A new vision of anti-school culture: The community praxis of Bildung

Abstract

Youths—, and especially boys—in municipal suburban schools are the primary student group disadvantaged by the current school system. The failures of these students are often described as the result of an “anti-school culture” which is explained by their subversion of norms or masculine misbehaviors. Critical education studies (Allelin, 2020; Beach, 1999; Hextall & Sarup, 1977) has identified formal schooling as excluding and alienating because it 1) lacks anchoring in the students’ life worlds, 2) tends to have an individualistic and reified view of learning processes that are relational and collective, 3) creates instrumental approaches to learning and assessment as the education is reduced to a means of achieving certain merits, and 4) is based on a reified division of theory and practice of different subjects in which theoretical knowledge is valued more highly than practical knowledge. Furthermore, sociologists have long highlighted the antagonistic positioning of “problematic” students against the “neutral” school as an explanatory model for dropping out as an expression of the school’s symbolic violence and structural sorting (Bourdieu & Passeron, 2008/1970; Willis, 1983/1977).

Despite—or perhaps because of—structural exclusion, several self-organized educational activities have recently emerged among youth. In this article, I show how young people, especially those living in a socioeconomically disadvantaged area and who face structural hardships in today’s school system, find ways to challenge or overcome this disadvantage by participating in after-school activities through the newspaper Life in the Hood. By turning away from problem-oriented perspectives and instead discussing how young people in the suburbs organize via informal and community-based learning practices, I extend the discussion and concept of anti-school culture by including productive perspectives that have thus far been overlooked. The results show that working with Life in the Hood creates empowerment and new learning processes for the youths by allowing for alternative pedagogical methods. This voluntary activity also forms a context in which young people’s desire for Bildung can be expressed, and helps them articulate a critique of the formal schooling system.

To return to the critical school research, it can be argued that Life in the Hood 1) explicitly anchors the work in the students’ life worlds, as the newspaper’s starting point is by and for young people in the local area. 2) The work is based on collective forms such as co-operation, instead of individual achievements (which are graded), and 3) creates space for consciousness-raising practices because 4) the activity also involves a combination of theory and practice. Working with the newspaper allows youth to take initiative, develop and execute ideas, and face the surrounding world with a self-formulated purpose. The editorial work also breaks the artificial division between subjects, such as language skills and social studies. In this way, Life in the Hood contrasts the learning processes and working methods traditionally found in formal schools with their predetermined goals and rigid assessment processes.

In conclusion, Life in the Hood provides a context in which young people’s desire for Bildung can be expressed through forms of work that involve greater participation and empowerment than what is possible in the formal school setting. This voluntary after-school organization shows that young people are willing to work together to address social issues and develop new skills. Instead of having their activities controlled by formal schooling, young people take control of their learning in a concrete community setting. This is as much an educational practice as it is an anti-school culture.