ABSTRACT

What it means to be a citizen for groups such as children and African Americans remains a contested, abstract, and evasive concept. This article seeks to gain a greater understanding of citizenship education by injecting the voices of young Black male students who are talked to and talked about but rarely asked to contribute to citizenship discourse. What emerged from these first- and second-grade students is the framework of “maybe citizens.” The maybe citizen embodies two scenarios: a contradiction of title and actions and/or identification by how one is generally (mis)treated by society despite one’s good character and honorable deeds. By combining critical childhood studies and phenomenology, this study captures the rhetoric of democracy versus the reality of democracy from the lens of early elementary Black males.

摘要

对于诸如儿童和非裔美国人这样的群体来说，公民的含义仍然是一个有争议的，抽象的和回避的概念。本文旨在通过注入年轻的黑人男生的声音来获得对公民教育的更多了解，这些黑人男生被交谈和谈论，却很少被要求为公民话语做出贡献。这些一年级和二年级学生的想法是“也许是公民。” 可能的公民体现了两种情况：所有权和行为的矛盾和/或身份认同，尽管一个人的品格和光荣事迹被社会普遍（错误地）对待。通过结合批判性的儿童研究和现象学，本研究从早期的基本黑人男性的角度捕捉了民主的言论与民主的现实。