ABSTRACT
Relatively little is known about queer youth programs in urban schools and the unique challenges they face as a result of being housed in inner-city schools where the majority of students are poor, nonwhite and/or non—native English speakers. Here, I discuss my experiences working on a school-university collaborative action research project (CARP) at a California High School (CHS) located in a small urban community in the Bay Area of California. 1 My work on CARP led to independent participant observation of Project 10. This social/support group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) students was developed by Dr. Virginia Uribe in 1984, as a school-based dropout prevention program and later evolved into the school's GSA. 2 During the four years I worked on CARP, between 1996 and 2000,I became intrigued with the way the school's racially segregated academic and social environments affected student participation in extracurricular activities. As an out black, gay, male educator, I was drawn to the question of why, in a school where more than 60 percent of the students were nonwhite, Project 10 participants tended to be white female students. I conducted in-depth interviews with four openly gay, black male students, two of whom are quoted in this chapter. These interviews, coupled with my own participant observation in Project 10, led me to conclude 186that two important challenges face queer youth programs in urban schools: racial segregation and denormalizing whiteness.
