Schools as Radical Sanctuaries: Decolonizing Urban Education through the Eyes of Youth of Color

Large, comprehensive urban high schools were designed and constructed with the belief that they could meet the needs of all its students, academic and otherwise. By and large, however, these schools have only done a good job of sorting students for specific jobs in a society based on capitalism and White supremacy. Consequently, students schooled in these large institutions are often sorted depending on how they are situated and/or perceived by institutional agents (i.e. teachers, administrators, guidance counsellors, and other staff) along racial/ethnic, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability lines. The overall result of such structurally and culturally-based discriminatory practices has led to astronomically horrendous dropout/push out rates among urban youth, particularly those of colour who live in poverty.