p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn: I </strong><strong>totally agree. There’s been a lot of work done on the kinds of things you need to have in place for assessing or building towards quality programs, but it is outside-in, and not inside-out, in terms of what it actually feels like to be in that space.</strong>
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<strong>Bianca:</strong> Yes. And I definitely want to be able to talk about the resistance and the triumphs and the celebrations, the ways in which organizations, youth workers and young people are able to navigate structures outside and inside of the programs. But I think it’s important to name those structures that can oppress and get in the way of the possible. We have to be able to name and understand them to be able to overcome them.<br><br><br></p> | | Creating a More Equitable—and Welcoming—Afterschool Ecosystem | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/creating-a-more-equitable-and-welcoming-afterschool-ecosystem.aspx | 2022-04-21T04:00:00Z | Expert in afterschool programming ponders how we can better support youth workers and the young people they serve | | |
| How Equity-Minded School Districts Run Afterschool and Summer Programs | GP0|#b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211;L0|#0b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211|Afterschool;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61;GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GP0|#02d6f4ae-88a2-4236-b1a9-1f37b2599002;L0|#002d6f4ae-88a2-4236-b1a9-1f37b2599002|District Policy and Practice;GPP|#330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708 | <p>Wallace has some 50 active research studies across the foundation’s areas of arts, education leadership, and youth development. This blog is the second in an occasional series of conversations that Bronwyn Bevan, vice president of research, has been having with researchers Wallace has commissioned or awarded grants to. She recently talked with professors Valerie Adams-Bass, from Rutgers University, and Nancy Deutsch, from the University of Virginia, about a study they led for Wallace to understand how school districts that were taking strong steps to address equity during the school day were thinking about equity with respect to their afterschool and summer programs. Wallace has posted
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/expanding-equity-afterschool-summer-learning-lessons-from-school-districts.aspx">a brief</a> describing key points from their study. </p><p>The interview has been edited for length and clarity.</p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn:</strong> Before you talk about what your study found, can you please share how you defined equity in your research?<br><br></p><p>
<strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-equity-minded-school-districts-run-afterschool-and-summer-programs/Valerie%20Adams-Bass.jpg" alt="Valerie Adams-Bass.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:190px;height:253px;" />Valerie:</strong> We define equity as ensuring that every person has access to what they need to thrive. This is different from ensuring that every person has equal access to resources. Instead, it means that when making decisions about resources, you need to consider how existing disparities affect people's needs differentially. For example, designing programs for “all students” without attending to who has access to transportation to the programs and who doesn’t would not be an equitable approach. This way of thinking about recognizing and responding to disparities formed the backbone for
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/expanding-equity-afterschool-summer-learning-lessons-from-school-districts.aspx">the set of equity indicators</a> we developed that then guided the selection of districts in our study.<br></p><p>
<strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-equity-minded-school-districts-run-afterschool-and-summer-programs/Bronwyn%20Bevan%20-15.jpg" alt="Bronwyn Bevan -15.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;color:#555555;font-size:14px;width:200px;height:301px;" />Bronwyn:</strong> That's a great concrete example. I could also imagine, on a social dimension, it might involve recognizing, for example, who might feel “welcomed” in a space, and who might not. Addressing that disparity might require more than a handshake to make a person who perhaps has felt excluded from a space, perhaps excluded across generations, to truly feel not only welcomed but as if they have what researchers Angie Calabrese Barton and Edna Tan call “a rightful presence” to be in and to make up that space. Equity would mean taking extra steps, providing meaningful social supports to ensure that a person truly experiences a sense of belonging.</p><p>
<strong><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-equity-minded-school-districts-run-afterschool-and-summer-programs/NancyDeutsch.jpg" alt="NancyDeutsch.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:227px;height:227px;" />Nancy:</strong> We undertook this study because how districts operationalize equity in out-of-school-time spaces—logistically as well as socially—is so important. How do they ensure that all young people have an opportunity to thrive in and through the out-of-school-time space? Afterschool and summer programs clearly have the potential to increase equity and opportunity for young people, but unless districts are intentional about it, their out-of-school-time programs can end up replicating structures of inequity. </p><p class="wf-Element-Callout">“What was exciting about this study was documenting concrete actions that administrators and teachers could take to advance equity.”<br></p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn:</strong> Could you say more about that?<br></p><p>
<strong>Valerie:</strong> Particularly for young people who are not thriving in school, what happens in afterschool and summer may need to be different. What was exciting about this study was the opportunity to document concrete actions that administrators as well as teachers could take to advance equity—how they recognize disparities and provide resources and supports that address those disparities for full and meaningful student participation.</p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn:</strong> What are the kinds of things you look for when you are looking for equity in the district’s out-of-school-time space? </p><p>
<strong>Valerie:</strong> I want to see a notable number of the afterschool staff members reflecting and knowing the community they're serving. Sometimes you see programs build pipelines by hiring students who have come through the district. Those districts are intentional and purposeful about who they hire. This can help young people feel welcome, recognized, and supported.</p><p>
<strong>Nancy:</strong> I want to see programs that celebrate and amplify students’ cultures. This can mean drawing on the strengths of the young people's families and community members. This can help young people feel that who they are and where they come from makes a contribution. </p><p class="wf-Element-Callout"> “You look to see how programs listen to the community and to young people themselves and use what they hear to develop their programs.” </p><p>
<strong>Valerie: </strong>You look to see how programs listen to the community and to young people themselves and use what they hear to develop their programs. That can look like creating spaces to engage with families outside of the normal school day hours. Parents are working during those hours. That can look like children’s circles, where students are invited to speak up about what they want more of. </p><p>
<strong>Nancy:</strong> Equity also looks like opportunity. Do districts have positive, fun, and meaningful options in the summer? Some kids have parents who can afford to pay for summer camps and other enrichment activities. They're not sitting around doing remedial math. It’s by definition inequitable when some students get to choose how they spend their summers, and therefore how they grow and develop when school is out, while other students have no choice. We saw a mix in the districts we studied. Some were very focused on equalizing summer opportunities for particular sub-populations of students. </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn:</strong> So I am hearing you define equity practices in two ways. One is where districts are identifying sub-populations of youth to provide them with enriching growth experiences like those their more affluent peers might be getting through their family and neighborhood resources. The other is attention to the program experience so that they are affirming of young people’s identity—through staffing, through listening and program offerings. It reminds me of education scholar Rochelle Gutierrez’s dominant and critical axes of equity—one axis is about access and achievement and the other about identity and power, and you need both. Were there differences in how districts thought about these two opportunity axes? </p><p>
<strong>Valerie:</strong> It really varied by district; but I believe equity-rich districts that were doing the work did a little bit of both. The key thing is that they were very aware of who needed what in their communities. We had one large district that was focused on psychological and social services for all young people. We had another district that was offering the services, and they were providing multiple kinds of programs and thinking about how to make sure that young people were coming, and that the parents were okay with the program menu. </p><p>
<strong>Nancy:</strong> There was a lot of focus on access, including transportation issues and figuring out which schools should be providing [programming] and how to get kids there. There was a universal sense of “Okay, we can't be doing equity if we're not having equity of access.” </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn:</strong> I hear you saying that you might have to start with access, which Gutiérrez would call part of the dominant axis of equity (“welcome to our space”), but the other axis, the critical one, would focus on providing meaningful experiences, where issues of power and identity may be salient (“this space is yours”). In other words there may be logistical barriers, but what about social ones, the cultural ones? There’s a bus to the program, why is it that some students choose not to get on it? </p><p>
<strong>Valerie:</strong> We saw that it was important to know the community. One district leader described how she tapped a staff person who deeply knew what the community wanted and excelled at the cultural translation. She leaned on that person. I would say bilingual or multilingualism also came up a lot in terms of communicating with the parents about the programming, especially when it was new. </p><p>
<strong>Nancy:</strong> In some districts, schools thought about what is missing in their standard offerings. So, for example, in schools where arts programs had been cut, they offered them in afterschool or summer. That led to something else that our study found to be crucial: partnering with community-based organizations.</p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn:</strong> Can you say more about that?</p><p>
<strong>Nancy:</strong> We saw some districts recognize that they didn’t have the expertise on staff to do culturally specific or responsive or advanced programming in a particular area. But they recognized that there was an organization in the community that did it really well. So they contracted with those organizations to provide programs. </p><p>
<strong>Bronwyn:</strong> I’m aware of other research that talks about the importance of partnerships with community-based organizations. Did you see the equity concerns of the districts get picked up by the partners?</p><p>
<strong>Valerie:</strong> Typically I think that the partners were aware of district equity efforts. But it really depended on how long the partnership had existed. </p><p>
<strong>Nancy: </strong>Partnerships bring really important things to the table. But you don't always have that communication between the districts and the partners in terms of what's happening in the school building, what the expectations are out of the school building, or priorities of the district versus the program. So you often have decision-making happening at the district without necessarily the knowledge or input of the partners.</p><p>
<strong>Valerie:</strong> We also saw differences in terms of what was being measured. For example, a school district may have its own metrics for equity, for student achievement, and student mental health while the community partner has different metrics. They didn’t always speak the same language, and they didn’t refer to the same data or data dashboard. We kept thinking wow, this is such an opportunity to really, you know, tighten up equity if they could come together around measurement or indicators.</p><p>
<strong>Nancy:</strong> There was also silo-ing within districts. Even when districts had offices that ran the OST programming, it was usually separate from the office of DEI. So the person in the office of diversity equity, inclusion couldn’t answer questions about OST, and vice versa. There’s a huge opportunity for coherence there.<br></p><p><em>Photos from top to bottom: Valerie Adams-Bass, Bronwyn Bevan, and Nancy Deutsch</em></p> | | How Equity-Minded School Districts Run Afterschool and Summer Programs | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/how-equity-minded-school-districts-run-afterschool-and-summer-programs.aspx | 2023-09-12T04:00:00Z | How Equity-Minded School Districts Run Afterschool and Summer Programs | | |