Literature, justice, and resistance

In this dissertation, I share the findings from a study I carried out during the 2006-2007 school year at Glennview High School, a Massachusetts public high school located in an affluent Boston suburb. This study involves 40 high school seniors randomly assigned to a fall semester course on social justice issues (entitled "Literature and Justice") and 43 high school seniors randomly assigned to serve as the control group. With a mixed-methods approach, I investigate the impact of learning about social justice on students' beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and worldview. What I found was that two types of students emerged from their exposure to social justice issues. A small minority of the Glennview seniors who participated in Literature and Justice experienced a deepening of their commitment to social action. Following Literature and Justice, these students expressed an intent to seek out community service opportunities in college and a desire to pursue socially responsible careers thereafter. However, a majority of the Glennview High seniors in Literature and Justice demonstrated a very different and unexpected shift in worldview; learning about social justice issues actually led the