The Wisdom of Youth: Reconsidering Secondary Students' Racial Literacies.

In this paper, I examine what one focus group interview may reveal about five teenagers' burgeoning racial literacies. After analyzing their definitions and interpretations of historical and contemporary racism, I argue that these youth have developed racial literacies that reflect a narrow societal focus on the individual, interpersonal dimensions of racism. Far from being racially illiterate, many young people have accurately "read" the racial silences in their schooling and interpreted the racial experiences that they and their loved ones have endured. I explore how instructional supports could help students articulate the more complex and enduring understandings of structural and/or institutional racism that amount to critical racial consciousness. This focus group also attests to high school students' desire for formal learning about institutional racism earlier and illustrates factors that may influence how Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian American youth express themselves about race and racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]