Intersectional Organizing and Educational Justice: How Lived Experience Influences Community Organizers’ Understanding and Practice of Intersectional Organizing

Abstract

Recently, education organizers working with youth and parents have taken intersectional approaches. Little research, however, considers how personal experience informs these understandings and the approaches organizers take. The purpose of this study is to understand how social locations like gender identity and race inform organizers’ understanding and practice of intersectional organizing. We interviewed eight community, parent, and youth organizers with a variety of racial and gender identities. The organizers are members of the People’s Think Tank (PTT), an idea and strategy space that includes organizers and activist scholars working together to strengthen and expand the educational justice movement. We found three different practices of intersectional organizing. One subgroup of organizers understands intersectional organizing as a tool for interrogating power and privilege. A second subgroup of organizers understands intersectional organizing as centering the lives of the most marginalized. Finally, the third subgroup of organizers stated that terms like “interconnected” and “intergenerational” are preferred terms when talking about intersectional organizing. Our analysis finds that an individuals’ lived experience impacts how they understand intersectional organizing and that engagement in intersectional organizing helps individuals better understand their social identities. We discuss the relationship between these distinct approaches and how they relate to intersectional organizing.

Keywords

• education justice
• social movements
• community organizing
• intersectionality
• identity