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Claiming Our Turf: Students'

Civic Negotiation of the Public
Space of School
a
Sandra J. Schmidt
a
Teachers College, Columbia University
Published online: 13 Nov 2013.

To cite this article: Sandra J. Schmidt (2013) Claiming Our Turf: Students' Civic
Negotiation of the Public Space of School, Theory & Research in Social Education,
41:4, 535-551, DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2013.840717

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2013.840717

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 Theory & Research in Social Education, 41: 535–551, 2013
Copyright © College and University Faculty Assembly of
National Council for the Social Studies
ISSN 0093-3104 print / 2163-1654 online
DOI: 10.1080/00933104.2013.840717

Claiming Our Turf: Students’ Civic Negotiation

of the Public Space of School
Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 13:23 21 November 2014

Sandra J. Schmidt
Teachers College, Columbia University

Abstract: In the ongoing effort to conceptualize meaningful civics curriculum, the

author looks beyond the intended curriculum to consider the civics lessons embedded in
spatial interaction and engagement. She examines how young people negotiate school, a
space she contends can be conceived of as a public space. Their negotiations rely upon
tactics of avoidance, dissent, and incivility as civic actions that reshape space. These
tactics—all forms of resistance—suggest that civic efficacy and possibility are bound
in how young people create and then continuously respond to the spaces they re-create
through civic processes.

Keywords: public space, civic education, spatial theory, civic efficacy, resistance theory

The last few years have seen a re-invigoration of political protests that
contest space. In the Wisconsin Statehouse, Tahir Square, and Occupy move-
ments, protestors reclaimed public and privately owned public spaces as
sites of direct action against unwanted governments and economic institu-
tions. Protestors who demand justice problematize spatial exclusion that makes
Blacks, Latinos, and Arab Americans targets of police or neighborhood moni-
toring in certain spaces. These civic actions take place somewhere and contest
the regulations of space. Movements raise important questions about what
political action looks like, how citizens respond to authority, the contested
rhetoric used to define space and consequently a movement, and how/why
protestors select sites for occupation. Place as a site of resistance expresses
the idea of civic negotiation as a spatial concern and encourages examination
of the civic quality of public space. Social education scholars should be at the
forefront of these investigations.

Correspondence should be sent to Sandra J. Schmidt, Program in Social Studies

Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, 420B Zankel
Hall, New York, NY 10027. Email: ss4146@tc.columbia.edu
 536 Schmidt

The actualization of public space raises questions about inclusion,

incivility, and exclusion. Although public spaces are theoretically designed to
invite interaction in a geographically segregated and isolated society, struggles
to feel part of a public lead to the formation of cliques and counter publics
(Fraser, 1990). Exclusionary and uncivil actions also teach citizens how to
not interact with one another. Unpacking interactions people have in/with
space is important for more complete understanding of the civic education
people receive, education well beyond classrooms and textbooks. Civic par-
ticipation literature shows a democracy in crisis (Galston, 2004; Levinson,
2012). Increased attention to content, purpose, and amount of civic education
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young people receive in schools is worthy, but I propose expanding this con-
versation with an inquiry into another curriculum—how young people’s civic
dispositions are shaped by their spatial encounters in schools.

(RE)CONCEPTUALIZING PUBLIC SPACE

Commons, town squares, and parks have a history of being claimed or con-
structed as spaces where people can engage politically and socially with others
(Fain, 2004). These spaces have been foundational to the formation of a public
sphere, often touted as an essential element of a democratic country (Dewey,
1927; Fraser, 1990; Habermas, 1974). Theoretically, the openness of public
spaces allow peoples to come together to gaze upon the actions and policies
of governments. Concerns over the demise of public space attend to the phys-
ical loss of space and a directional shift of the gaze within remaining spaces.
Neoliberal policies that privilege the rights of businesses or private interests
over those of citizens have led to the privatization of many spaces, such as
parks and sidewalks, that were previously reserved for the people (Blumenberg
& Ehrenfeucht, 2008; Staeheli & Mitchell, 2006). Terrorism, homelessness,
and other fears of disorder have produced reactionary measures that heavily
regulate and surveil public spaces by limiting hours of access, adding lights
and cameras, and allowing police searches (Mitchell & Staeheli, 2005; Smith
& Low, 2006; Vidler, 2001).
Critics suggest that public space has never manifested itself as univer-
sally open (Dikec, 2001; Mitchell, 2003). Public spaces are always contested,
employ exclusionary practices, and reject particular group claims. Robust pub-
lic spaces do not exist because they adhere to criteria—they are brought into
being. Marxist geographers first employed the language of produced space
through inquiries about how resources and labor were allocated across spaces
to maintain unequal movement and access to capital (Harvey, 1996; Lefebvre,
1991; Sjoa, 2010). They found various ways in which capitalist abstrac-
tions were built into the physical, experienced landscape. Recognizing public
spaces as produced spaces situates them within broader discourses about space
rather than as a particular category of space (Mitchell, 2003; Smith & Low,
 Students’ Civic Negotiation 537

2006; Staeheli & Thompson, 1997; Vidler, 2001). Positioning public space
within contemporary discourses of corporatization and terrorism contextual-
izes the exclusions and regulations of these spaces as part of broader social
change.
The messiness of public space arises because they are not singularly
produced, and contestation arises because actors lay varying claims. The argu-
ment for multiple/counter public spaces speaks to important manners in which
ordinary citizens respond to and participate in the production of public space
(Fraser, 1990; Warner, 2000). For many people, the right to seek out and claim
public spaces is emancipatory (McCann, 1999; Springer, 2010; Staeheli &
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Thompson, 1997). Instead of merely identifying public space as those areas

with more open access, we may choose to identify a public space by its func-
tion. Mitchell (2003) contended, “It is when, to fulfill a pressing need, some
group or another takes space and through its actions makes it public” (p. 35).
Allowing it to be defined by the actions that can occur therein leads researchers
to locate public spaces via the internet, in privately owned private spaces, and
other spaces that have traditionally lacked proper form.
The reclaiming and relocation of public space may require different tac-
tics of engagement, but civic interaction and political dissent remain necessary
forms of civic engagement. I contend that the process of producing public space
also produces citizens. People’s efforts to claim, utilize, protest, rename, form
a counter public, and encounter regulation and exclusion shape their civic effi-
cacy and sensibility. The relationship between public space and civic identity
creates an ongoing relationship wherein the awareness and transformation of
each continues to reshape the other.

Schools as Public Spaces

Mitchell (2003) argued that public spaces are contested and complicated
entities. He contended that schools cannot be considered public spaces because
they are highly regulated by authorities. A regulatory gaze contributes to the
complexity of public spaces. However, amid sharp regulation, people still
make claims to space. Further, schools often describe themselves as demo-
cratic spaces looking to shape the civic efficacy of youth, a claim that demands
public space. I think there is potential in evaluating what happens when schools
are examined as public spaces. Public schools share a number of characteris-
tics with other public spaces: they are (largely) funded by public dollars; are
(supposedly) open to those who legitimately come to their doors; and draw
together groups that transcend some racial, economic, and spatial segregation.
Most important, they serve a unique social and political mission in claiming
to prepare students for civic engagement. These educational actions are pub-
lically visible. Similar to other public spaces, schools rarely actualize these
goals. They are largely controlled by administrators and increasingly see the
influence of corporations and other external entities. Schools may be open to
 538 Schmidt

all in a community, but some people are not permitted, some withdraw, and
activities are regulated. Schools can only be as integrated and as representative
as the external community. The citizens imagined by schools often refer not
to political participation or thoughtful dissent but to “good” citizens as people
who contribute to their society by adhering to social rules and being finan-
cially stable and independent. Young people learn particular ways of engaging
with public spaces and claiming public spaces through their encounter with the
complex rules and divisions in schools.
Acknowledging these limitations, I think it remains worthy to consider
schools as produced spaces wherein numerous actors shape meaning. If we
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see schools as public spaces, then we must also ask how civic sensibilities and
dispositions toward the common good and civility are shaped by participation
in this space. How do the students perceive their school? How do surveillances,
claims to space, actions between students and students and adults shape the
civic experience of students in schools?

A STUDY OF SPACE

This article is drawn from a larger study of student perceptions of schools

and reports a critical qualitative analysis of select student responses to inter-
views and focus groups. The broad research was conducted with tenth-grade
students at two high schools in a Southeastern U.S. state. The full sample
includes students from the grade-level1 and honors tracks at each school.
Savanna High is located in a cohesive, predominantly White, middle-class
suburban/rural community and houses approximately 3,000 students from
grades 9–12. A total of 106 10th-graders from Savannah High participated
in the survey/mapping, and 15 students participated in four focus group dis-
cussions reported herein. Woodlawn High is a rural/suburban fringe school
marked by an inflow of Black families and lower income housing. Woodlawn
has approximately 2,000 students and includes grades 9–12; a total of 121
10th-graders participated in the survey/mapping and 35 students in eight focus
groups.

Data Sources

Most maps represent spatial and conceptual ideas two dimensionally.

Although some cartographers assert that maps are objective, most geographers
recognize that decisions about scale, range, and content reflect perspectives of
the cartographers (Nespor, 1997; Segall, 2003; Thomas & Willinsky, 1999).
Mental mappings carried from mind to paper elicit how people imagine
and make sense of space (Blades, 1990; Lynch, 1960; Tolman, 1948; Tufte,
1997). Representational mapping offers a means through which students can
communicate conceptualizations of schools and schooling.
 Students’ Civic Negotiation 539

Participants in this study were provided a large blank piece of paper and
asked to respond to the following prompt: “I want to learn how students see
their schools. Please draw a map of your high school that shows your impres-
sions of the school and the places that are important to you.” Once drawn, par-
ticipants were asked to mark on their maps spaces that were student-friendly,
spaces where they spent time, and spaces that were uninviting to students.
Mapping was accompanied by surveys and interviews. The survey sought
demographic information,2 asked students to agree or disagree (on a 5-point
scale) with statements about student voice and civility in school, and solicited
responses to open-ended prompts about school strengths and weaknesses.
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Focus groups were selected by the researcher. Participating students volun-

teered and were purposefully selected to give voice to the different gender and
racial groups in each track as a means of collecting the range of issues that
affect students (Krueger & Casey, 2000; Van Staveren, 1997). The groups were
not proportionally representative of the school or the larger participant sample.
Focus group students were asked to (1) explain their maps, (2) respond to other
maps, and (3) discuss engagement with/in youth spaces in the school.

Data Analysis

Data were analyzed qualitatively to evaluate spatial patterns, meaning,

and value and to situate these within the public space literature. Each map
was coded by typology, what is in the center, map range, level of detail,
and an assessment of how “map-like” it is. The number of total spaces
and number of classrooms identified on the map were counted. A second
round of analysis examined places participants identified as favorite, student-
friendly, and uninviting. Data were organized by individual student to allow
collective and disaggregated analysis. Correlations were identified among
demographic factors, selected spaces, and meaning of school. Interview tran-
scripts were coded according to theoretical frameworks, including codes for
civility, separation/integration, racial or gender dynamics, means of categoriz-
ing space, and form/function of rules that regulate space (Miles & Huberman,
1994). Coding sought to understand the rules of space that were created by
adults and students as well as for treatment of students by students and other
social factors that might explain how spaces are experienced.

THE SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT, SOCIAL DIVISIONS,

AND NEGOTIATION OF HIGH SCHOOLS

The findings presented here are selected from the overall project because
they speak to how students negotiated, divided, and produced spaces in school
in a manner connected to public space literature. Of particular interest are
 540 Schmidt

the interactions of conceived and perceived senses of place, the multiplicity

of meanings, and how meanings influence practices and shape experiences.
The space of school is considered somewhat holistically, examining a distinc-
tion between adult and student spaces and a deconstruction of the interactions
within student spaces. The findings do not directly interrogate civic actions, but
the analysis of how young people make decisions and engage in the space of
school indicates what they imagine to be possible as citizens.

Findings on the Meaning of School

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Examining the signs associated with school provides some understand-

ing of how school is experienced as a place. Coding of survey data shows
that respondent students’ language commonly includes words associated with
learning: learning and work were most prevalent and, combined with the codes
of teachers, classes, and impact on future, connotations of learning accounted
for over 50% of the responses to a question in which students were asked to
describe school. Given the social discourse connecting school and education,
this reflection might be expected. Negative comments, such as “dread,” “bor-
ing,” and “torture,” or comments about the social nature of school accounted
for over 30% of responses. The data were disaggregated by race, gender, and
track in search for explanations of the varying descriptions. Race and gender
did not reveal patterns, but school tracks did. Most of the responses coded as
negative and social came from grade-level students. The tracking system posi-
tions them beneath/outside the rigorous academics of the high school, which
is likely reflected in how they represent school.
Mapping enables representations unhindered by language. The depiction
of school as a learning site disappeared on respondent maps. Instructional
areas were diminished in comparable size, given less attention, or not included.
Students at Woodlawn tended to represent school as a large area including a for-
est, pond, parking lots, athletic fields, and school building. The building was
small in contrast to the area around it. Students typically drew the entire build-
ing, and the area containing classrooms dwarfed in comparison to the rest of the
building. On architectural plans, the classroom areas comprise over 70% of the
building. At Savanna, most students drew a portion of the physical building and
no grounds. They included the center that houses the commons, library, theater,
and cafeteria but only included part of each academic hallway. “Detail”—a
relative label denoting any aspect that had more specificity than others on a
map—indicates areas worthy of attention. The details most frequently drawn
were cars and parking spaces in the parking lots, uprights and lines on athletic
fields, and bookshelves and tables in the library. Academic areas were outlined
but rarely divided to include individual classrooms or details within a class-
room. Students were not asked to label their maps, but many students labeled
places to make them recognizable. The number of places they labeled were
 Students’ Civic Negotiation 541

counted and classified. Academic areas such a “science hall” were labeled less
often than social, athletic, and administrative areas and hallways. Even general
outdoor (i.e., ponds and bus stops) and indoor (e.g., bathrooms, lockers, and
staircases) spaces were labeled more often than areas known to the researcher
as academic areas based on floor plans.
These representations de-emphasize learning as the central narrative of
school. Learning is probably the most common sign for school available, and it
is not surprising that students cited it when asked. The representational data
enabled students to indicate how they experience, mark, and mentally map
school. The seeming unity of space disappears when young people privilege
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the social and restrictive senses of place they also assign school.

Students Claim Space

The multiple meanings ascribed to school affect how spaces are claimed
and organized to allow (re)appropriations of meaning. Space is often assessed
through the intentions of conceivers who have a tactical and political advantage
in ascribing meaning to space (de Certeau, 1984; Lefebvre, 1991). Students
attached various meanings to “school” because they divided and claimed
spaces within school according to their perceptions and needs. Students do not
merely consent to how school is presented to them—they resist this represen-
tation by rewriting the scripts of space. Because schools are planned, arranged,
and monitored by adults (administrators and teachers) to maintain order and
surveil the youth moving through them, it is possible to consider them as fixed
and controlled entities. This understanding dismisses the significance of stu-
dents’ responses to control. Conceiving of youth as the tactical consumers of
space (de Certeau, 1984), this section queries where and why students make
spatial claims.
Students’ distinction between student-friendly and non-student-friendly
spaces was the basis for making spatial claims. At Woodlawn, classrooms were
identified as unfriendly by 42% of students, the office by 36% of students, the
library by 12%, and the teacher parking lot by 10%. At Savanna, one heavily
regulated hallway was labeled as unfriendly by 45% of respondents, 35% of
students identified the office, 34% identified the remaining academic hallways,
and 22% identified the library. These sites share the presence of adults and an
affiliation as sites of learning or discipline.
The focus group interviews corroborated that the level of adult authority
determined the level of friendliness. Students described the presence of a strict
teacher, a racist administrator, an unsympathetic nurse, and a short-tempered
attendance officer as a reason for avoiding places. Students observed teachers’
strategies to assess the specific nature of each classroom, some of which were
deemed friendly. How adults monitored spaces shaped the students’ evaluation
of their ability to claim space.
 542 Schmidt

F1: Like in the [commons] you’ll have like one or two administrators
F2: And a resource officer.
F1: And then in the cafeteria when you first walk in they have all the
administrators standing there and they watch you walk past and
then they’re just gone. Like you put on your ID, you walk in, and
you take it off type of thing. Or you put on that skirt or something,
you keep going about your business. You might have a teacher
floating around the cafeteria maybe, but not really. (Woodlawn,
Interview #2, honors girls)
In this representative citation, students indicated that failure of regulation by
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adults translates into openness for student activity. Where there was significant
adult presence, students used collective knowledge to bypass it. A list of rules
shared among students—where not to travel, tactics for avoiding punishment
for missing IDs, how to escape notice while texting, where to stand to avoid
adult gaze, which teachers confiscate cellphones—are unwritten wisdom that
allowed students to minimize/resist adult influence. Adult spaces were gener-
ally those where students respond to, avoid, or resist the tone set by adults. But
spaces were assessed individually not categorically, because some adults and
the spaces they oversaw were less authoritative.
At each school, spaces where students congregated were identified as
student-friendly. At Woodlawn, these spaces were an atrium (a large open two-
story area in the center of the building inside the main entrances), the cafeteria,
and the student parking lot. At Savanna, the cafeteria and the commons (a
large open, two-story area in the middle of the school) were the most common
student-friendly spaces. Athletic fields and specific classrooms at Woodlawn,
art spaces at Savanna, and the library and gym at both schools were also reg-
ularly labeled as student-friendly. An important structural difference between
the schools is that students at Savanna were required to eat lunch in the cafe-
teria while Woodlawn students ate anywhere. The longer list suggests that
claims to student spaces are not merely those left open for students by the
administration.
Student-friendly places availed for different activities. These were spaces
where students could “congregate,” “chill,” and engage in unmonitored “social
activity” with their peers. They contained less surveillance and the opportunity
for students to direct their function. Adults standing on the perimeters were
deemed unlikely to disrupt student activities. The claiming of these spaces and
the forthcoming discussion of how students regulated these spaces illustrate
how students conducted themselves as agents.

Erasing Weirdos and Manifesting Incivility

The various data provide commentary about what happens within student-
friendly spaces. Similar to the differential experience with school, one must
 Students’ Civic Negotiation 543

consider the varied experiences in these spaces, beginning with the false
assumption that they are friendly for all students. In general, students had a
relatively neutral response to questions about equity. In response to the state-
ment, “Students of different races and academic levels hang out together in
my school,” students at Woodlawn averaged 3.86 (on a 5-point Likert scale,
where 5 = strongly agree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, and 1 = strongly
disagree), and students at Savanna averaged 3.55, indicating slight agreement.
A low disaggregated score occurred among students who identified common
student spaces as unfriendly: 2.77 (n = 20) average at Woodlawn and 2.63
(n = 15) at Savanna. At each school, approximately one-fourth of respondents
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noted positive social climate as a school strength. When asked what needed
improvement at their school, 10% of students at each school referenced equity
issues—address racism, bullying, diversity, and tracking. Approximately half
of these students identified common student areas as unfriendly. Focus groups
allowed participants to describe these issues.
The disparate perceptions of common areas as welcoming can be
explained through an examination of their landscape. They contain recogniz-
able spatial patterns:

Oh, definitely. You just walk in and you look out and you know, the
African Americans are usually out in that corner, the jocks are usually
mixed up, the mmm, this isn’t the best term. The weird people are usually
on the walls. (Savanna, Interview #13, grade-level female)

In response to statements such as these, I asked focus groups to sketch the

social arrangement of common areas. Students at Woodlawn noted where
types of cars and people parked in the parking lot even though spaces were
not assigned. In the commons, “Rednecks” convened near the window and
“Black jocks” near a column. At Savanna, the lunch tables were informally
“assigned” by students based on social standing. The concern is not that such
patterns existed but that some groups found themselves physically marginal-
ized. In interviews, these groups were called “weirdos”: “It’s like lesbians
and gays and Emos and Goth and like homos and like stuff you don’t . . . ”
(Woodlawn, Interview #5, grade-level girls). At Savanna, because there were
not enough seats in the cafeteria for all of the students required to eat there,
some students ate on the floor. Similarly, there was limited area on the first
floor of the commons/atrium. The “weirdos” were forced to congregate on the
second level. This removed them from the visible landscape of dominant social
groups. How do students who are made invisible through spatial interactions
experience school?
Students who identified common student areas as unfriendly share certain
characteristics. At Woodlawn, 12 of the 17 students were in the honors track,
13 were White, and 14 were active in multiple arts and/or multiple athletics.
 544 Schmidt

The 16 students at Savanna who noted a negative social climate were comprised
of 12 grade-level, 10 male, 13 White, and 8 artistic students. Unlike their peers,
these students contrasted their favorite places from generally student-friendly
spaces. The spaces these students noted as favorites were spaces where their
dominant identities did not make them “weird.” More students labeled the
art rooms and athletic fields as favorites than as student-friendly. The outliers
found refuge in spaces (art room, band room, supportive teacher, soccer pitch,
theater) that could hold double-meanings as student-constructed and adult-
regulated space. The emergence of specific classrooms, art rooms, and athletic
fields is significant. Students migrated to areas they experienced as safe. Just
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as students generally withdrew from adult gaze, some students withdrew from
peer gaze.
The movement of marginalized students out of common areas is not
incidental. The rules and regulation created by students were exclusionary:

Researcher: Say someone came over to where you sit that isn’t typi-
cally there, how would your group respond to that person?
Or say you went to lunch and another group was sitting
where you normally sit, what would you do?
M1: It’d be awkward but we’d find another place to sit.
M3: This year, we had this girl just come and sit with us out
of nowhere. We just sat there. We was whispering to each
other, who is that? We were confused.
M2: I sit by myself so sometimes I sit with other groups and
see how they react to me. People talk about you when
you are there by yourself. Or they just say, “Leave.”
(Woodlawn, Interview #9, grade-level Black boys)

When someone broke spatial rules, it created confusion and discomfort.

Students highlighted a variety of actions they took to maintain order ranging
from avoidance to whispering to confrontation.

F1: Some will politely tell them, and some will just, politely sit there
and not bother them. But some are really, really mean, and will
just beat up.
M1: The rugby players are usually the meanest. They’ll usually make
fun of them until they leave. They won’t tell them to leave, but
they’ll make them want to leave. (Savanna, Interview #11, honors
co-ed)

The use of force was not a common means of maintaining order, but it occurred.
Students at Woodlawn shared examples of altercations between “Rednecks”
 Students’ Civic Negotiation 545

and “Blacks” when students parked their cars or selves in the “wrong” area.
The use of force re-formed the appropriate boundaries. Public fights were
performative reminders about what happens when rules are transgressed.
A fight may be seen by more people, but shuffling and whispers are pow-
erful tactics for enforcing norms. Students hope the offender will recognize
the transgression and correct his/her behavior. These quiet mechanisms for
surveilling space eliminate the need for formal rules. The performance of self-
exile reaffirms the normalizing social hierarchy dependent upon an invisible
other to create the social standing of self. The migration toward and reminder
of normal patterns separate students and embed the social hierarchy into a lived
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arrangement.

CONTEXTUALIZING PRACTICES IN/OF PUBLIC SPACE

In forming contested meanings, dividing school to claim space, and con-

structing rules of engagement in student spaces, students are developing a
repertoire for understanding themselves as civic actors in public spaces. I sug-
gest that civic identity incorporates both a sense of the self as a subject and
knowledge of how and where to deploy this subjectivity across an uneven and
exclusive landscape. Exclusion isolates in various ways. It can physically iso-
late people from resources, but it can also create a sense that these goods do
not belong to certain individuals (Dikec, 2001; Soja, 2010). When internal-
ized, this latter effect may prevent citizens from demanding access to certain
social, political, and educational goods. Feeling alienated from the library,
being unable to eat lunch, or existing beyond the gaze of adults, disadvan-
tages students from the full-range of school resources. The study reaffirms this
research while simultaneously complicating it. This explanation of school pre-
sumes a uni-directional flow of meaning-making that is inconsistent with the
data. Students’ differential attachment of signs to school is just one indication
that school does not have a universalizing effect on experiences with/in school.
I explore three tactics that helped students negotiate socio-spatial issues, tactics
that offer insight into civic subjectivity and reinvigorate resistance theory.
The narrative of exclusion presumes that power or decision making rests
with the excluder (Dikec, 2001). We might imagine the face of authority grin-
ning down at an unwanted guest who turns her head toward the ground and
slinks away. Students were not passively excluded—they avoided. The tac-
tic enabled them to move unbothered through school. In classrooms, students
conformed to avoid the over-involvement of adults or avoided a teacher by
misbehaving and being removed. Outside classrooms, students avoided heav-
ily regulated “adult” spaces. They refused to see a counselor, avoided detention,
and traversed paths to minimize encounters with hallway monitors. In student
spaces, students rarely transgressed spatial boundaries, challenged social hier-
archy, or confronted other students. They withdrew to their assigned areas or
 546 Schmidt

left. Avoidance averts interaction through intentional decision making and col-
lective engagement. Students needed a detailed understanding of socio-spatial
dynamics to make decisions about how and where to locate themselves.
Avoidance is an active tactic rarely discussed in the public space literature
that understands exclusion as a strategy for producing rather than negotiating
space.
Public spaces encourage dissent and protest (Mitchell, 1995; Springer,
2010). The most recognizable form of dissent is protestors marching in the
streets, but Soja (2010) argued that spatial reappropriation is an important
means of laying claim to space and disrupting discourses that limit access to
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space and decision making. The findings show that students recognized where
they lacked authority—classrooms as learning spaces, administrative offices,
particular hallways—and where they could assert themselves. The common
student areas dominated the landscape of student spaces, large areas without
direct adult attention wherein students made the rules and largely monitored
one another. Students who failed to feel safe within these common areas found
counterspaces where they could protect themselves (Fraser, 1990; Warner,
2000). They reclaimed classrooms, art areas, and libraries. Although teachers
set the rules in these spaces during instructional time, when students migrated
here during other times, they did so because the space allowed them to nego-
tiate an identity of the space consistent with their needs and identities. These
are significant moments of dissent, ones that play a crucial role in destabilizing
sense of place, expanding the imagination of civic engagements and building a
disposition of resistance.
Students’ production of meaning and drawing of landscapes elevates
incivility as a form of interaction (Allen, 2004; Amin, 2008). The concept of
incivility matters because the ideal public space comprises a public concerned
with the common good of its collective membership. Allen (2004) argued that
civility is essential to rebuilding U.S. democracy. Students’ discussion of inter-
action revealed practices that counter Allen’s sentiment. Normalizing practices
were used above to describe how students embedded the social hierarchy into
physical and lived experience. Spatially, the lack of access to desirable infras-
tructure, such as columns to lean against, tables to sit at, and the visible first
floor, differentiated margins and center. During group interviews, students will-
ingly used dismissive language that maintained this hierarchy. The data, in the
form it was collected, largely capture the uncivil actions of the center, but I
suppose similar language was used by the margins to differentiate them from
an undesirable center. The socio-spatial arrangement combined with other tac-
tics indicates a general lack of interaction among groups differentiated in the
social hierarchy of school. No interaction prevents groups from developing a
shared or collective sensibility that might resist displays of incivility.
The tactics of avoidance, dissent, and incivility resonate with resis-
tance theory in explaining how youth respond to dominant forces in society,
particularly in ways that affect subjectivity. Resistance theory reconceptualized
 Students’ Civic Negotiation 547

deviant behavior as a rejection of dominant social expectations (Apple &

Weis, 1983; Stanley, 1992). Agentive responses demonstrated that universal-
izing structures are never complete (Giroux, 1983). Acts of resistance may fail
their ultimate goal because the acts may perpetuate a lack of access to resources
and change in their rejection of dominant structures (Willis, 1977). Resistance
theory provides a framework for evaluating the advantages and drawbacks of
the tactics of avoidance and incivility. The process of avoidance demonstrated
ways in which students excluded themselves from educational resources. As a
means of dissent, some students tried to erase others from the landscape, yet
these students were never invisible. They tacitly dictated the discourse about
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school social structure. Their resistant tactic of claiming different spaces had
the effect of contributing to segregation in school and increasing their physical
invisibility. The actions of youth are complicated by the development of multi-
ple subjectivities—some of which are marginalized and others privileged in the
social hierarchy—that affect how they are positioned and position themselves
in the social landscape (Youdell & Armstrong, 2011). These tactics embed
themselves into students’ civic imagination in manners that are simultaneously
reproductive and agentive. A significant contribution to resistance theory is the
consideration of how these acts shape the meaning of space and allow it to
continuously function in shaping civic possibilities.
Mitchell (2003) reprimanded researchers who failed to account for
contestation over/in public spaces. Contestation arises because multiple actors
employing different tactics occupy space. The consequence is the opening of
the meaning of space. Acts of dissent and civility as well as avoidance and
incivility contribute to how public spaces are experienced. Schools are largely
signified as sites of learning, but students sculpted the space differently. It was
their actions, not those of the adults, in student spaces that enable me to
consider the civics curriculum of school. Student engagements have allowed
schools to function as public spaces in the manner outlined in the literature.
Multiple interactions of space open up the impact of resistance. Returning
again to marginalized youth who left the cafeteria, we see how spatial inter-
action complicates the common assessment of these youth as victims. While
they may have retreated as victims, they learned the potential for social change
when they re-signified the art room as a safe haven and non-authoritative space.
These practices, these contestations over how, where, and when to employ
active tactics in public spaces highlight the complex and unstable formation
of a civic identity marked by how people recognize, resist, and enter space.

CONCLUSIONS

Inquiries into public space exist largely at the social level. They ask about
the collective influence of changes to individual spaces on the grand predi-
cation that a healthy democracy requires spaces for dissent and interaction
 548 Schmidt

across difference. It examines the signs utilized by producers to actualize

social theories by building them into the experienced, physical landscapes.
The feared loss of public space and imperatives to save it reflect a divisive
public unable to respond to increased regulation of space (Smith & Low,
2006). This loss reflects broader concerns about the loss of political oppo-
sition and substantive public dialogue. Changes to public spaces are often
justified as a response to terrorism or efforts to support corporations and
business as they protect our fragile economy. There is little attention to the
equitable or collective needs of a people (Smith & Low, 2006; Staeheli &
Thompson, 2006). Schools are not exempt from the regulation based on
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social narratives. Bullying and school violence shape “safe space” man-
dates. Corporations, through the founding of charter schools, grants, and the
production of curricular and assessment materials, influence teaching and
learning. Theories of public space turn their attention to understanding the
interplay between discourse and its enactment in space and this is important.
Undertheorized in this inquiry, however, is how these regulations shape the
civic efficacy and subjectivity of people who engage with/in these spaces.
We see a multiplier effect wherein resistant tactics, such as avoidance, dis-
sent, and incivility, contribute to the meaning of space and re-create the civic
imagination through the actions themselves but also through participation in
re-signified spaces.
One tension in the work on public space is the identification of public
space as space that is open to all but the failure of this to arise. As open
spaces, presumably people clamor to be included themselves until they come
to believe it impossible. People are not passively excluded. People attempt
to engage and are told they do not belong and seek other places. The pre-
vious section examined how this functions in schools and the dispositions
youth learn as a result. What we learn in the discussion section can grow
outward and encourage further inquiry into public spaces. If these are the
sites where civic activity happens, and if we are as concerned with the loss
of civic engagement as we are with the loss of public space, we need to
inquire about the ways individuals come to think of themselves as mem-
bers of a public through (non)participation in space. When people engage
through the internet, the opportunities to learn incivility seem greatly enhanced.
The thinking about public space needs to consider how the forms of interac-
tion therein undermine the very idea of a public they are designed to build.
Within schools, the function of space is important to consider alongside exist-
ing deliberation over how to prepare citizens. In rethinking democracy, we
need to expand how we understand engagement with space as civic edu-
cation. Direct and subtle displays of resistance in schools, such as outright
protests, and subtle claims in society are means for contesting space and
social hierarchy while we consider where and how to position our selves in
society.
 Students’ Civic Negotiation 549

NOTES

1
The schools are tracked into advanced and regular classes. In this arti-
cle, the honors track includes all students who are placed in honors, advanced
placement, or advanced courses. Grade level contains all remaining courses
and is the title of this track given by the schools.
2
The demographic information included race, gender, academic track,
length of time in community, parent/guardian educational attainment, and the
kinds of activities students are involved in inside and outside of school. Both
school districts forbade questions about sexuality and religious identification.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SANDRA J. SCHMIDT is an Assistant Professor in the Program in Social

Studies Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York,
NY 10027. She can be contacted at ss4146@tc.columbia.edu.