An Urban-Defined School Implements a Grassroots Oral History Course and Study Abroad Program for Social Justice Equity, Social Consciousness, and Student Advocacy

This paper conceptualizes the practices of one urban-defined school's development of two uniquely designed student-led advocacy and research initiatives to promote social consciousness and student advocacy among the school's faculty, staff and community. This paper considers urban-defined to be any school, system, or teaching force that operates in a suburban populated city or area that carries the socially constructed and political descriptor of "urban" because the school demographics are characterized as including a majority of children of color (Black and Brown) and/or children with low socioeconomic/high poverty status. Two tenets of Critical Race Theory as a theoretical framework are identified: (1) racism as an invisible norm and (2) the use of counter narratives to provide voice to historically marginalized groups. In addition, the grassroots frameworks for African American educational lobbyists to enact African American legislative voice (Griffen, 2015, 2017, 2018) were used to as a way to mobilize community interests through youth advocacy and voice, which resulted in a collaboration of this urban-defined school's leaders and teachers to empower students to (1) conduct grassroots oral history research and (2) propose an accepted study abroad program. Recommendations for replication include frameworks for developing a grassroots Oral History and Study Abroad course in order to promote social justice equity, social consciousness, and student advocacy.