Schools in the United States have often been tasked with cultivating a political identity that is connected to the nation-state. In the civics classroom, this often means teaching a nation-state centered civic education, which can create a sense of disjuncture for some students. This year-long ethnographic study explores disenfranchised students living in the Virgin Islands’ political identities and interests and how their teachers responded to them. The findings suggest that students entered the classroom with developed and varied political interests and identities that would not necessarily be recognized in a traditional nation-state centered civics class. Teachers responded by providing a culturally sustaining and humanizing civic education that honored their students’ diverse political and cultural identities and interests.
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