A Case Study of the Production of Educational Sanctuary in One Migrant Classroom

A notion of educational sanctuary as the production of social space in which historically marginalized and demonized social groups may experience—in and through social practice, either inside or outside of the home and school—the intellectual and artistic freedom, social equity, and concrete institutional access to educational services they are precluded from enjoying in typical everyday settings is introduced and elaborated. The object of study is a 90-minute lecture/presentation/discussion in a summer migrant educational programme at a University of California campus. Analytic focus is given to: a) the collective logic-of-inquiry or the conceptual path participants travel; b) co-authorship of meaning or the ways in which social actors create interactional openings for one another to ply their learning; and c) language and gestures of engagement in the production of an “essential We” social order.