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Abstract
Westheimer and Kahne (2004) connect the creation of a good citizen to the foundations of a good society (p. 238) as long as being a good citizen means being personally responsible, voting, or being active in ones community. In todays political climate, these seem like good starts and valuable endeavors, but they lack a critique on how we understand the different facets of our society and the unequal ways we get to belong in society. This dissertation begins by asking the questions how do we belong and how do we learn that belonging? I will seek answers through research and investigation of the activities and on-goings in a social studies classroom and activist group in Georgia, the heart of the New South. Using a multi-sited case study method, I observed these spaces, interviewed participants, and considered how I was changing these spaces with my questions, my research, and my presence. What I saw in these spaces was dynamic, as students and teachers, youths and adults all exhibited elevated levels of understanding about the complex ways that membership is parceled out unfairly amongst people. In the classroom, I observed lessons about racialized injustices and violence where students pushed for a wide expanse of conversation topics and a white student-teacher struggled to find the best place for her in this conversation. At the activist group, I saw amazing testimonios that taught the larger community, and me, about how my participants were experiencing the politics and rhetoric of the border and its divisions. These exhibitions of power, understanding, and learning were amazing to see and think about. Masuoka and Junns (2013) concept of belonging and Butlers (2010) theory of precarity provided the theoretical lens to understand this data. This, for me, has resulted in new questions about how teachers can approach citizenship education and learning about the world, and how they can learn to use the opportunity they have with students to ask deep questions and think about the power they have as teachers to create a good society. The fact that students and teachers are constantly confronting difficult issues of membership, citizenship, and belonging means that we should invite more complexity and thinking about these issues into the classroom instead of ignoring them. Inviting students and teachers to be complex thinkers and learners about the world needs to start with an acknowledgement and appreciation that they are already engaged in this kind of thinking of learning and need to prepare our classrooms to engage with these questions instead of thinking students arent ready.