As part of the First in the World project, CUNY will be examining two community-university initiatives:

1.  CARA – a youth organizing project dedicated to enhancing college access for under-represented urban high school graduates. CARA evolved from a youth organizing/leadership model in which young people are the soul and leaders of college access. First in the World will document the youth leaders’ affect on the over 15,000 students they have advised. The project will also create a participatory brochure for “navigating the multi-cultural campus” for first generation students of color (Andrew Cory Greene).
2. Engaged Scholarship – First in the World will document a series of courses at the Colin Powell School of Engaged Scholarship, located in East Harlem.  A partnership with Picture the Homeless, these classes are designed to educate and support students in organizing for fair and just housing in East Harlem, New York. (The courses include Research Methods for Urban Justice, Critical Ethnography, Social History, etc.)

Background

Michelle Fine is a Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, Women’s Studies, American Studies and Urban Education at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Fine is a university teacher, educational activist and researcher who works on social justice projects with youth, women and men in prison, educators and social movements on the ground. A pioneer in the field of youth Participatory Action Research, and a founding faculty member of the Public Science Project, Fine has been involved with a series of participatory studies with youth and elders, from across different racial, ethnic and social class backgrounds, to investigate circuits of dispossession and circuits of critical resistance.

Research

Fabricant, M. and Fine, M. (2013) The Changing Landscape of Public Education and the Lives Left Behind. Paradigm Publishers.

Fabricant, M. and Fine, M. (2012)Charter Schools and the Corporate Make Over of Public Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Cammarota, J. and Fine, M. (Eds, 2008) Revolutionizing Education: Youth Participatory Action Research in Motion.  New York: Routledge Publishers.

Sirin, S. and Fine, M. (2008) Muslim American Youth : Understanding Hyphenated Identities through Multiple Methods. New York: New York University Press.

Weis, L. and Fine, M. (2005) Beyond Silenced Voices (Second edition) Albany: SUNY Press.

2006 AESA Critics’ Choice Awards (American Educational Studies Association).