CHAPTER 16: Hear Our Voices!: Youth and Community Leaders Creating New Paradigms for Social Change in Their Schools and Neighbourhoods

Through university-community-school partnerships, stakeholders from diverse backgrounds, mixed status, and social classes come together in authentic relationships focused on shared goals of educational reform and social change (Ball, 2005; Burbank & Hunter, 2010; Hunter, Munro, Dunn, & Olsen, 2009). Within these relationships, institutions of higher education have the opportunity to extend their power and privilege and invest their resources in models that can connect youth and families of immigrant and refugee backgrounds, individuals who are unable to gain U.S. documentation, and first generation families directly to policy makers. Important steps towards educational equity and social justice can be accomplished by centering the voice of minoritized communities to provoke action for a more just distribution of resources and dignity (Checkoway & Richards-Schuster, 2004). This chapter presents three examples of the impact of higher education-community partnerships that foster social justice for multiethnic immigrants, families with refugee backgrounds, and first generation youth.