The Education-Industrial Complex: A Consideration of Power, Educational Institution and the Political Disengagement of Urban Secondary Students – Version III

The K-12 system of education is a complex organization that has historically denied students of low socio-economic status the opportunity for political engagement through the exercise of power (Apple, 1993; Ben-Porath, 2013; Boggs, 2000; Crayton, 2014; Ethiraj & Levinthal, 2009; Fazzaro, 2006; Gordon, 1980; Horowitz, 1969; Karabel, 1977; Lukes, 2005; Shipps, 2008; Wedel, 2009). This statement is in response to a series of questions presented by members of my Academic Advisory Committee, respectively, as a Qualifying Exam for doctoral candidacy in Urban Education Studies. This article is a response to the series of questions that will address the concern of the opening statement including: Professor Peter Seybold’s Questions of Power in the K-12 Education System; Professor Brendan Maxcy’s request on the state of political youth engagement in Urban Secondary Schools; and Professor Jim Scheurich’s request for focus on PAR (Participatory Action Research) and YPAR (Youth Participatory Action Research) in the education system as they relate to the political engagement of Urban Secondary Students.


Introduction
The K-12 system of education is a complex organization that has historically denied students of low socio-economic status the opportunity for political engagement through the exercise of power (Apple, 1993;Ben-Porath, 2013;Boggs, 2000;Crayton, 2014 ;Ethiraj & Levinthal, 2009;Fazzaro, 2006;Gordon, 1980;Horowitz, 1969;Karabel, 1977;Lukes, 2005;Shipps, 2008;Wedel, 2009). This statement is in response to a series of questions presented by members of my Academic Advisory Committee, respectively, as a Qualifying Exam for doctoral candidacy in Urban Education Studies. The addressed concern has developed from graduate studies in sociology and education in addition to experience as a teacher of students in grades 7 through post-secondary levels. The three series of questions that will form the frame for the balance of this response are: I. Seybold Questions of Power in the K-12 Education System (Page 8)

A.
What are Complex Organizations? B.
What is power and how is power exercised in the K-12 education system?
C. Who has power in the K-12 education system and what form does this power take? D.
How has the exercise of power in education systems been transformed over time? A.
Describe what the historical development of PAR from its beginning to the present has been and discuss what its current key characteristics are.

B.
Describe the emergence of YPAR from PAR and discuss YPAR's current key characteristics.
C. Briefly discuss at least three "high quality," defined by possessing most of the key characteristics just discussed, research examples of YPAR.

D.
Conclude with a discussion of how all of this might apply to your dissertation research.
Obradović and Masten (2007) state that "SES (socioeconomic status) is positively correlated with measures of activity involvement and citizenship (but) researchers need to shed more light on how factors such as poverty, unemployment, marginalization, and discrimination influence development of civic engagement" (p. 17). In fact, Baum (2003) preceded Obradović and Masten (2007) in suggesting that SES must be looked at more critically in considering involvement of students. Weinstein, Deci, and Ryan (2010) link the meaning of student involvement as a correlate to family engagement with the student on topics that are intrinsically motivating for them given their lived experiences. Baum (2003) cites that [T]he most accurate predictor of a student's achievement in school is not income or social status, but the extent to which the student's family is able to: 1) Create a 9 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies Lee, 2013;Searle, 1995;Weber, 1947). As the reader knows, many authors (Apple, 1993;Ben-Porath, 2013;Boggs, 2000;Coplan, Hughes, Bosacki, & Rose-Krasnor, 2011;Lukes, 2005;Shipps, 2008) have linked hierarchy to power. The conception of power and its relationship to hierarchy will be investigated later in this section, but for now let us consider the ideal of bureaucracy. Weber (1947) speaks to bureaucracy, a tool of power, in stating that The purest type of exercise of legal authority is that which employs a bureaucratic administrative staff [whereas] (b)ureaucratic administration means fundamentally the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge. This is the feature of it which makes it specifically rational. This consists on the one hand in technical knowledge which, by itself, is sufficient to ensure it a position of extraordinary power. But in addition to this, bureaucratic organizations, or the holders of power who make use of them, have the tendency to increase their power still further by the knowledge growing out of experience in the service. For they acquire through the conduct of office a special knowledge of facts and have available a store of documentary material peculiar to themselves. (Weber, 1947;339; italics added) Weber (1947) is telling us that there are for manifestations of power that should guide analysis of a bureaucracy as a complex organization. The four manifestations of power being: 1) the exercise of legal authority and the employment of a bureaucratic administrative staff; 2) the bureaucratic administrative staff exhibits the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge; 3) the exercise of control on the basis of knowledge is an exhibition of power; and 4) the holders of power who make use of them, have the tendency to increase their power still further by the knowledge growing out of experience in the service. Seybold (2014) and Picciano and Spring 10 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies (2013), for example, have advised that the K-12 education system is a complex organization and therefore, when analyzed, exhibit illustrations of these manifestations. So, how does the K-12 education system, specifically, exhibit these manifestations? An answer to this question will begin with a determination for what power will mean for this thesis given the literature.
What is power? In no way is this author anything other than monolingual, but, Morriss (2002) provides an important distinction for understanding power given the French language. For the French, there are two terms that are used conceptually to convey forms of power, pouvoir and puissance (Aron, 1964;Morriss, 2002). Morriss (2002), citing Aron (1964), states that "One has the puissance to do something, and one exercises the pouvoir to do it [So] (t)his distinction would therefore be roughly that between potential and act" (p. xvi-xvii). Lukes (2005), however, suggests that "we need to broaden and deepen the scope of analysis" (p. 109). For Lukes (2005), "power is an imposition or constraint, working against those subject to it [including] the power to decide what is decided" (pp. 111-112). It would seem that Lukes is speaking more toward puissance in that he does not seem to be speaking of some physical act. However, the nature of pouvoir seems evident in that this power for which he speaks causes one to act regardless of whether there is some physical impetus. Along this ideal, Smith and Hodkinson (2005) advise that "Power is the ability of individuals or groups to realize their will even if others are opposed" (p. 916). Said another way, for example, when a teacher acts because an administrator instructs them to follow a teacher Historically, the K-12 education system, as a bureaucratic complex organization, has transformed in America as to how folks within the system have those with more power, of said system, deciding what the folks decide. Maxcy (2011) speaks to this bureaucratic phenomenon with the ideal of policy logics. As he states 11 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies performance accountability begins with the notion of policy logics. Within the normative notion of policy as an authoritative allocation of value, policies implicitly carry logics that provide both justification for action and criteria for evaluation. Actors draw on policy logics, at their different theoretical and empirical stages, as general ideologies to evaluate decisions, procedures and practices. (p. 254) In other words, those within a bureaucratic system make decisions based upon the best interest of the system and those who 'outrank' her, or become no longer a part of said system. For example, a teacher follows the instruction of her principal, if not she may very well be out of a job. And heaven forbid others are dependent on her holding that job as teacher.
This response's scope does not include an analysis of free will and a person's ability to choose.
However, a brief treatment of this ideal is needed as this response develops. Lukes (2005) advises that "the 'dictates of one's judgment' need not just involve rationality (for) 'judgment' can be taken in an Aristotelian way to mean phronesis, or practical wisdom involving the application of principles to particular circumstances" (p. 116). But there is power that withholds or obstructs information to make practically wise judgments (Lukes, 2005;Picciano & Springs, 2013), and this claim will be presented later in this response. To that end, it is important to this response to make clear that such power exists, and has so throughout the history of bureaucracy in America, given American capitalist origins (Beard, 2004;Picciano & Spring, 2013). A brief history will be provided with more analysis on the state of the K-12 system today. Tyack (1974) provides a historical evolution of the American education system by the years 1890-1940 and 1940 to 1973. In roughly 1890, rural schools and education, the dominant system 12 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies to that point, were deemed haphazard and inadequate per the Reformers of the day when compared to the 'professional educator'. In the words of Tyack (1974), "(w)hat was basically wrong with rural education was that rural folk wanted to run their schools and didn't know what was good for them in the complex new society" (p. 21). From 1890-1940, there were definitive movements to centralize school systems, an introduction of "the corporate model" (Tyack, 1974, p. 147) for schooling, and a continued urbanization of the education system.
From a perspective of bureaucracy and power such changes are significant because the changes in political structures and political behaviors changed the ability to maintain and or exercise power within, and without, the education system of the day. Politics, paraphrasing the words of (Smith & Hodkinson, 2005), politics is the ability to allocate scarce resources. Said another way, "In each case [in areas across America], the proponents of reform were member of highly educated political elites who believed that structural reforms were necessary to create efficient, rational, and 'non-political' school bureaucracies" (p. 148). As far as the corporate model, [The new professors of education administration from schools such as Teacher's College, Columbia and the University of Chicago] tried to develop "scientific" ways of measuring inputs and outputs in in school systems as a tool of management, and to elaborate ways in which the school might rationalize its structure and curriculum to fit new industrial and social conditions. (Tyack, 1974, p. 136) In the spirit of this adopted corporate model of education, the power of the Reformers and the 'rationality' of bureaucracy, the label of 'urban' came to be identified with economic status and the intent of the emerging "corporate-bureaucratic model" (Tyack, 1974, p. 6) to prepare citizens for various lives of labor, with creative development of the thinking processes as a primary 13 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies motivation for 'learning' taking a seat at the back of the proverbial education system bus (K. Fischer, Schwartz, & Connell, 2004;K. W. Fischer & Rose, 2001;K. W. Fischer & Rose, 1998), if at all. Tyack (1974) advises that Educators developed school system whose specialized structures partly reflected the differentiation of economic roles in the larger social order. As employers and occupational associations placed ever greater reliance on educational credentials jobs, schooling acquired a new importance as the gateway to favored positions.
(p. 6) This system of meritocracy as a part of the rational, efficient way of schooling championed since at least the 1940's. An epistemological position that has failed to employ curricula with genesis in students' lived experiences because of an ideological genesis controlled by economic and political elites (Tyack, 1974). The years of 1940-1973 illustrate the power of forces outside stakeholders by making education the mechanism for keeping America an economic power with a series of presented crises by making the term a "common (word) in the school lexicon during the years from 1940-1970" (Tyack, 1974, pp. 269-270). In the 1940's and 50's, for example, the crises were presented as controversies as to how to address the migration of different types of folks into the cities (Tyack, 1974). A series of selection processes based on the long-standing system of meritocracy was an example of a longstanding controversy of the time. Toward the end of the 1960's, "Many people questioned whether equality of input in schooling was enough to promote equality of opportunity" (Tyack, 1974, p. 270). As Tyack (1974) states, "Critics of the establishment claimed that the professionals had neither the expertise nor the empathy to design schooling appropriate for all groups" (p. 270). The table was being set for the reform activities of today guided by ideology, profit, and technology (Picciano & Spring, 2013) as borne 14 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies out by the power of legal authority and bureaucratic policies that continue to lack the basic components of learning "for all groups." The pouvoir and puissance lay in the hands of the prevailing ideology at the time of consideration. On one hand ideology, technology and profit are the puissance sold as key to solving the popular crisis of the day. On the other hand, legal authority and bureaucratic administrative staffs are the hammers or the pouvoir to enforce the puissance. How are these "powers" exercised? Within the next section, the content will address the dynamics of power in the K-12 education system of today. The dynamics that will be addressed will be the: Holders of Power, the Form it Takes, and the Nature of its Manifestation  (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 4). Like Eisenhower's warning about the Military-Industrial Complex, the Education-Industrial Complex (EIC) is developing schooling products not for the sake of student learning "but for the sake of their own development" (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 1) with government mandates and policy as its rational-legal authority. As stated earlier, rational-legal authority is a bureaucratic characteristic. In this case, rational-legal authority, exemplifies puissance by providing an environment potential for profit through the development of these schooling products. Fail safes provided in the guise of accountability are based on illinformed criteria, such as standardized tests and curricula that do not support the basic learning process mentioned earlier, that support certain groups and not others. The power of the EIC also includes the interactivity of its components (see Figure 1), however. The cyclical form of the EIC is a network of bureaucracies with a process that consists of four interactive components; ideology, profit-making, technology, and education policy (Picciano & Spring, 2013), each acting as a transforming pouvoir and puissance for the other respective components in the process of the EIC. This transformation occurs depending on given circumstances, situation presented, and the interaction of bureaucratic staff (Lukes, 2005) given their respective interests and goals (Picciano & Spring, 2013). First we shall consider an example of the form of the EIC as a network of alliances, bureaucratic staffs (Picciano & Spring, 2013), with an exemplification for how these interactions may be controlled by single individuals, called Flexian, who use their experience, knowledge, and relationships gained as actors over time within this network to exercise pouvoir action (Picciano & Spring, 2013;Wedel, 2009). And to conclude this section, there will be a consideration of a Third Dimension of Power as an example for envisioning the dynamic interactional process among the EIC that maintain the pouvoir and puissance of the network (Lukes, 2005;Picciano & Spring, 2013).
The EIC consists of a network of bureaucracies with pouvoir and puissance interacting very dynamically. The structure of this network will be visited again shortly. The dynamic of power revolves around the control of four components: technology, profit-making, ideology, and education policy. The ideology of the dynamic has evolved with the timeline of the public education system history. The "crisis" presented for the time is guided by the ideology of control for that given time period, as outlined previously. Today's ideology is one that is both political and economic in nature, whereas the economic ideology is generally a pouvoir or enacts a "business model in a network of relationships which decreases voters' control" (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 3). The political ideologies that support the economics of the matter are more the puissance or potential ability to enact legislation, for example, to uphold and support the 17 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies economics of today's crisis. The ideological epistemologies are either "free-market economists" (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 4) or "those advocating a limited free-market approach to schools favor choice of public schools and charter schools that would teach a standardized state curriculum and tests" (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 4).
The use of technology is not new to the field of public education. Since the 1960's technology has been evolving on its use to increase the effectiveness of administrative duties and as a tool to more effectively teach students in the K-12 arena. The 1990's introduced the era of performance accountability that made more powerful the efforts of standardization despite proven track record for success (Maxcy, 2011). An example of private response to such policies is provided by Picciano & Spring (2013) in reporting that, "several million students take online courses" (p. 6), but this phenomenon has also increasingly influenced the higher-education arena whereas today "over 6 million students or 30% of the total higher education student population [are] taking a fully online course in any given year" (p. 4). As far as the profit-making is concerned, Picciano & Spring (2013) advise that The third component of the education-industrial complex is made up of entities that profit by providing goods and services to schools and colleges. Textbook publishers, testing and tutoring services, education management companies, and for-profit colleges are significant players in the education-industrial complex. (p.

7)
As Figure 1 above illustrates, these three components interact to produce education policy. Each component consists of bureaucracies that interact among each other to achieve a rational course of action to execute. The types of industries that predominantly effect education policy are major companies (e.g. Carlyle Group and IBM), think tanks (e.g. American Enterprise Group 18 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies and Heritage Foundation), and media conglomerates (e.g. Washington Post Company, News International, and New York Times Company) (Picciano & Spring, 2013). These industries interact dynamically through their respective bureaucratic systems as illustrated by Figure 2. As provided by Picciano & Spring (2013), there are nine bureaucratic systems by which the dynamic interaction among these industries that maintain the EIC: 1) the United States Department of Education (USDOE); 2) state education agencies; 3) school districts; 4) school board members; 5) the mass media; 6) policy makers; 7) networks of relationships (e.g. personal contacts, regular meetings, social gatherings, associations in formal organizations); 8) Flexians/Shadow Elite; and 9) the World Economic Forum. Citing study findings of (Watts, 2003) and (Barabasi, 2002), Picciano and Spring (2013) reveal an overarching power that can aggregate in the hands of a Flexian as puissance but can then also become pouvoir that is worthy of closer consideration. As they state Something special happens when individual entities such as nodes, components, and people, are able to interact to form larger wholes such as networks, systems, and communities. Furthermore, the "interaction effect" or collective behavior result in a far more productive environment than individuals acting by themselves; one individual working with another individual does not simply comprise two individuals but a third more powerful collaborating entity which can extend the benefits beyond two. (p. 9) Wedel (2009) in her work The Shadow Elite introduce us to Flexian, "The mover and shaker who serves at one and the same time as business consultant, think-tanker, TV pundit, and government adviser glides in and around organizations that enlist his services" (Wedel, 2009, p. 1). An example is Karen Cator, Director of the Office of Technology, U.S. Department of Education (Picciano & Spring, 2013). Cator has prior experience as an executive with Apple, a board member of education for-profit organization the Software & Information Industry Association. A Flexian, then, can in-fact hold a form of ultimate power as both forms, puissance and pouvoir, at once and thus may exhibit collective behavior based on her individual behavior in the form of node, component, and of course as a person. The power of the interaction effect, said another way, is potentially in the hands of a given individual among the network of the EIC.
In fact, "The networks they form between governments, business, and private foundations are a realistic portrait of current educational governance" (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 17). But to make such assertions assumes that each other individual as a part of this bureaucratic network may at some point, inevitably, act in a manner that is not in her best interest, right? In other words, a person may realize that the action that her organization proposes as action is not in-line 20 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies with her experience or knowledge base. Nonetheless, she must act as directed by her organization or no longer be a part of it. Lukes (2005) sheds some light on this binary formulation of power as a form in addition to the aforementioned pouvoir and puissance; a third dimension of power, domination of judgment as a result of one's preference in situations of choice being influenced by some stimulus in the environment. It is at this point where a closer consideration must be paid when using the term influence too loosely as a conflated understanding with power, and thus where the binary idea of power becomes problematic.
Lukes ' (2005) expression of a third dimension of power describes the "securing of compliance to domination" (pp. 109-110) by an entity of power from a subordinate as is experienced in a person's environment. This third dimension of power brings into question the various terms used interchangeably for power. The third dimension of power makes one aware that there are in-fact different natures for this term in a dynamic world. There are distinctions of power that describe an interaction among entities depending on the position in a hierarchy that these entities hold when interacting and the extent to which the pouvoir or puissance affects the judgment of the subordinate in said interaction. The effects on judgment of subordinates' remains challenged as a discussion of power currently and will be fleshed out shortly. Additionally, this understanding of power will further be offered as a power to mislead in the next section. But for now, the reader is asked to consider the distinctions in other forms of power given Lukes' (2005) third dimension of power. Lukes (2005) reminds us of an important distinction of power; and among them show a distinction between the terms power and influence depending on how the reference to either affects the judgment of a subordinate in a given interaction. Influence does not affect decisionmaking to the extent that judgment against the interest of the subordinate is executed. Inspired 21 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies by Nagel (1975), Lukes (2005) explains that "[influence] explores ways of defining, measuring and inferring the causal influence of preferences upon outcomes" (p. 163). In other words, the pouvoir or puissance of the interaction does not "cause" the subordinate to make a decision that weighs enough on her so that her interest is harmed (Feinberg, 1984). For example, Maxcy (2011), as inspired by Lukes (2005), advises that "power derives from an ability to suppress potential conflict by shaping the wants from which interests form" (p. 255). "Is it not," Lukes (2005, p. 28) states the most supreme and most insidious form of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognition and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in an existing order of things either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it divinely ordained and beneficial? (p. 28).
This illustration of causal influence reveals itself as an effect, to some degree, "(as) coercion 2 ; (as) authority 3 ; (as) autonomy 4 ; (as) manipulation 5 ; [or as] the concept of interests 6 " (Lukes, 2005, p. 163, italics added). These ideals of domination as characteristics of the nature of the third dimension of power exemplify, additionally that, "power is an imposition or constraint, working against the interests of those subject to it" (Lukes, 2005, p. 112). Moreover, "(d)omination occurs where the power of some affects the interests of others by restricting their capabilities for truly human functioning" (Lukes, 2005, p. 118).
Indeed this ideal extends to a position that advises that these impositions or constraints extend to effecting judgments of individuals in their decision-making, including making decisions in their best interest in favor of option in favor of the ideological hegemony of society (Luke, 2005; 22 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies Scott, 1990), as presented earlier. Of the aforementioned causal influences that potentially affect subordinate judgment, each will be considered a form of domination for the purposes of this response, except for subordinate coercion and interests, in the following section. In other words, the scope of this response is not an analysis of individual rights as a relation to coercion and interests. Said another way, this response is not an analysis of individual rights, although highly important. These causal influences would therefore be indicative of what Lukes (2005) attributes to false consciousness.
False consciousness is an adopted set of causal influences by which individuals make judgments potentially against their respective interests. Scarince (2014) submits that the phrase false consciousness is used "to describe a particular state of mind that prevents a person from recognizing the injustice of their current situation [as a result of capitalist societies]" (p.1). Scarince (2014) presents this statement in the context of Marxist doctrine of capitalism but it clearly coincides with the picture that Lukes (2005) presents. Arguably, the ideal of false consciousness is at least related to Lukes' (2005) discussion of false consensus as a product of individuals' not voicing grievance when collective position is contrary to her individual wants, needs, values or interests. For "(t)o assume that the absence of grievance equals genuine consensus is simply to rule out the possibility of false or manipulated consensus by definitional fiat" (p. 28). Lukes (2005)  Now, Scott (1990) breaks down the conception of false consciousness as a mechanism for maintaining the interests of elite ideology with thick and thin theories (Scott, 1990). Lukes (2005) argues that (t)he thick version claims that a dominant ideology works its magic by persuading subordinate groups to believe actively in the values that explain and justify their own subordination…The thin theory of false consciousness, on the other hand, maintains only that the dominant ideology achieves compliance by convincing subordinate groups that the social order in which they live is natural and inevitable. The thick theory claims consent; the thin theory settles for resignation.
(p. 126, italics added) Scott (1990) breaks down the distinction of thin theory of false consciousness as having either of two plausible reasons why a person would be involuntarily subordinate. He precisely refers to these plausible reasons as "A Paper-Thin Theory of Hegemony" (Scott, 1990, p. 82), in fact.
The first suggests that it is plausible for a person to become involuntarily subordinate if "the expectation is that one will eventually come to exercise a domination that one endures today is a strong incentive serving to legitimate patterns of domination" (p. 82). In other words, as long as a person believes that one could possibly become a person with whatever level of power that one would aspire to be satisfied, then one is willing to play by the dominant rules of the game as a dominated subordinate. The other reason for Scott suggests that one involuntarily subordinates "providing that [said] subordinates are more or less completely atomized and kept under close observation" (p. 83). This statement and the context from which it was drawn strikes as relevant today in that it brings to mind accountability, the mechanisms, and procedures for monitoring 24 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies and controlling activities of subordinate stakeholders throughout the EIC network; especially at the district level (local education agency) and within.
The discussion brings pause at this point, however. Given such a portrayal of false consciousness and its effects on the violence to individual student's values, interests, and such, the representation of Lukes (2005) does not fully speak to the injustices of domination. Weinstein (2011) and Artilles (2011) speak to findings whereas students' identities are effected by exposure to such societal processes. Crossman (2014) comes to mind and troubles the labeling of false consciousness, in that, a more accurate identification would actually be dual consciousness. Borrowed from W.E.B. DuBois, Crossman (2014) advises that "Dual consciousness exists when people hold one set of beliefs based on the mainstream culture and a contradictory set of beliefs based on their actual experience" (p. 1). Hay (1997), however, exemplifies a criticism for both a third dimension of power (Lukes, 2005), particularly a conception of false consciousness and the distinctions of thick and thin theories that support this conception (Scott, 1990). Hay's (1997) critique speaks to the "condescending" tone of these theories as she states (t)he problem with such a formulation is the deeply condescending conception of the social subject as an ideological dupe that it conjures up. Not only is this wretched individual incapable of perceiving her/his true interests, pacified as s/he is by the hallucinogenic effects of bourgeois indoctrination. (p. 149) Morriss (2002) provides a response to the heart of this very well stated point by Hays (1997).
Specifically, he advises that turning the consideration away from the question of whether a puissance consideration implies that a person is "incapable of perceiving his/her true interests" 25 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies the argument should have the context of whether or not the environment allows for everyone's growth equivalently, thus considering the potential capacity of all. As he states If the potentiality argument is to work, then, what is involved is not [that] potentiality as a mere prediction about the future (that is, as a possibility or probability) but potentiality as a currently existing power. In so far as it is a currently existing power -"the power possessed by an entity to undergo changes which are changes to itself, that is, to undergo growth, or better still, development." (p. xix) Morriss' (2002) cite is especially poignant when considering the quality of education that each student is, or is not, provided. A consideration for where on this spectrum that "education" lay will be developed as the term engagement is clarified. Taken a little further, use of the term provided is purposeful in that it refers to the provision of education that contributes to the development of the student. Lukes' (2005) counter is at least equally worthy of further consideration in that he points out the "power to mislead [by mechanisms such as] censorship and disinformation" (p. 149), for example. A power to mislead extends to utilization of curricula and standards that fail to provide opportunities to extend knowledge and capabilities to enhance natural creative tendencies and engagement for all students (Ben-Porath, 2013;Hill & den Dulk, 2013). So, the question that remains is what does a "power to mislead" look like? And given evidence of a power to mislead, by element(s) of the EIC, does it characterize causal influence in some form? In other words, given the existence of power, is a "power to mislead" (Lukes, 2005) in evidence given the current literature in the area of education policy and political youth engagement in urban secondary schools? Is this "power to mislead" prevalent in the youth 26 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies political engagement literature, as a landscape? And given this landscape, how are these powers realized dynamically as youth political engagement for urban secondary youth?
These questions will be addressed in the Maxcy section in the context of education policy and political youth engagement in urban secondary schools. According to a recent study by Jonasson (2012), this 'power-to-mislead" takes form as divergent perceptions of engagement among students and teachers and is manifest in student behaviors. She states what this author presents as the substantive issue of youth political engagement, the heart-of-the-matter if you will, in stating that In extant research, the concept of student engagement refers to individual behavioural patterns and traits. Recent research indicates that engagement not only should be related to individual but also should be anchored in the social context. Results show that teachers and students held diverging perceptions of student engagement that rested on educational goals related to perceived future work settings. This misrecognition of the students' perception of engagement had direct negative consequences for student performance and school attachment. (p.

723, italics added)
The key to the substantive issue is unpacked through an analysis of the term misrecognition.
Misrecognition, in the context of Jonasson's (2012) statement, implies a pedagogical disconnect between students and teachers. In the context of this response, the "disconnect" from the individual, or student side, is in students' perception of politics and their generally perceived ability to 'make a difference' through it (Ballard, 2014;Crayton, 2014;Curtis, 2012;Youniss et al., 2002). For the teacher, the "disconnect" occurs through not successfully engaging students' lived experience and accessing their intrinsic motivations to understand, again given the focus of 27 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies this response, the political system (Curtis, 2012;Kahne et al., 2013;Schwartz, 2009). There are policies of logic that impose power of pedagogical practices for teachers (Maxcy, 2011).
Drawing back a little, this misrecognition is a form of the greater power-to-mislead in the spirit of a kind of null curriculum (Flinders, 2013;H. M. Kliebard, 2004;Pinar, 2012) because of the curricular limitations placed on teachers by education policy through the social context. Again as stated by Jonasson (2012), "engagement not only should be related to individual but also should be anchored in the social context." Maxcy, therefore, will consist of two subsections. The two subsections will respond to Maxcy's inquiries, first, from a macro-level or from a perspective of the social context and lastly from an omni-level, or a perspective based from student contexts, presented as an integrating component with the requirements of the greater social-context in which school's currently operate (Lawson & Lawson, 2013). The macro-level subsection will consist of two sections, moreover. First, drawing from relevant literature, there will be further discussion of the substantive issue of youth political engagement and the effects of certain causal influences. This discussion will begin with a determination for what Lukes (1995) means by "power to mislead," as an exacerbation of misrecognition, for example, and what the literature says as it relates to the incorporation of secondary urban school studies of, and in relation to, youth political engagement as appropriate.
The next subsection will discuss and justify the author's choices of alternatives to adverse findings in-light of evidence of domination through the causal influences of powers to mislead.
Drawing from the relevant educational policy and related literature, there will be a presentation of Urban Regime Theory as a proposed conceptual frame toward further inquiry into youth political engagement for the social influences outside the student as youth political actor. The Maxcy section will conclude with a response toward an omni-level conceptual framework that 28 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies discusses and includes a micro-level consideration of the substantive issue, or inside the student as youth political actor. The omni-level subsection will present a conceptual framework toward addressing the dynamic process of youth political engagement for each student.

II. Maxcy
Toward Determining a Macro-level Conceptual Framework: The Social Context of the Substantive Issue of Engagement

Education Policy and Political Youth Engagement in Urban Secondary Schools
The substantive issue of youth political engagement is the system of public education and its' contribution to the academic opportunity deficit (AOD) of urban secondary students, as introduced earlier. Picciano & Spring (2013) advise that in reference to school governance and organization "Today, American schools operate on a business model in a network of relationships which decrease voters' control" (p. 3). As such, this response will focus on challenges to youth political engagement of students in American schools, specifically urban secondary students. However, it is submitted that the challenges, such as the aforementioned, that face youth political engagement in the classroom is a symptom of greater learning challenges that sustain the AOD (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndorff, 2002;K. Fischer, Rose, & Rose, 2006;K. Fischer et al., 2004;Roth & Lee, 2007).
The American public education system contributes to the AOD in at least three main ways: 1) by failing to adequately involve families and parents in the activities of the schools as contributing partners (Hill & den Dulk, 2013); 2) by failing to engage students' intrinsic motivations and lived experiences in the learning process (Deci & Ryan, 2000;Kalyuga, 2011;J. Reeve, Deci, E, 1996;Weinstein et al., 2011); and 3) the "professionals" belief that they "know best" as far as what to do for the education of students over the "non-professional," for example, students, 29 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies community members, parent or family members (Apple, 1993(Apple, , 2013Picciano & Spring, 2013;Tyack, 1974).
The American K-12 public education system is a complex organization that is dominated by, what Picciano and Spring (2013) call, the Education Industrial Complex (EIC). The existence of an EIC-type entities was foreseen and written by folks like Habermas (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005), in term of what he defined as the public sphere. Inspired by Baynes (1995), Kemmis and McTaggart (2005), explain a public sphere as "strong publics" of parliamentary and legal subsystems and the "weak publics" of the "public sphere ranging from private associations to the mass media located in 'civil society' [which] assume responsibility for identifying and interpreting social problems" [while also taking on the task of being] an opinion-forming public sphere as that of laying siege to the formally organized political system by encircling it with reasons without, however, attempting to overthrow or replace it. (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005, p. 301) The EIC includes each of these components as mentioned by Kemmis and McTaggart.   The strong publics of the EIC public sphere, represented by government agencies consist of the parliamentary and legal systems at the center of the network. The weak publics of the EIC public sphere would consist in the remaining entities exhibited, the private associations consisting of the think tanks; education technology providers; foundations and venture philanthropists; for-profit education providers; and the various media companies. As Kemmis and McTaggart (2005) advise, this network identifies social problems and interpret them based on their accumulated knowledges. This is a decades old challenge as found by many authors (Apple, 1993;Baker, Corbett, & Gowda, 2013;Berger, 1966;Broudy, 1981; J. Dewey, 1897) As stated previously, the knowledges, or beliefs, values and cultures that are lived experiences of those most affected, students, teachers, parents, community members, are foundational for the intrinsically motivated leaning process at optimal levels (K. Fischer et al., 2006;K. Fischer et al., 2004;K. W. Fischer & Rose, 2001) and thus contributing to sustaining this AOD.

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Now, to further define what is meant by the EIC, Picciano and Spring (2013) cite the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and its definition of the military-industrial complex "as an informal alliance of the military and related government departments with defense industries that is held to influence government policy" (p. 2). Similarly, the EIC is a loosely coupled group of "networks and alliances [formed] to promote the use of technology and related services in American K-12 education" (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 2).
As a complex organization, and large bureaucratically linked system of networks and alliances ( Figure 3, previously), the EIC consists of organizations and individuals with powers, interests, beliefs, and values that must be considered for any attempt to analyze classroom level execution of the learning process. It is hoped that this response will not only address the questions presented, but also will plant seeds toward illuminating strategies for balancing the power for the conception and implementation of the learning process toward eliminating the AOD. So, what are the challenges to realizing that which is hoped for? Maxcy (2011), reminds us that state departments of education, for example, desired to centralize control of classroom level instruction since circa the 1990s "states turned to a PA (performance accountability) systems to catalyze improvement in student academic outcomes [which produced policies that] increased the institutional capacity of states to direct local-level reform" (p. 256). Tyack (1974) and others (Airola, 2013;Febey & Louis, 2008) have long since provided support for such activities. Other members of the EIC network, federal agencies, reinforced these actions in 2002 with the No Child Left Behind Act or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Maxcy, 2011) this illustrating the power of the EIC and its network.
The dynamics of power (Lukes, 2005;Maxcy, 2011;Morriss, 2002;Wedel, 2009), the organizations and individuals among the EIC, are significant. Of the powers potentially 32 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies exhibited by the EIC are powers-to-mislead through political authority, autonomy, and manipulation, for example. But how does this power to mislead, in relation to the development of youth political engagement for urban public secondary education system, occur? If this power to mislead is manifest in this manner, in what form of causal influence? Moreover, what is the form of this or these causal influence(s) given the exercise and execution of ideology, profitmaking, technology as the structural characteristics of the EIC that effect the political engagement of public urban secondary students.
To begin, the forced assimilation to knowledges, or as Valenzuela (2013) uses the phrase subtractive schooling, is contrary to the learning process, as presented earlier is characteristic of a power-to-mislead. The literature for youth political engagement is fairly extensive for the area of urban secondary students (Ballard, 2014;Checkoway, 2013;Cohen & Chaffee, 2013;Fox et al., 2010;Kahne et al., 2013;Shiller, 2013). But the literature is not as definitive in positing a common understanding and basis from which to consider youth political engagement under influence of specific powers-to-mislead as a challenge or barrier. However, the relevant literature on youth political engagement in public schools, especially for students of color, speaks to an education policy that has foregone allowance of an effective integration of what it is to be a citizen and citizenship (Checkoway, 2013;Curtis, 2012;Sherrod, Flanagan, & Youniss, 2012). An argument for conscious or unconscious intent of said education policy and powers-tomislead that include restriction to citizenship and free exercise of rights is not within the scope of this response, but, well worth further consideration given the historical record of American public education (Alexander, 2012;Crayton, 2013;Tyack, 1974).
Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss (2012) raise the question of "what constitutes citizenship" in asking "Can investment in groups other than the nation state represent a form of citizenship" (p. 33 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies 265)? In other words, whereas a "citizen" is a person as a part of a nation-state, or group, "citizenship" refers to the behaviors of that person, or lack thereof, perhaps, with loyalty to a culture or group within a nation-state. What constitutes either? Would not a challenge or barrier to the development of either, for the person/student, be indicative of the existence of some power or influence? And moreover, would either not correlate to a students' motivational level of political engagement? Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss (2012) point to expressions of a person's loyalty 7 as a key lynchpin for determining such a distinction, as well as development of a potential relationship between how a power to mislead may be enacted as a barrier to youth political engagement. This is hypothesized, at this point, based on the ideal that loyalty, for a person, consists of "an association to which a person has become intrinsically committed as a matter of his or her identity" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/loyalty/; also see Endnote "7"; italics added). The significance of the terms intrinsically and identity will be fleshed out throughout this section.
On one hand, for example, as a citizen, does one's loyalty, say as an immigrant to America from the Ukraine, transfer to America wholly or does said loyalty remain to some extent with the Ukraine and the family, cultures and groups with which one has departed? It is problematic to believe that loyalty to one's family, for example, would cease because one gains citizenship of another country. So, the intrinsic motivations that link a person to that family should be engaged and integrated as part of the process for becoming a citizen of America. For this is where the immigrant's personal experiences lie and the current set of values and beliefs were formulated.
On the other hand, citizenship is realized through the development and exercise of certain behaviors. Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss (2002)  Whereas a commitment to the rule of law is necessary for democratic governance, a society that is "ruled by the people" also depends on citizens who make informed judgments, who at times object to policies and even (as in many movements for social justice) disobey unjust laws. Good behavior may be one aspect of citizenship, but so is activism or taking action to improve the nationstate, which is frequently not considered good behavior. The exercise of good judgment, as a component of citizenship, involves assessing when behavior is needed to maintain the status quo and when it is necessary to take action to change it. (p. 265) Therefore, before considering this literature for further discussion upon addressing how power affects education policy in relation to youth political engagement of urban secondary school students, this is a good time for there to be a dedicated focus toward understanding the two phrases: power to mislead and youth political engagement. The balance of this section will begin with a discussion toward describing the substantive issue of youth political engagement which is the lack of youth political engagement through development in public schools. What constitutes youth political engagement and evidence for the importance of engagement by youth? Next, there will be a discussion toward determining a "policy of logics" (Maxcy, 2011) and how it translates to a power to mislead? Then, the discussion will continue toward considering the existing literature showing potential relationships, as a form of puissance, between powers to mislead through causal influences of political authority over those within the classroom; manipulation by the same; and autonomy of members of the EIC, as barriers to youth political engagement. The contextual goal for the discussion to this point will seek to envision characteristics or a glimpse at the nature of this potential relationship. And to conclude this 35 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies section, Urban Regime Theory will be used as a conceptual frame through which to present a structure by which further consideration toward addressing this potential relationship given the existence of the EIC and the power-to-mislead. So, what of political engagement for youth in urban secondary schools?

Youth Political Engagement in Urban Secondary Students
What is political engagement for urban public secondary students? The approach for developing this answer will be a determination of meaning, given relevant literature, for each key term of the phrase. Smith and Hodkinson (2005) define political in the following excerpt as the process for allocating scarce resources. Any desired resource that is not totally abundantbe it money, social prestige, recognition, research grants, or whatevermust be divided up through a political process with some people getting more and others getting less of whatever is desired. (p. 916) The scarce resource in the case of this response is an education, an advanced knowledge (Tyack, 1974), that provides and enhances student engagement in the political process. The matter of abundance is arguable in as much as education with mechanisms for learning for all students is questionable because intrinsically motivating curriculum has been co-opted as illustrated by the causal influences of false consciousness and a power to mislead by agency of the EIC (Darling-Hammond, 2000;Fazzaro, 2006;Goldspink, 2007), for example. As we were advised earlier that intrinsic motivation for students is a lynchpin for loyalty and provides a desire for engagement and persevering through group activities that relevantly benefit the student. But what is engagement, in the context of this response?

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The Glossary for Education Reform includes the definition of student engagement "predicated on the belief that learning improves when students are inquisitive, interested, or inspired, and that learning tends to suffer when students are bored, dispassionate, disaffected, or otherwise 'disengaged'" (http://edglossary.org/student-engagement/). Thus, as supported by Deci and Ryan (2000) and others (Kalyuga, 2011;Reeve, 1996), intrinsic motivation would be an acceptable approach to engage students, especially to challenge the power-to-mislead and other obstructions to the learning process. Deci and Ryan (2000) have found and recorded that intrinsic motivation consists of the satisfaction of three areas for a person: feelings of competence; relevance to an issue; and feeling of autonomy toward addressing that which is relevant. Engagement, therefore, as a product of intrinsic motivation, would satisfy the students' feelings of competence, associating that which is presented as the subject or issue to be learned as relevant to the students' lived experience, while allowing the student to engage through the experience of feeling autonomous in the endeavor (Deci & Ryan, 2000;Weinstein, Deci, & Ryan, 2011). Weinstein, Deci, and Ryan (2011), moreover, illuminate the importance of identity 8 , as well, as a processional product of motivation and engagement.
Cohen and Chaffee (2013) provide a meaning of political engagement per their findings as various exhibited attitudes and activities. Although Cohen and Chaffee (2013) found through their study that attitudes and activities are social in nature and were primary to their findings. Now, identity, as the lead into Cohen and Chaffee's (2013) use of attitudes, is contextualized by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014) and represented more relevantly as "personhood 9 " (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/akan-person/) and not "identity" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity/) as referred to throughout the literature (Greenwood, 2008;Rosales, 2011;Shiller, 2013;Weinstein et al., 2011), which is significant. Personhood 37 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies speaks of the nature of an individual person in relation to her community; and it is this way in which an interacting person 10 is nurtured, or not, that develops her toward engagement. Said another way, personhood is more relevantly understood, for this response, as activities of a person that exhibit "standards for which individual persons aim that have an important role in how people think of themselves and their place in society" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/akan-person/#PerSocSta). More plainly said, for example, how a person sees herself portrayed in media affects her sense of personhood. As such, media can arguably be considered as a barrier to the political engagement of students given how one is portrayed even unconsciously (Vedantam, 2010). The media, as the reader may recall, is one of the weak publics of the EIC public sphere. And as such, in such a manner, the media is indicative of a puissance (power)-to-mislead. Now, Cohen and Chaffee (2013) used five objective categories in their study to define political engagement for adolescents: academics and demographics, as covariates; political knowledge; political attitudes, and political behavior; each of which is potentially representative of an objectively measurable variable. It is troubling to note that the study by Cohen and Chaffee (2013), although enlightening on many qualitative measures in this study relies upon the norm in methodology, quantitative bases for substantiation, and so that each used variable of the study falls short of linking characteristics of personhood, which is social in nature and perhaps better shown through qualitative type processes (Artiles & McClafferty, 1998;Ballard, 2014;Gibbs, 2007;Hesse-Biber, 2004;Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005;Weaver-Hightower, 2014;Weis & Fine, 2004. For example, Cohen and Chaffee (2013), with the citation of Torney-Purta and Amadeo (2003), reflect the results of their study in stating that 38 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies increased civic content knowledge, current events knowledge, general selfefficacy and skill-specific self-efficacy are each independently associated with increased self-reported likelihood of future voting [for example]. These findings build upon and are congruent with other studies (that) have found civic knowledge and self-efficacy to be strong predictors of intended future voting among adolescents. (Cohen & Chaffee, 2013, p. 51) Cohen and Chaffee (2013) have very positively moved toward more effective indicators of personhood using objective means, however, the measured variables still fall short of considering the bridge between their measured variables and the students' "standards for which [they as] individual persons aim that have an important role in how [they as] people think of themselves and their place in society" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/akan-person/#PerSocSta). And as such, certain objective methodologies are another potential candidate as a barrier to the development of youth political engagement. Toward addressing barriers to intrinsic motivation and personhood (hereinafter used in-place of identity), questions of methodology, or equally significant processessuch as participatory action research (PAR) or youth action research (YPAR) -will be presented and developed in the Scheurich section.
Certain objective methodologies, when not carried out to some level of subjective understanding at the level of 'personhood', as measurable criteria appear to represent the maintenance of the power structure and hegemony of the EIC by provision of tending to inadequate and non-relevant knowledges to the intrinsic motivations and learning of students. Scott (1990) speaks to the importance of tending to subjective variables as a distinction from objective variables in pointing out that when "we take them to be only objective facts, objectively apprehended, we miss much of the social logic (of the person's personhood from lived experiences) by which open 39 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies declarations of the hidden transcript operate" (p. 220). In short, Scott (1990) uses the phrase hidden transcript to acknowledge that dominated groups "(create), out of its ordeal, a 'hidden transcript' that represents a critique of power spoken behind the back of the dominant. The powerful, for their part, also develop a hidden transcript representing the practices and claims of their rule that cannot be openly avowed" (p. xii), thus disclosing yet another potential barrier for youth political engagement.
Immediately I remind the reader of the concept of policy of logics presented earlier (Maxcy, 2011). As we may recall, "[educational stakeholders other than students] draw on policy logics, at their different theoretical and empirical stages, as general ideologies to evaluate decisions, procedures and practices" (Maxcy, 2011, p. 254), and therefore become a barrier for the development of the student because said 'logics' may not, and often do not, correlate with the "logics" of her experiences. Consequently, knowledges gleaned and acted upon from such policies-of-logic exemplify the same pedigree as the inadequate and non-relevant knowledges mentioned earlier.
Another troubling aspect for using objective variables to measure social facts is that these are indicators-after-the-fact that does not reveal leading-indicators of intrinsic motivation, which would speak to the causal influences of values, beliefs, needs, and wants as a bridge to engage students. This neglect of addressing the bridge could also be a barrier to the education process within schools engaging students intrinsically, including political involvement, and thus the potential remedies for their respective situation. Many respected culturally inclusive scholars have provided evidence for countering this barrier in the classroom (Artiles & McClafferty, 1998;Bank, 1993;Deci & Ryan, 2000;Ladson-Billings, 2009), but they are clearly not prevalent 40 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies enough across the public school spectrum to continually counteract the policy logics of the perduring greater urban educational system, the EIC, its' power and influence.
Considering these challenges differently, Ballard (2014) found that political engagement "is often used as a broad term referring to a set of constructs including political skills, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and goals" (p. 440). However, as Ballard (2014) reminds us, interest and motivation for political engagement, or, as she recognizes, political involvement, means something different for adolescents than it does for adults (Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss, 2002;Weinstein, Deci, & Ryan, 2011). This distinction by Ballard reveals that methodology for research is very important if one aspires to analyze power relationships such as those among the EIC and engagement of secondary students. The Scheurich section will develop this ideal further, but for now it is purported that preparation, interpretation, and implementation of a research study in collaboration with 'those being studied' should be imperative toward becoming a normative process for research (Artiles, Kozleski, Dorn, & Christensen, 2006;Bowers, 2010;Denzin, 2007;Fox & Fine, 2013;Fox et al., 2010;Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005).

Power to Mislead
Now, given the presentation of the potential barriers to youth political engagements by the education system, to what extent, if at all, do powers-to-mislead contribute? But first, more needs to be fleshed out about the nature of this specific type of power. The potential barriers will be addressed in the Scheurich section also. For now, a co-existing substantive issue of youth political engagement is how false consciousness and the power to mislead effects students' development as informed, and thus engaged 'persons' and citizens. Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss (2002) focus reader's more on the importance of a substantive issue, mentioned previously, being the development of political engagement interests for youth. As they suggest, 41 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies More developmental work is needed in fleshing out how, between the ages of 10 and 25, young people's concepts of citizenship expand from a focus on obedience and support of the status quo to a more critical appraisal of a citizen as one who would be irresponsible if she or he blindly obeyed. (pp. 265-266) So how does this power to mislead challenge the development of secondary public school students in the area of political engagement? Maxcy (2011) represents the significance of the effects of this issue in citing Lukes (2005) statement that Prevent(s) people, to whatever degree, from having [or providing the opportunity to develop the skill to voice] grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognition and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it…? (p. 255) Drawing from earlier in this response, "development" or "growth" of students' unrealized potential when faced with puissance as an opportunity for students through the classroom experience; whereas classroom experience will mean development or growth of students through instructional interaction between student and teacher based on students' lived experience and instructors' expertise to enhance said development or growth in such relevant skills as creative interpretation via proven cognitive learning processes (S. Chang, Jia, Takeuchi, & Cai, 2014;K. Fischer et al., 2006;K. Fischer et al., 2004;K. W. Fischer & Rose, 2001;K. W. Fischer & Rose, 1998;Vygotsky, 2004). Vygotsky (2004), for example, find significant relationship among curriculum that consist of the interplay of behavioral patterns from lived experiences and early impressions expressed by students and what he refers to as "organic" and reproductive activities toward creative thought.

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Generally, the power to mislead is the significant issue because of these illustrated effects (pouvoir) and affects (puissance) upon the classroom experience. Lukes (2005) tells us that the power to mislead takes many forms, and is most effective through the network of the EIC, This form of the power to mislead is particularly insidious because it could be used unconsciously by bureaucratswithin and without the EIC -who are unaware of the detrimental effects of championing certain 'data-driven findings' that are founded on variables that fall short of considering personhood levels of research. In other words, Lukes (2005) is advising that a first form of the power to mislead by the EIC is by the networks, organizations, and institutionalized values (e.g. standards), interests and beliefs thereof that are enacted to make other judgments infantile or, ill-informed as a prescription for educating students. PA is an example of a tool that reinforces policies of organizations and bureaucracies that are the EIC (Scott, 1990). Such dynamics engage censorship and disinformation in that any judgment other than a judgment to use a curriculum by an agent of the EIC-for example, a curriculum that effectively engages student lived experiences toward 'learning' that which the teacher may attempt to present in the development of students (as defined earlier)is deemed inappropriate if 43 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies 'learning type' or 'learning level' is not achieved in the form of or in the timeframe dictated by enacted policy.
But such "logics of action" (Maxcy, 2011) maintain legitimacy despite the fact that "state and federal actors enacted [these] powerful performance accountability (PA) systems despite limited information on the efficacy of such systems" (Maxcy, 2011, p. 255). Shipps (2008) adds that "Like corporate regimes in general, Newark's produced some efficiency gains by streamlining the administration but little in the way of improved student performance" (p. 96, italics added).
And another form of this power to mislead engages and espouses a "rationality and illusory thinking" to also reinforce the values, beliefs, and interests of the EIC. As far as illusory thinking, it may be represented as a form of disinformation also. The response to Hay (1997) representation that such a claim is condescending to persons applies here also in that said person's potential is hindered by in-fact hiding an opportunity for development and growth. Now rationality, on the other hand, represents a different lens by which power to mislead is represented in literature (e.g. Lukes, 2005;Picciano & Spring, 2013;Shipps, 2008). Maxcy (2011), for example, speaks of the potentially malleable nature of rational processes for logics of action as political processes when stating that "the governing logics of action among possible alternatives is neither the outcome of explicit rational process nor an overt political contest, but rather an unreflective acceptance, endorsement of orthodoxy" (p. 254, italics added). The terms explicit and overt in this context clearly paint a picture for a lack of transparency and thus the potential for the execution of a power-to-mislead. The power to mislead, moreover, is rooted in false consciousness (Lukes, 2005). False consciousness is based on causal influence/s that affects the judgment of a subordinate through authority, lack of autonomy, and/or manipulation. Christiano (2013) distinguishes between theoretical and political authority. Theoretical authority "[does] not normally impose duties on others" and therefore will not be considered a form that affects judgment given use of the term normally and thus not definitive to use given the scope of this response. Political authority, on the other hand "are normally thought to give people reasons for action" (Christiano, 2013, p. 1).
To be fair, use of the term 'reasons' in this context indicate that political authority is potentially a causal influence only to the extent that there are a certain number of, or degree to which, reasons that compel a person to act contrary to her interest. Political authority is relevant as a distinction in that it is dependent on certain lived experiences, beliefs, values, and interests. The stance in maintaining authority in the form of political authority as compared to coercion as a causal influence in this response is that political authority is not being considered to the extent that an individual's rights are not in question and, thus, beyond the scope of this response. An example of a reason for a person to comply with a directive from one's supervisor given the situation that a person has to use the restroom, but there is an urgent call from a client that said supervisor instructs person to take immediately; so, the person uses the restroom on one's self and takes the call. The person has satisfied the interest of the supervisor and organization but forewent their interest and suffered a level of indignity to do so.

Autonomy
Now, Lukes (2005)  presented. An interpretation of Maxcy (2011) suggests an insidiousness that speaks to a denial of opportunity in that a person's wants produce a person's interests. Autonomy as a power to mislead, "derives from an ability to suppress potential conflict by shaping the wants from which interests form" (Maxcy, 2011, p. 255), and therefore should cause pause in one's thinking when presented with "commonsense claims in shaping priorities" (p. 255). The infamous question "what knowledge is of most worth" (Broudy, 1981) comes to mind. This is where the potency of a power-to-mislead causing action through false consciousness; when considering autonomy and teachers' ability to be pedagogically free and the students' ability to enhance learning through personal lived experiences. Considering the limited autonomy of teachers and the power of the EIC, Bennett and Hansel (2008) remind the reader of theorists' arguments that "Schools are structured (to) conform to societal rules and beliefs, thereby engendering legitimacy with the community and helping to ensure their own survival" (p. 220). But legitimacy as presented to the community may not be that which is most effective for the learning processes of their students. Bennett and Hansel (2008)  The power-to-mislead here is exemplified by unproven national policies and curricula that tie the hands of school-level facilitators of learning (Baum, 2003;Darling-Hammond, 2000;Goldspink, 2007). As cited by Bennett and Hansel (2008), "schools have traditionally had strong regulative and normative environments with relatively weaker technical environments, leaving teaching and learning largely uninspected" (p. 221). The weak technical environments is an entrée into how this power-to-mislead effects students' learning by adversely allowing autonomy for the student as well. Deci and Ryan (2000) speak of autonomy in terms of intrinsic motivation in the context of selfdetermination theory. "According to [Self Determination Theory], a critical issue in the effects of goal pursuit and attainment concerns the degree to which people are able to satisfy their basic psychological needs as they pursue and attain their valued outcomes" (Deci & Ryan, 2000, p. 227). Clearly, if such needs are obstructed then some form of domination is probable, as pouvoir and as puissance. In the event that judgment is affected to the extent that a person does not realize "their valued outcomes" because of the obstruction of their respective wants, needs, and/or interest then the person has been dominated. An example, once again, would be a classroom experience by which the optimal level for learning (K. Fischer et al., 2004) is obstructed by mandated curriculum that denies the opportunity to engage lived experiences and other classroom environmental constraints.

Manipulation
An overall conception of manipulation through the EIC, although more covert in nature, it has been argued for decades that a person's judgment will be affected if there is reason to believe that a valued outcome seems unattainable given subordinates' lived experiences (Lukes, 2005;Morriss, 2002;Scott, 1990). Scott's (1990)

203-204, italics added)
The implication for Riker (1986) for the act of manipulation, therefore, is institutional in nature, or are "composed of cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative elements that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning for social life" (Bennett and Hansel, 2008, p. 217). In other words, an individual's judgment, as a "subfield of public choice," must be made having knowledge of the institutional manipulation that persists is realized over time, not in the moment. Is this condition made clear to parents when considering the choice project for their children? Given Riker's conception of manipulation, puissance has the potential to transform to pouvoir in political contexts. In other words, an agent of an institution when acting on behalf of allocating a scarce resource (Smith & Hodkinson, 2005)  American institutional values have historically been the driver for education while trumping the personal interests and motivations of respective students' lived experiences and cultures (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndorff, 2002;Airola, 2013;Fallace & Fantozzi, 2013;Tyack, 1974). Hodgson (2006 advises that "we may define institutions as systems of established and prevalent social rules that structure social interactions [whereby] language, money, law, systems of weights and measures, table manners, and firms (and other organizations) are thus all institutions" (p. 2). As an institution, therefore, the complex organization that is the EIC, and/or its agents, possess causal influences that have been exemplified as pouvoir that effect and puissance to affect the interests, wants, values, needs, and beliefs of non-EIC agents and organizations.

Urban Regime Theory and Youth Political Engagement
Education policy, as supported by the ideology, profit-making, and technology, coincides with interests of the EIC that are at odds with interests of teachers and students for youth political engagement, at the secondary school level. The conceptual framework that has been chosen to guide further inquiry into political youth engagement is Shipps' (2008) urban regime theory.
Why urban regime theory over other conceptual frameworks? There are at least three reasons to which the literature points to as elements that a conceptual framework and approach should address. First, it must be understood that there are no quick-fixes to this complicated matter. Ravitch (2010) summarizes that "The fundamentals of good education are to be found in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture, but reformers of our time continue to look 49 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies for shortcuts and quick answers" (p. 225). Regime theory allows for the analysis of and addressing of each these components. As Cibulka, Fusarelli, and Cooper (2008) suggest that Without the knowledge of the political landscape, political behaviors, culture, and the prevailing beliefs of political actors, researchers and leaders will have difficulty understanding the complexities of education governance and the best means for improving the governance. (p. 1) McClendon and Cohen-Vogel (2008) present the Punctuated Equilibrium (PE) Theory which "provides both a conceptual foundation upon which to test propositions about how reform initiatives move dynamically among governmental institutions over time and an analytical framework with which to track changes in the agenda status of policy initiatives" (p. 43). This approach shows promise except for its concentration on state level structures. There are three key reasons why urban regime theory has been chosen as an approach over PE. The EIC is multi-organizational in structure and although state level agencies are included they only form a part of the organizational structure. Next, PE's approach is initiated given times of crisis, rather than being proactive in nature. And the PE approach, as presented, is focused on highereducation whereas the focus of this response is on secondary schools.
Secondly, as Shipps (2008) has written, "regime theory assumes institutions shape and are shaped by political, economic, and cultural contexts, but it also attends closely to the role of human agency in constructing institutional options and sustaining them over time" (p. 89).
Given the theme of this response, improved political engagement of urban secondary youth through American public education, urban regime theory (regime theory) recognizes that "Institutions help explain stability [which is a primary requirement of bureaucracy of the EIC], but human agency is required for regime change" (Shipps, 2008, p. 89). I depart briefly to paint 50 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies a picture of a theory that was very close to be selected for this response as a framework of further inquiry. McLendon and Cohen-Vogel (2008) call "one of political science's most familiar and well cited contemporary policy theories [known as] Kingdon's Multiple Streams Model" (p. 30).
The Multiple Streams Model (MSM) is a theory produced as a way to further analyze the decision-making processes of Congress, loosely based on the organizational management of higher education institutions (McLendon & Cohen-Vogel, 2008). Generally, MSM cocnsists of any combination of three processes, or as Kingdon calls them "streams," that attribute to how policymakers come to establish an agenda to pursue legislatively. The first stream is called the problem stream, or that "which policymakers have chosen to interpret as problems" (McLendon & Cohen-Vogel, 2008, p. 32). A second stream would be the policy stream which, according to McLendon and Cohen-Vogel, (2008) "consists of the various ideas or solutions 'developed' by [selected] specialists in myriad policy communities" (p. 32). The term selected implies the influence, if not power, of a policymaker to select the findings of a study, from say a think-tank or institution of higher education, which may or may not be adequate to address the problem as understoodor misunderstood, as the case may be. And the third stream according to McLendon and Cohen-Vogel (2008) would be the political stream which is a process that "consists of developments involving the national mood, interest group politics, and administrative or legislative turnover" (p. 32). Although the MSM does speak of the influence of what Kingdon calls "policy entrepreneurs," individuals who are described in very similar terms of influence and action as the Flexian, as espoused in this response, the MSM does not seem to analyze at a level of potential influence of those who would best represent the needs of the student based interest in learning (discussed later). Nor does the student based interest in learning speak quite to an analysis for how ideas outside think-tanks or institutes of higher 51 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies education may form and flex pouvoir, over policymakers. Somehow the problem stream needs to be understood to be lack of intrinsic motivation and civics engagement within the school environment, along with another stream of influence that purports the same. Now, the last statement by Shipps (2008) provides an entry point for contemplating regime change through analysis of the relationships institution of public education, as controlled by the EIC (Picciano & Spring, 2013;Wedel, 2010) and individuals within the EIC, on one hand, and teachers, administrators, community members, and students as relevant individuals to the process given the literature of positive relationships for youth political engagement (Checkoway, 2013;Curtis, 2012;Hattam, Brennan, Zipin, & Comber, 2009;Kahne et al., 2013;Shiller, 2013) outside the EIC. Going forward, the group of stakeholders mentioned as "relevant individuals to the process given the literature of positive relationships for youth political engagement (those outside the EIC" will be referred to collectively as the student-based-interest-in-learning (SBIL) group.
Lastly, an approach toward addressing the substantive issue that challenges youth political engagement is the now century's old strategy and process of decentralizing control of schools away from the communities, i.e. beyond school-level (including parents, families, and community members within school's neighborhood), to state and federal controls (Darling-Hammond, 2000;Goldspink, 2007;H. Kliebard, 2013;H. M. Kliebard, 2004;Ravitch, 2010;Tyack, 1974). Now although no specifically named theories for decentralizing the control of schools by classroom-level interest holders (teachers and students), there are a number of examples whereby centralization has been diminished by delegitimizing each of the centralizing governmental agencies, respectively (Febey & Louis, 2008). Regime theory speaks to a collaborative "partnership" in educational policy construction and implementation among, for 52 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies example, SBIL and EIC as opposed to the "involvement" process whereby those of the EIC barely tolerated input from those of the SBIL (Epstein, 1995;Picciano & Spring, 2013;Shipps, 2008).
As we may recall, Epstein (1995) explains that there are three types of partnership usually understood in varying degrees from one person to the next. Two types of partnership are understood commonly among administrators, teachers, parents, community members, and students (stakeholders) as involvement. The term involvement, when used, generally means that the parent or community member, i.e. the non-professional, has an ancillary function to enhance the plans of the teacher or administrator, i.e. the professionals. The third type of partnership is a partnership that is in-line with a proposed reconciliatory approach between the EIC and SBIL, in the words of Baum (2003), includes "actively involving parents and community members in school practices and decision-making, [which] largely stakes out new ground" (p. 33).
Toward closer examination of the institutional dynamics of challenges to youth political engagement, and using the three reasons for choosing urban regime theory as just presented, the analysis will examine institutional structures of the EIC and SBIL separately, first, through the lenses of political, economic, and cultural contexts of each. This subsection will be a process for establishing an approach for reconciliation. And to conclude the Maxcy section, there will be a summary of each analysis toward a proposed reconciliatory education policy that addresses the challenge of the power-to-mislead as a basis for further reconciliatory activities and the elimination of the AOD.

| P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies
Any approach toward resolving the issues produced by the interests of the EIC must be a reconciliatory process that redistributes the structure and power of the EIC as a shared structure and source of power for stakeholders within and without the EIC. On one hand, for the EIC, the structure of power, pouvoir and puissance, for the EIC, consists of s a political context that promotes an ideology that is reinforced by the promotion of technology that permeates the cultural context of the EIC's activities. Additionally, the pouvoir by which the EIC operates is one of a power-to-mislead which must be addressed as a part of the overall cultural context. And profit-making as an economic context, in addition to ever increasing school district budget cuts, that should serve as the focus-point and basis from which to develop a strategy that reconciles with "the EIC side" of the developing approach to address the AOD (Picciano & Spring, 2013;Shipps, 2008). A continued discussion of the power-to-mislead will initiate the balance of this subsection in relation to the interests of the EIC will be developed first. Then, a similar process for considering the SBIL will be developed, immediately thereafter, to conclude this section.
As Shipps (2008) advises, "Unlike the power needed to resist change, the power to create it must be collaboratively (and patiently) developed" (p. 92). In other words, using regime theory as the framework, the approach to address the substantive issue would be an effort to develop a mutually beneficial ideology for both the SBIL and EIC to form and an adjusted education policy agenda toward elimination of the AOD. Individuals functioning within the newly proposed network of organizations, as flexian, would be a core function along with district level leadership that is able to adapt and work with bureaucrats among the network of the EIC while not compromising the implementation and maintenance fidelity of SBIL.

| P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies
As represented by Lukes (2005) and Scott (1990), the power to mislead, as false consciousness, is the use of manipulation, autonomy, and political authority to realize power through pouvoir or puissance by the EIC. As we may recall, Lukes (2005) explains the state of false consciousness "operates to conceal or misrepresent aspects of social relations that, if apprehended directly, would be damaging to the interests of the dominant elites" (p. 126). Shipps (2008), in-fact, offers the following statement as a position from which to consider why coalitions, like an SBIL, are influenced by a power-to-mislead. The power-to-mislead is a form of power that emphasizes and regulates for the maintenance of the status-quo while being reinforced by members of the EIC. Shipps (2008) refers to regimes of this type as a maintenance regime (p. 90). Clearly, a collaborative effort that has complementing interests could act to diffuse the causal influences of the EIC upon the efforts of SBIL. However, Shipps (2008) presents a problem that faces a movement to dismantle and replace a maintenance regime. As Shipps (2008) states The inverse relationship between a regime agenda's ambition and the difficulty of sustaining its coalition is not a new insight. But regime theory provides the conceptual underpinnings for explaining why many persistent urban problems, including poorly performing school systems, repeatedly elicit the same solutions, even when those solutions have demonstrably failed: The governing regime is constrained by its own composition to support a narrow set of responses. (p. 94, italics added) In other words, toward revealing ways to overcome maintenance regimes, the development of processes that are sustainable and are continually fluid, creative in that coalition members sustain cohesiveness, and are effective in influencing policymakers in agenda setting, would be 55 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies foundational in advocating for a pro-SBIL education policy. Regime theory, additionally, as a frame for education governance, views systemic power (as) an impersonal power that is structured into economic, political, or socially advantaged rolesbut views it as a resource to be used in regime formation, rather than as a decisive factor. Instead, regime theory adopts another conception of power: it is "about the production rather than the distribution of benefits" (p. 91, italics added).
Said another way, the systemic power exhibited by the power-to-mislead, for example, considers power as a potentially positive force that can act as a reciprocal tool to benefit both the EIC and SBIL. An exemplification for breaking the status quo of coalitions following a maintenance regime, urban regime theory provides a lens that potentially may enlighten both the EIC and SBIL toward enhancing student opportunities through "a political process of building and maintaining a stable cross-sector coalition, assembling public and private resources, developing the means by which they will be aligned, and matching those means to 'an agenda that addresses a distinct set of problems'" (Shipps, 2008, p. 91). Picciano and Spring (2013) would warn, however, that prior to attempting a collectively collaborated ideology and agenda, beneficial to both the EIC and SBIL advocates, certain factors of the current EIC agenda would have to be dealt with. First, each component of the EIC would have to be philosophically reconciled with a philosophy that is conducive to SBIL. Such a philosophy would call for a reconciliation of ideals among the sides that answer the question, "Is [the mission of the education system] one based on capitalist principles of competition and profit-making or is it one based on the need to nurture students and their minds" (Picciano & Spring, 2013, p. 13 Next, bearing in-mind that an SBIL coalition would be built from "weakly organized and poorly resourced groups that must be supported by government, typically through regulation, so that they can mobilize the masses," (Shipps, 2008, p. 94) there would need to be a plan-of-action for governmental regulations that support rather than dominate the interests of the SBIL, specifically those that directly affect the operation and learning processes at the school building level. The Multiple Stream framework comes-to-mind in those cases would need to be made to influence at least two of the three streams, those streams being problem, policy, and or politics, of influence for policymakers (McLendon & Cohen-Vogel, 2008). Now, let us consider each of the EIC components toward establishing a basis for reconciliation.
The ideology of the EIC, as provided by Picciano and Spring (2013), is constructed around three main principles: 1) to "privatize schooling with regulation turned over to the 'invisible hand of the marketplace'" (p. 4); and 2) to "favor choice of public schools and charter schools that would teach a standardized state curriculum and tests" (p. 4); and 3) to "limit choice and privatization by asserting that schools should serve public goals and reflect public control" (p. 4). Shipps (2013) presents that the ability to reconcile these ideological principles depends on the current state of "governmental and economic contexts" (p. 97), for each side, of the area are in-play and to what degree. For SBIL advocates there are four contextual variables: 1) "the condition of the [areas] democracy" (p. 97); 2) "the level of intergovernmental support" (p. 97); 3) "the city's market position for private investors; and 4) "is the city's share of the national product increasing or decreasing" (p. 97)? The degree to which each of these factors is in-play, will dictate the level of conflict that will need to be addressed toward reconciling each sides' ideological position.
The second component, technology, is significant in the agenda of the EIC. Information and communication technology (ICT), as an adopted ideological tool, is advocated for 57 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies implementation of more effective administrative tasks in K-12 and an increase of online courses.

As Shipps (2008) defines, "The third [or profit making] component of the education-industrial
complex is made up of entities that profit by providing goods and services to schools and colleges" (p. 7). To conclude, the driving principle for reconciling these components, however, must be based in diffusing each of the effects of powers-to-mislead at the classroom level.
First, addressing the pouvoir and puissance of authority, dignity must be a product of judgments that are beneficial for the interests of students and those stakeholders who produce students' environment for an optimal-level for learning. To this point, however, regime theory has not spoken to the student-side of engagement for a proposed conceptual framework. Lawson and Lawson (2013), for example, suggest that engagement is a process-oriented dynamic involve "elements [that] reflect a complex set of interactions and transaction between people and their social environment" (p. 441). In-fact, if the suggested conceptual framework were left solely with Urban Regime Theory, Hay's (1997) challenge to Lukes (2005), earlier, in being condescending to the intellect of students would have fertile ground to regain traction. Stone (2006) in his work Power, Reform, and Urban Regime Analysis reminds us of Morriss' (2002) distinction earlier in stating that Although "power over" (pouvoir) and "power to" (puissance) are conceptually distinct, in political reality they are intertwined. As forms of "power to," urban regimes are not neutral mechanisms, but are forms of empowerment. Still, they may come less out of a contest of wills around fixed preferences and more out of how preferences are shaped by relationships. (p. 23) In keeping with this response's goal of determining a conceptual framework for the enhanced political engagement of students, there must be a relationship built between the EIC, as a macro-58 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies level of student engagement, and the SBIL, as a representation for the micro-level of student engagement. This position will be elaborated upon shortly.

Context of the Substantive Issue of Engagement
As presented earlier, students suffer from an academic opportunity deficit (AOD), in part, due to a lack of political engagement. False consciousness and misrepresentation, as a form of a powerto-mislead by macro-level sources, are realized and maintained through these tools at the micro, or student, level. The realization of the existence of these tools, for example, is evidenced through curricular practices that mute youth political engagement (Ballard, 2014;Fox et al., 2010;Jenkins & Carpentier, 2013;Kahne et al., 2013). How? The "how" will be determined by discussing the tenants of social-ecological theory as a micro-level representation that reveals the effects of the societally influenced false consciousness and misrepresentation for students. Lawson and Lawson (2013) provide eight areas of consideration toward accomplishing this goal.
Three of these areas are methodological in-nature and will be discussed to conclude this response. The five areas that will be discussed immediately are: 1) through a discussion of a distinction between motivation and engagement (J. D. Finn & Zimmer, 2012;Martin, 2012;Reschly & Christenson, 2012); 2) through a discussion of three external challenges to student engagement (Green et al., 2012;J. Reeve, 2012;Skinner, Furrer, Marchand, & Kindermann, 2008;Tseng & Seidman, 2007); 3) through a deeper discussion that considers why a micro-level distinction for engagement is needed (Reschly & Christenson, 2012); 4) through an introduction and discussion for the validity for further inquiry through social ecological frameworks (U Bronfenbrenner, 1979(U Bronfenbrenner, , 1994Urie Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994;Ungar, 2011); and, to conclude the Maxcy section, through a discussion of relevant elements of engagement as a process 59 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies (Galster, 2012;Holme & Rangel, 2012;Tate, 2012;Wells et al., 2012); but first, a brief introduction to the micro-level of this discussion.
Inspired by Finn (1989) and others (Mahoney, Cairns, & Farmer, 2003;, Lawson and Lawson (2013) reiterate this important consideration in stating that work on how the social environment influences engagement and disengagement processes, nascent research in adolescent development shifts the influence of the social environment from the background to the foreground. Here, studies that employ frameworks known as developmental contextualism (Lerner & et.al, 2005) and holistic interactionism (Mahoney et al., 2003;J. L. Mahoney, 2000) frame student engagement as a complex interplay between students' activity involvement, competencies, dispositions, and expectancies and their surrounding social environment. These theories also implicate a dynamic and synergistic process, and they can be interpreted as recommending a transactional conceptualization of engagement. (p. 442, italics added) Historically, however, has not been transactional but one-sided from societal dictates as a driver for education by neglecting to incorporate, not to mention establishing the learning and engagement process through the personal interests and motivations of students' lived experiences and cultures (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndorff, 2002;Airola, 2013;Fallace & Fantozzi, 2013;Lawson & Lawson, 2012;Tyack, 1974). This omni-level approaches the question of civic engagement of secondary students from a sustentative position. In other words, the review of the relevant literature will discuss political engagement, as an example of the greater learning engagement issues of the education system, toward balancing out the transactional one-sidedness that have 60 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies supplanted student values, interests, and motivations in the classroom through policy logics (Maxcy, 2011).
First, Cohen and Chaffee (2013) found that an integral part of student interest and motivation in the area of political engagement is formed through developed attitudes via skill-specific activities that are relevant to the respective student. Lerner (2002) speaks to conceptual frameworks that engage the learning process through forms of contextual development of concepts. Lerner (2002), for example, advises that meaning through conceptual frames "are developed and interpreted within the context of a given philosophical perspective [and as such] we need to understand the different philosophical assumptions on which the study of development can be based" (p. 48). Moreover, Lawson and Lawson (2013) take this advisory a step further in suggesting that students' philosophical perspectives are influenced "factors that are external to the student" (p. 452). Such observations reinforce a need to discuss engagement from both a macro and micro-level to student perspectives.
And the second component is to consider and discuss relevant civics coursework may be developed, in-lieu of the societal misrepresentations painted throughout this response to this point. In other words, to discuss ways in which "education programs can intervene" (Cohen & Chaffee, 2013, p.43) that both engages students' interests, motivations, and lived experiences, primarily, and satisfies institutional interests that effect the operation of schools and teachers' ability to be most effective for students (Curtis, 2012;Febey & Lewis, 2013).

Motivation and Engagement
The literature on youth engagement is far from agreement when it comes to defining this phrase (J. D. Finn & Zimmer, 2012;Green et al., 2012;Lawson & Lawson, 2013;Martin, 2012 Reeve, 2012;Reschly & Christenson, 2012;Skinner et al., 2008). A breathe level review of this literature reveals a conflation of the terms motivation and engagement in understanding and researching youth engagement (Lawson & Lawson, 2013). For example, Lawson and Lawson (2013) advise that "engagement is theoretically distinct from students' motivations (and) although student motivation may reflect the direction of students' energy toward [civics] in the classroom, engagement is thought to represent the affective, cognitive, and behavioral activation of that energy and direction" (p. 435). Clearly, an understanding of this distinction should be fleshed out before pursuing further discussion and analysis of any level of student engagement.
A brief representation for each of the types of engagement will be presented before proceeding.
Affective Engagement Lawson and Lawson (2013) found that "Researchers use the term affective/emotional engagement to describe students' social, emotional and psychological attachments to school (from an) institutional view (from) students' feelings of relatedness to school overall" (pp. 435-436). An example of affective engagement is provided by Cohen and Chaffee (2013) by finding that civic engagement through the exhibition of various attitudes and activities exercised by students, that mirror Lawson and Lawson's (2013) categories of engagement. Somewhat similarly, Ballard (2014) found that civic engagement "is often used as a broad term referring to a set of constructs such as civic skills, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and goals" (p. 440).
For adolescents, on the other hand, there are four motivations, "material gratifications, social gratifications, civic gratifications, and desire to influence collective policy" (p. 443). For Ballard (2014), though, there are "at least two theories of motivation worth mentioning as they give rise to more recent and more specific theories of motivation in the domains of civic and political development" (p. 442), the theories of Lewin (1944Lewin ( /1951 and Deci and Ryan (2000).

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According to Ballard (2014), "Lewin understands motives as goal-directed forces related to one's values" (p. 443) as one approach and "a second approach to understanding motivations in other psychological domains draws on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations" (p. 443). Gratifications through intrinsic motivation speak to an individual's satisfaction of innate needs and desires as opposed to extrinsic motivations and amotivations that motivate either superficially or not at all (Ryan, 1993;Deci & Ryan, 2000). Lawson and Lawson (2013) recorded that "studies of students' "in the moment" cognitive engagement (i.e., cognitive engagement states) typically describe the ways in which students think deeply about ideas and concepts [such as political or engagement]" (p. 436). However, in terms of intrinsic motivation, Deci and Ryan (2000) speak to the significance of student gratification and the attachment process to environmental stimuli; again ringing reminiscence of environmental stimuli including external factors mentioned a short time ago. For them, relatedness or relevance to external stimuli is a principle component for intrinsic motivation as a vehicle toward satisfaction of a desire or need as a sense of gratification.

Cognitive Engagement
The relatedness and relevance for students would be how these external stimuli misrepresent optimal ways in which knowledge is acquired for learning, i.e. through adverse curricula and pedagogies, and for addressing challenges that students experience everyday outside the classroom and schoolhouse. If external sources, paraphrasing Newman and Wehlage (1993), do not "highly (engage) and intrinsically (motivate) students (to) take a particularly disciplined approach toward learning that extends beyond a desire to simply understand class content" (p. 436), which contextually includes not being made aware of political matters as a specific tie to this response. In further discussing relevance or relatedness, Deci and Ryan (2000)  Relatedness refers to the desire to feel connected to others-to love and care, and to be loved and cared for (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Bowlby, 1958;Harlow, 1958;Ryan, 1993). Like us, Baumeister and Leary argued that relatedness is a fundamental need, and the idea of relatedness as a need is central to, although not widely discussed in the field of attachment. (p. 231) Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss (2002), as presented by Ballard (2014), also illustrate how the literature considers civic engagement of youth in terms of outcomes as dictated by societal needs in stating that outcomes are indicative of "The What, Why, When, Where, and Who of Citizenship Development" (Sherrod, Flanagan, & Youniss, 2002, p. 264), rather than merely the interests and motivations of youth. In addition to being an example of external factors in action, this exemplifies a nurturing of false consciousness of students. How? As they state by identifying that "personal satisfaction, collective efficacy, and contributing to shared national values" (p. 443) are used as an extrinsic motivation for civic engagement, but is also a form of amotivation for students. For Deci and Ryan (2000), extrinsic motivation is amotivational because even "fully internalized extrinsic motivation does not typically become intrinsic motivation. [Fully internalized extrinsic motivation] remains extrinsic motivation because, even though fully volitional, it is instrumental rather than being what Csikszentmihalyi (1975) referred to as autotelic" (p. 237), "(of an activity or creative work) having a purpose in and not apart from itself" (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autotelic). Said another way, fully internalized extrinsic motivation does not satisfy the intrinsic motivational characteristic of relatedness as discussed earlier. An example of an external motivation would be the education is the key to success in life. The external motivation for accomplishing this conception is to do well on things like standardized tests, for example (Ben-Porath, 2013;Bowers, 2011;Fazzaro, (Artiles, 2011;Darling-Hammond, 2000;K. Fischer et al., 2006;K. Fischer et al., 2004;K. W. Fischer & Rose, 2001;K. W. Fischer & Rose, 1998;Helfenbein, 2012;Ravitch, 2010;Thorne, 2011). Such practices are indicative of false consciousness for students and parents, while being a misrepresentation of optimal learning as well (J. Dewey, 1897;Greenwood, 2008;Nishida & Fine, 2014;Searle, 1995;Shiller, 2013;Weinstein et al., 2011). Ballard (2014) speaks of the link between the ideal of relatedness in relation to student needs and attitudes based from the context within which the student is and has been exposed to outside stimuli and their effect on student civic involvement. There are five contexts, according to Ballard (2014), that effect students' attitude toward feeling as if an opportunity to satisfy needs.
The five contexts are "cultural practices, family values and culture, peer group values and activities, neighborhood composition, and school climate" (p. 441), which are each, in their respective ways, societally influenced in nature but different in influence for each student and how each, individually and collectively, motivate as a "dynamic interaction between values, goals, and experiences" (p. 443) of the student intrinsically. Hill and den Dulk (2013) have found that levels of volunteerism, for example, in adolescents is related to intrinsic motivation, but they most definitively found that schooling type, Public, Protestant, Catholic, Private, or Homeschool, was the most conclusive context for civic involvement, through volunteerism, beyond secondary school. But, what does this say as far as behavioral engagement for secondary students given societally influenced contexts, the type of school attended, and the level of intrinsic motivation? 65 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies Behavioral Engagement Lawson and Lawson (2013) explain behavioral engagement "prosocial conduct indicators, such as the amount of time students spend on homework or the extent to which students comply to school rules" (pp. 436-437). Ballard (2014) has found that civic engagement for adolescents, as an example of behavioral engagement, is not limited to activities such as volunteerism. "We have seen," Obradović and Masten (2007) states, "that SES (socioeconomic status) is positively correlated with measures of activity involvement and citizenship, but not with volunteering" (p. 17). Andolina, Jenkins, Keeter, and Zukin (2006), as provided by Ballard (2014), suggest that the definition must answer the question of how does this meaning gratify the students' needs, respectively, for a sense of "organized voluntary activity focused on problem solving and helping others" (p. 181)? Moreover, the socioeconomic status of the urban secondary student, in addition to the school type as contexts, must be a distinguishing factor to answer this question (Andolina, Jenkins, Keeter, & Zukin, 2006;Sherrod, Flanagan & Youniss, 2002).

External Challenges that Affect Youth Engagement
There are three overarching challenges that affect youth engagement in the literature (Lawson & Lawson, 2013). Two of the challenges are temporal in nature in that each respectively purports that motivation, engagement, and outcomes of said engagement differ as challenges based on the order of occurrence as a process. Ballard (2014) advises that "Civic development is situated in social contexts and local institutions" (p. 445). Rubin (2007), as conveyed by Ballard (2014), "found that young people develop their civic identities as reactions to their everyday experiences" (p. 445). Everyday experiences, as influenced by their respective exposure to "civic institutions and individuals" (Ballard, 2014, p. 445), are negative to an extent for a large 66 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies number of students. Levinson (2010), for example, found that the context of school is "a particularly important context for civic development" (cited in Ballard, 2014, p. 445). Weinstein, Deci, and Ryan (2011) warn that to the extent that an outside stimulus is causing a students' feeling of being forced to integrate that which is being presentedproportionally, the student will resist acceptance as an intrinsically generated ideal to act upon. In other words, the degree to which an adolescent accepts an ideal presented by either of the five contexts offered by Ballard (2014) earlier depends upon the extent to which the student is able to wrestle with it autonomously and come to accept in accordance with the beliefs and values already accepted by the student. Moreover, the extent that a student finds a proposed ideal unjust, and feels that she or he can do something about it, effects the degree to which the student develops a social attitude toward engaging, attempting to find, and act upon, a remedy (Ballard, 2014;Hill & den Dulk, 2013;Obradović & Masten, 2007). As Matsuba, Hart, & Atkins (2007) and others (e.g., Cemalcilar, 2009;Penner, 2003, as cited in Ballard, 2014 found, the degree to which a student reconciles "Social attitudes such as a feeling that one belongs to their community, endorsing social responsibility, empathy for others, and feeling civic obligation" (p. 441) as principles to be wrestled with are rectified, outside ideals will be problematic. And to the extent to which each student reconciles these principles, motivation to act is reciprocated toward civic involvement, for example (Ballard, 2014). Checkoway (2011) andothers (e.g., Au, Bigelow, &Karp, 2007;Oakes & Rogers, 2006) found that the ideals that are not reconciled with could be challenged in secondary schools by teachers, but "there are institutional obstacles to their ideals" (Checkoway, 2011, p. 391). Such findings fly directly in the face of school climate being a principle context within which civic engagement is nurtured (Ballard, 2014). Barber and Battistoni (1999) and many others (e.g., Colby, 67 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies Beaumont, Erhlich & Corngold, 2010;Ehrlich, 2000;Jacoby & Ehrlich, 1996;Jacoby, 2009) found additionally that secondary schools that serve predominantly minority students (do not) "emphasize constructions of democracy" (Checkoway, 2011, p.391), thus disallowing an opportunity for secondary minority students for gaining competence in the area of civics, thus decreasing the opportunity to engage (Obradović & Matsen, 2007;Weinstein, Deci & Ryan, 2011).
Obradović and Matsen (2007) emphasize, "belonging to a social group provides youth with opportunities to further exercise [civic] skills" (p. 4), the lack of which has long been a barrier to students of color, specifically students of low socio-economic status (Youniss & et.al, 2002). Youniss and others (2002), for example, advise that "It is known that adolescents group together for purposes of distinguishing their own from other crowds [so that] disparate groups could become increasingly polarized or find bonds of common ground and a shared frame of reference" (p. 134). From Tyack (1974) enlightening the reader to the phenomenon of "advanced knowledge" being used to keep the elite in power to Valencia (2010) speaking of the ideal of deficit thinking and the societal norm of "othering" have such barriers been exemplified.
These barriers and processes have perdured through American public education history and permeated the institutions within it. These barriers and processes, moreover, have produced environmental contexts from which beliefs and values have negatively influenced students by providing a lack of opportunities to engage students of color.
Ben-Porath (2013) and many other authors (e.g., Checkoway, 2013;Cohen & Chaffee, 2013;Curtis, 2012;Jenkins & Carpenter, 2013;McGovern 2013;Tyack, 1974) have found and recorded a historically and sociologically negative influence by institutions and individuals on the environmental contexts of students of color and specifically those students of families and 68 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies communities who are economically challenged (Naughton, 2013). David Tyack (1974) actually speaks of a withholding of advanced knowledge from persons of color historically. For Tyack (1974), there have always been groups that have conspired "to keep black children ignorant, to keep them from the advanced knowledge that they needed for their liberation" (p. 113). Such advanced knowledge is exemplified in students as citizens being active in the political processes and the resources for which those in power allocates, or not (Apple, 1993;Boggs, 2000;Crayton, 2013;Crayton, 2013a;Horowitz, 1969;Jenkins & Carpentier, 2013;Shipps, 2008). Hill and den Dulk (2013) remind us the effects of such negatively influenced contexts when stating that "It is important to note that feeling concern for the welfare of others is not a sufficient explanation of intrinsic motivation. One might have this concern yet fill entirely ill-equipped to act on it" (p. 183) or exist in a state of civic illiteracy. Disallowing students of color, specifically those who are economically challenged, denies them the opportunity to feel competent because of being illequipped through public education, in matters such as the integration of civics, thus continuing this denial of civic literacy.

The Constructs of Institutional Contexts and the Maintenance of Inequality
Richard Valencia (2010) illustrates the inequality of deficit thinking that permeates the consciousness and unconsciousness of institutions and the produced contexts among individuals in society. Kimberley Clark (2012) speaks to the irresponsible nature of not teaching and engaging students in civics in a manner that allows the ability for students of color and of economic challenge to wrestle with societal stimuli that conflict with lived experiences. As Clark (2012) presents:

| P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies
How to teach young people about the grave ecological and social crises of our times without crushing their sense of possibility? The author has come to believe that the nature of these crises, together with a widespread weakening of civic and democratic culture, makes it irresponsible to teach young people about ''the world as it is'' without simultaneously giving them opportunities to develop capacities for collective agency (p. 354).
Consciousness of discriminate inequality, especially in-light of knowledge of states of being for low socio economic students of color, as a correlation to socio-economic status, is important.
This correlation is important because it affects how education is understood and how education is conveyed. Additionally, this correlation is important because it reveals how students' roles as citizens are developed with knowledge and hope to change one's circumstances. And to not address this inequality one would be aiding in not fulfilling the historic purpose of public education (Buckley, 2010;Clarke, 2012;Cohen & Chaffee, 2013;Foote, 2005;Kapitzke & Hay, 2011;Lee, Robinson, & Sebastian, 2012). Cohen and Chaffee (2013) set the stage for becoming and remaining conscious of inequalities in education by finding and conveying that "White students and students from high socioeconomic status backgrounds are more likely to receive civics education that builds their civic knowledge and skills than non-White students and students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds" (p. 44). This inequality in preparation for citizenship is exacerbated by the findings that civics is consistently being cut back or removed from all public school curricula (Curtis, 2012;Fallace & Fantozzi, 2013).  Curtis, 2012;Jenkins & Carpenter, 2013;McGovern 2013). In the school environment and climate, wrestling with the historical, negative and positive, conscious and unconscious, the impact of conflicting influences that students are presented with in school breeds the development of competence by allowing students to more readily engage lived experiences.
However, the overall environment would have to set the stage to promote this development in an autonomous manner (Weinstein, Deci & Ryan, 2011;Pinar, 2012). Ballard (2014) advises that the probability to engage issues civically beyond secondary school is enhanced as student interests and motivations are reconciled with the students' lived experiences.

From Student Interests and Motivations to Civic Attitudes and Civic Knowledge
It is well established in the literature (see, for example, Deci & Ryan, 2000;Dewey, 1990;Dewey, 1991;Erickson-Nepstad, 1997;Paavola, Lipponen & Hakkarainen, 2004) that student's lived and living experiences establish values and beliefs that link significantly to the learning process. Thus, affecting student beliefs and values reveals a potential route toward eradicating the denial of advanced knowledge, civic involvement, or civic literacy by adjusting the learning process to incorporate lived and living experiences. Weinstein, Deci, and Ryan (2011), moreover, emphasize the importance of recognizing that cultural differences are important to integrating values, beliefs and interests. As they state, "there is considerable variability in the values and goals held in different cultures, suggesting that some of the avenues to basic need satisfaction may differ widely from culture to culture" (p. 246).
To address the limitations and reductions of civic knowledge and engagement by urban secondary students, it is anticipated that the product of this study will be utilized by public schools to develop and utilize relevant material to promote and evoke student interests in the 71 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies learning endeavor focused on increasing civic literacy and engagement (Checkoway, 2013;Obradović and Masten, 2007;Shiller, 2013). Toward achieving these goals, analysis of student interviews will be collaborative in that student interpretation will act as the meaning making mechanism of the researchers' interaction with the students. Thus, the questions that the study seeks to address are:

1)
In the perspectives of a group of urban high school students, how should we define civic literacy? Are there elements of civic knowledge essential to democratic participation? If so, what are those elements?

2)
In the perspectives of a group of urban high school students, what aspects of civic knowledge are most predictive of civic engagement?

3)
In the perspectives of a group of urban high school students, has the growth of social media fostered or inhibited civic literacy?

4)
In the perspectives of a group of urban high school students, why have previous efforts to improve civics education failed?
Overall, these questions aim toward addressing that which Fazzaro (2006) reminds us, "at base (public education) is about the role of education in the allocation of values through politics" (p.12), but whose politics remains the question.

| P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies
Collectively, this response is the development toward a dissertation thesis if granted doctoral candidacy. This section will consider the use of PAR (participatory action research) and YPAR (youth participatory action research) as processes, not methods (Fine, 2008), toward the development of an SBIL based educational environment while addressing the challenges presented in the Seybold and Maxcy sections, respectively. The structure of this section, Scheurich, will consist of three subsections toward the development of a supporting process to support the author's dissertation thesis with the aforementioned challenges serving as the foundation.
First, there will be a description of the historical development of PAR from its beginning to the present including its key current characteristics. Next, there will be a transition in describing the emergence of YPAR from PAR and a discussion of YPAR's current key characteristics.
Throughout this section, there will be brief discussions of at least three "high quality" research examples of YPAR as expressed in the relevant literature that supports speaking to the challenges to youth political engagement in urban secondary public schools. And to conclude, there will be a discussion of this section collectively as a potential application to my dissertation research, practically, using characteristics of YPAR to address the challenges to youth political engagement as presented throughout this response. Fine (2008), through An Epilogue, of Sorts, has provided content and context from which to structure a basis for initiating a representation for the historical development of participative action research (PAR), and its evolved version, youth participative action research (YPAR). The content and context presented establishes key characteristics for each as tools toward achieving a reconciliation of the education policy challenges to urban secondary youth and political 73 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies engagement as presented in the Seybold and Maxcy sections of this response. Historically, other "methods" for conducting studies have served to maintain a research structure conducive to the EIC, the interests of the EIC, and an environment within which the power-to-mislead has been incubated (Denzin, 2007;Hesse-Biber, 2004;Weaver-Hightower, 2014). PAR, on the other hand, was borne and evolved as a "radical epistemological challenge to the traditions of social science" (Fine, 2008, p. 214) is not a method but rather a process, and mechanism, to "(breakdown) hegemonic beliefs into their basic elements and then creating novel conceptions to express new situations [whereby] the interests of the dominant class are articulated with the needs, desires, interests of subordinated groups" (Fine, 2008, p. 216). Before a more detailed discussion of PAR an YPAR, I ask the reader to consider a brief historical presentation of the context through which these processes evolved.

A Historical Development and Key Characteristics of PAR
The earliest form of PAR, as Chambers (1994) conveys, was realized as Activist Participatory Research in late 1960's Latin America by the education giant Paulo Freire. Freire's foundational work in indigenous studies, including Pedagogy of the Oppressed, brought into focus a consideration of the exploited in societies while also providing direction toward taking action against such societal ills (Chambers, 1994). As the reader may recall, Freire (2003) speaks of the importance of dialogue to gain better understandings among folks as a mechanism for challenging inequalities. As Freire (2003) exemplifies in stating that "the dialogue cannot be reduced to the act of one person's 'depositing' ideas in another, nor can it become a simple exchange of ideas to be 'consumed' by the discussants" (p. 89). Said another way, the process of dialogue inspires an environment and spaces by which folks of different societal positionalities can communicate openly while gaining mutual understandings toward a more equal an mutually beneficial societal environment for each. Most importantly, works such as Freire's brought to 74 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies light the importance of indigenous peoples doing their own investigation and analysis (Chambers, 1994).
Since the work of Freire (2008), research has experienced an evolution of "methods" on becoming ever more conscious of inequalities among folks in societies and coming to realize that the discourse sought by Freire was one-sided as has been presented in this response through the Seybold and Maxcy sections. Toward addressing these inequalities, the next iteration of research came to be known as Participatory Research (Chambers, 1994). Participatory Research emerged in the mid 1970's and has a strong relationship to Participatory Action Research of today (Chambers, 1994), which will be discussed shortly.
Participatory Research (PR), according to Chambers (1994), is similar to Activist Participatory Research in that it not only focuses on the poor of society but it also includes the analysis of the condition and levels of powerlessness of the poor as well (Chambers, 1994). Cornwall and Jewkes (1995) note a epistemological departure from conventional research methodology with the accelerating use of PR. As they state In conventional research and extension, inappropriate recommendations have frequently followed from a failure to take account of local priorities, processes and perspectives. In contrast, in participatory research the emphasis is on a "bottom-up" approach with a focus on locally defined priorities and local perspectives. (p. 1667) This epistemological departure evolved yet again as researchers learned that more needed to be done with that which was conveyed through defining local priorities and perspectives. Rahman (1985) exemplified what had become an evolution of PR based on the need to advocate for that 75 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies which was being revealed. This evolving form would soon come to be known as Participatory Action Research (PAR) by the early 1990's (Chambers, 1994). Kemmis and McTaggart (2005) actually introduce us to what a next evolution of PAR called critical participatory action research (CPAR), developed in the late 1990s. CPAR speaks more specifically to the research process, its conduction, and analysis of the data as a cycle that "(involves) a spiral of self-reflective cycles of the following: planning a change; acting and observing the process and consequences of the change; reflecting on these processes and consequences; replanning; acting and observing again; [and] reflecting again, and so on" (p. 276). However, Scheurich only asks for response through the era of PAR. And so, what is the historical development of PAR?
As Weis and Fine (2004) have written, "Much work over the past 20 years focuses on the ways in which social inequalities along racial, social class, and gendered lines are sustained through schools" (p. 121). PAR, as a process, is distinct from Activist Participatory Research and PR in that PAR analyzes inequalities in society due to the manipulations of knowledge by the powerful (Chambers, 1994) while utilizing various methods "to interrogate the conditions of oppression and surface leverage points for resistance and change [while being] designed to unveil the ideological and material architecture of injustice" (Fine, 2008, pp. 213-216). Rahman (1985), as cited by Fine (2008), provides a further understanding of the epistemology that becomes PAR in stating that The distinctive viewpoint of PAR [recognizes that the] domination of masses by elites is rooted not only in the polarization of control over the means of material production but also over the means of knowledge production, including…the The content was italicized to introduce the three bases from which further inquiry into the power-to-mislead and false consciousness as an integration of the key characteristics of YPAR later in this response. Meanwhile, Fine (2008) presents a conceptual lens through which PAR provides insight as a research process. As she states, PAR analyzes "with a critical gaze on institutions where (in) justices reign and human spirits are mangled, in the name of schooling" (p. 214, italics added). As the reader may recall, this response has presented institutional power structures that have illuminated injustices in the form of domination over urban secondary students, for example, through manifestations of false consciousness and barriers to the engagement of intrinsic interests and motivationsmangling their human spirits. Fine (2008) makes clear that PAR's critical gaze does "care about traditional features of social inquiry, in particular objectivity and bias, validity, and generalizability" (p. 221). These areas will be discussed as key characteristics of PAR. Additionally, Fine (2008) advises that, for PAR, "there is not just one legitimate way to conceptualize [strong] objectivity" (p. 221) because there is not a monopoly on whose knowledge is of most worth. Strong objectivity for Fine (2008) is exemplified as an (exercise by which) researchers work diligently and self-consciously through their own positionalities, values, and predispositions, gathering as much evidence as possible, from many distinct vantage points, all in an effort to not be guided, unwittingly and exclusively, by predispositions. (p. 222) Said another way, toward achieving a strong objectivity as a process, Fine (2008) advises that one should analyze evidence not from an interpretation of the 'researcher', but from multiple sources and perspectives. A second key characteristic of PAR is what Fine (2008) calls expert validity. She advises that "PAR stands on the epistemological grounds that persons who have 77 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies historically been marginalized or silenced carry substantial knowledge about the architecture of injustice" (Fine, 2008, p. 223) and as such bring value to diffusing the powers wielded by the EIC as a bestowing of criteria for whom is deemed to be expert in the process of teaching and learning. As Fine explains Classic social science is measured, in part, by the extent to which "experts" consider the design and construct to be valid.  (2008), a second key characteristic of PAR is a valuing of knowledge from all sides, as opposed to a notion of expert validity, of the proverbial societal tracks through collaborative dialogue (Freire, 2004). The collaborative nature of a new agenda spoken of in Maxcy section warns that once the "what," as product of the varied bases of knowledge, is agreed upon by the advocates of SBIL and bureaucrats of the EIC, the real challenge begins with coming to consensus in determining the agenda items to address the how. The challenge here would be how the two groups would reconcile the varied interests that will invariably present themselves.
A third key characteristic of PAR would be the execution of construct validity (Fine, 2008). Cook and Campbell (1979), as cited by Fine (2008), define "construct validity as the means to assess the extent to which theoretical notions are indeed meaningful and valid to determine how cause relates to effect" (p. 225). An example of a product of such analysis was stated earlier in 78 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies this response by declaring that the perspective of considering the challenges to youth political engagement as an exercise in maintaining an academic opportunity deficit (AOD) through education policy rather than as an "achievement gap" (Fine, 2008). A final key characteristic for PAR would be generalizability.
Generalizability is an ideal that reveals causal influences that systemic injustices exhibit through demographic and geographic contexts. Fine (2008) breaks down understanding generalizability in terms of PAR, and YPAR in-fact, in two forms: theoretical and provocative. She explains by stating that Theoretical generalizability refers to the extent to which theoretical notions or dynamics move from one context (e.g. political, economic, and cultural) to another. To what extent can we glean lessons about social oppression and forms of resistance from across the five cases described in this volume?
Provocative generalizability offers a measure of the extent to which a piece of research provokes readers or audiences, across contexts, to generalize to "worlds not yet," in the language of Maxine Greene; to rethink and reimagine current arrangements. To what extent have these cases instilled in audiences a sense of urgency, pressing the question, what must we do? (p. 227) This characteristic brings the author to think about the anticipated challenge to reconciling the how for collaborative process between the EIC and SBIL advocates. As far as provocative generalizability, to what extent does the discourse provoke each side to act to change education policy by opening each respective mind to consider and desire a "world not yet" as a product of the agreed upon novel education policy. As far as the theoretical generalizability of this novel policy, to what extent does this novel policy satisfy each side's collective mind as far as their 79 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies political, economic, and cultural positionality? To complicate the matter, many authors (Ballard, 2014;Cohen & Chaffee, 2013;Kahne et al., 2013;Stoudt, Fox, & Fine, 2012) have found an important distinction in considering political engagement between youth and adults which brings us to an emergence of youth political action research (YPAR).

The Emergence of YPAR and Key Characteristics
As stated previously, "PAR [recognizes that the] domination of masses by elites is rooted not only in the polarization of control over the means of material production but also over the means of knowledge production, including…the social power to determine what is valid or useful knowledge (Rahman, 1985, p. 119, italics added). These three italicized conceptions will serve as the bases from which further inquiry will build toward addressing the author's dissertation thesis. The balance of this subsection will engage the key characteristics of YPAR, as will be discussed, toward addressing each of these roots of domination as realized through the EIC.
Specifically, the discussion will engage the following questions as a basis for further inquiry and thesis for dissertation, which are: 1) How does the EIC polarize and enact control over the means of material production in the urban secondary school environment?
2) How does the EIC exercise control over the means of knowledge production? And, 3) How does the EIC control the social power to determine what is valid or useful knowledge?
Aside from addressing these questions specifically from the perspective of youth, the key characteristics for YPAR are almost identical to the key characteristics of PAR. The key characteristic that differs is construct rebuilding rather than construct validity (Fine, 2008). In YPAR, the difference is based from an epistemological context in that construct rebuilding takes 80 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies advocacy a step forward as part of the research process. Construct rebuilding, speaks most directly to a reform of classroom environment that enacts problematizing, relearning, and understanding of words and language that are loosely used in media and generally that negatively affect the optimal learning experience of students. In other words, construct rebuilding is a key characteristic that is revealed through YPAR that works as an agent to disrupt the nourishment of false consciousness and powers-to-mislead.
As the reader may recall from the Maxcy section, toward closer examination of the EIC and the institutional powers that challenge youth political engagement, YPAR has been selected as a process for further inquiry. Given the focus of the response being urban public secondary youth, Urban Regime Theory was selected as a conceptual framework to analyze the general political, economic, and cultural contexts of the EIC (Education Industrial Complex) and advocates for SBIL (student-based interest for learning). This framework for analysis was presented to discuss and problematize the difference between the two, given these contexts, toward a reconciliation of education policy.

A Discussion toward a Potential Application of YPAR as the Process of Dissertation Research
This response has spoken to defining the EIC and its powers as barriers to the effective development of urban public secondary students as politically engaged youth. This subsection will act as summary, conclusion and a vehicle for addressing the presented barriers throughout.
The barriers to be addressed are extensive and are as follows in the form of needs. It is theorized that YPAR may be used as a process to address the barriers to youth political engagement toward: 1) Coming to a common understanding and basis from which to consider youth political engagement; 81 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies 2) Coming to understand a direct and habitual link among the ideals of a citizen, citizenship, and a student's personhood as a distinction from the common use and understanding of identity; 3) Conversely coming to understand and appreciate that this link illuminates the potential power gleaned by the student, or teacher as agent for the personhood of students; 4) Understanding that a tool for the power to mislead is to divert attention from students' engagement in political affairs as a potential tool of power for students by denying the exercise and realization of students' intrinsic motivations; 5) Understanding that there is a direct link among students' intrinsic motivations, identities, and personhood. And that the foci of evaluating processes should frame evaluative assessments; 6) Understanding that there is a disconnect between "policies of logics" and students' "logics from lived experiences"; 7) Evaluating the contents presented by media as barriers to the positive development of students' personhood; 8) Seeking methods of evaluation that illuminate unconscious biases that we all have; 9) Using processes that are predominately qualitative in nature as an evaluative tools; 10) Revealing the hidden transcripts among stakeholders in the education system, especially those of bureaucrats of the EIC, students, and teachers; and 82 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies 11) Identifying teachers using positive counter pedagogies to barriers and the powers against them.
There is evidence through use of YPAR that are indicative of "high quality" processes that have engaged these barriers to youth political engagement in urban secondary schools. "High quality" processes include the incorporation of most of the key characteristics of YPAR in the analysis of schooling environments. As a quick reminder, the key characteristics of research in using the YPAR process are: strong objectivity; expert validity; construct rebuilding; theoretical generalizability; and provocative generalizability. There are several YPAR/PAR influenced research projects that exemplify support for their use to execute further inquiry into challenges presented in this response. Kemmis and McTaggart (2005) provide the first two examples in their work. Each will be presented and evidence for support of the key characteristics of YPAR/PAR will be exhibited by key quotes from each respective study.

The Yirrkala Ganma Education Project
The series of quotes exemplifying key characteristics of PAR/YPAR are as follows:  An exhibition of executing strong objectivity and provocative generalizability in conveying that "Throughout the process, the teachers were guided by their own collaborative research into their problems and practices. They gathered stories from the old people. They gathered information about how school worked and did not work for them. They made changes and watched what happened. They thought carefully about the consequences of the changes they made, and then they made still further changes on the basis of the evidence they had gathered." (p.

The Córdoba Educational Congress
The series of quotes exemplifying key characteristics of PAR/YPAR are as follows:  An exhibition of problematizing construct validity and implementing theoretical generalizability and provocative generalizability in conveying that "The Córdoba congress operated outside the functional frameworks of education and state systems and aimed to change the ways in which education and schooling were understood and practiced indirectly rather than directly." (p. 314)  An exhibition of problematizing construct validity while implementing construct rebuilding and provocative generalizability by stating that "The Córdoba congress brought together some 8,000 teachers, students, education officials, and invited dealing with the problems that they believe need to be addressed." (p. 158)  An exhibition of problematizing expert validity and exercising provocative generalizability in conveying that "youth are the people involved in this research process. Involving youth is significant for several reasons. First, youth, and especially youth from low-income communities, are seldom engaged as potential knowledge producers." (p. 158)  An exhibition of strong objectivity, problematizing construct validity, and theoretical generalizability in sharing that "we must equip young people with the investigative tools that allow them to collect, analyze, and distribute information about these issues from their unique perspectives as insiders." (p. 158) In closing and summary, the American K-12 public education system is a complex organization that is influenced by, what Picciano and Spring (2013) call, the Education Industrial Complex (EIC). As a complex organization, the EIC is a large bureaucratic network of organizations and 85 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies individuals with powers, interests, beliefs, and values that must be considered for any attempt to analyze classroom level execution of the learning process. It is anticipated that my dissertation thesis will be toward developing a driving principle for reconciling conflicting interests among SBIL advocates and EIC bureaucrats. The contexts of which will aim to diffuse each of the effects of powers-to-mislead at the classroom level as a mutual education philosophy and mission for the proposed collective group whereby political engagement will be included and enhanced for every student. Ballard (2014), drawing from the findings of Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995), advises that adult motivation for political involvement is "compelled by the gratification of contributing to society" (p. 443). For adolescents, on the other hand, there are four motivations, "material gratifications, social gratifications, political gratifications, and desire to influence collective policy" (p. 443). For Ballard (2014), though, there are "at least two theories of motivation worth mentioning as they give rise to more recent and more specific theories of motivation in the domains of politics and political development" (p. 442), the theories of Lewin (1944Lewin ( /1951) and Deci and Ryan (2000). According to Ballard (2014), "Lewin understands motives as goaldirected forces related to one's values" (p. 443) as one approach and "a second approach to understanding motivations in other psychological domains draws on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations" (p. 443). Gratifications through intrinsic motivation speak to an individual's satisfaction of innate needs and desires as opposed to extrinsic motivations and amotivations that motivate either superficially or not at all (Ryan, 1993;Deci & Ryan, 2000).
In terms of intrinsic motivation, Deci and Ryan (2000) speak to the significance of student gratification and the attachment process to environmental stimuli. For them, relatedness or 86 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies relevance to outside stimuli is a principle component for intrinsic motivation as a vehicle toward satisfaction of a desire or need as a sense of gratification. As Deci and Ryan (2000) state Relatedness refers to the desire to feel connected to others-to love and care, and to be loved and cared for (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Bowlby, 1958;Harlow, 1958;Ryan, 1993). Like us, Baumeister and Leary argued that relatedness is a fundamental need, and the idea of relatedness as a need is central to, although not widely discussed in the field of attachment. (p. 231) As a transition into considering public urban secondary students specifically, Ballard (2014) illustrates how the literature considers political engagement of youth in terms of outcomes, as dictated by societal needs in stating those outcomes, rather than the interests and motivations of youth. As they state by identifying that "personal satisfaction, collective efficacy, and contributing to shared national values" (p. 443) are used as an extrinsic motivation for political engagement, but is also a form of amotivation for students. For Deci and Ryan (2000), extrinsic motivation is not optimal because even "fully internalized extrinsic motivation does not typically become intrinsic motivation. [Fully internalized extrinsic motivation] remains extrinsic motivation because, even though fully volitional, it is instrumental rather than being what Csikszentmihalyi (1975) referred to as autotelic" (p. 237), "(of an activity or creative work) having a purpose in and not apart from itself" (http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/autotelic). Said another way, fully internalized extrinsic motivation does not satisfy the intrinsic motivational characteristic of relatedness as discussed earlier. Ballard (2014) speaks of the link between the ideal of relatedness in speaking of student needs and attitudes based from the context within which the student is and has been exposed to outside 87 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies stimuli and their effect on student political involvement. There are five contexts, according to Ballard (2014), that effect students' attitude toward feeling as if an opportunity to satisfy needs.
The five contexts are "cultural practices, family values and culture, peer group values and activities, neighborhood composition, and school climate" (p. 441), which are each, in their respective ways, societally influenced in nature but different in influence for each student and how each, individually and collectively, motivate as a "dynamic interaction between values, goals, and experiences" (Ballard, 2014, p. 443) of the student intrinsically. Hill and den Dulk (2013) have found that levels of volunteerism, for example, in and through adolescents is related to intrinsic motivation but most definitively found that schooling type, Public, Protestant, Catholic, Private, or Homeschool, was the most conclusive context for political involvement, through volunteerism, beyond secondary school. But, what does this say as far as what defines political engagement for secondary students given societally influenced contexts, the type of school attended, and the level of intrinsic motivation? Ballard (2014) has found, however that political engagement for adolescents is not limited to the level of volunteerism. "We have seen," Obradović and Masten (2007) states, "that SES (socioeconomic status) is positively correlated with measures of activity involvement and citizenship, but not with volunteering" (p. 17). Zukin, Keeter, Andolina and Jenkins (2006), as provided by Ballard (2014), suggest that the definition must answer the question, how does this meaning gratify the students' needs, respectively, for a sense of "organized voluntary activity focused on problem solving and helping others" (p. 181)?
Moreover, the socioeconomic status of the urban secondary student, in addition to the school type as contexts, must be a distinguishing factor to answer this question. Ballard (2014) advises that "Political development is situated in social contexts and local institutions" (p. 445). Rubin (2007), as conveyed by Ballard (2014), "found that young people 88 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies develop their political identities as reactions to their everyday experiences" (p. 445). Everyday experiences that are influenced by their respective exposure to "political institutions and individuals" (Ballard, 2014, p. 445), that are negative to an extent for a large number of students.
Levinson (2010), for example, found that the context of school is "a particularly important context for political development" (Ballard, 2014, p. 445). Weinstein, Deci, and Ryan (2011) warn that to the extent that an outside stimuli is causing a students' feeling of being forced to integrate that which the entity, institutional or individual conception, is proposing, proportionally the student will resist acceptance as an intrinsically powered ideal to act upon (Weinstein, Deci & Ryan, 2011). In other words, the degree to which an adolescent accepts an ideal presented by either of the five contexts presented by Ballard (2014) earlier depends upon the extent to which the student is able to wrestle with it autonomously and come to accept in accordance with beliefs and values already accepted by the student. Moreover, to the extent that the propose ideal is unjust for the student and the student feels that she or he can do something about it effects the degree to which the student develops a social attitude toward engaging and attempting to find, and act upon, a remedy (Ballard, 2014;Hill & den Dulk, 2013;Obradović & Masten, 2007). As Matsuba, Hart, & Atkins (2007) and others (Cemalcilar, 2009;Penner, 2003), through Ballard (2014), found that the degree to which a student reconciles, "Social attitudes such as a feeling that one belongs to their community, endorsing social responsibility, empathy for others, and feeling political obligation" (p. 441) are principles that students must wrestle with and the extent to which each principle is reconciled determines the degree to which the student is motivated to act upon that which has not been reconciled ideally. Checkoway (2011) and others (Au, Bigelow, and Karp, 2007;Oakes & Rogers, 2006) found that the ideals that are not reconciled with could be challenged in secondary schools by teachers but 89 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies "there are institutional obstacles to their ideals" (Checkoway, 2011, p. 391). Such findings fly directly in the face of school climate being a principle context within which political engagement is nurtured (Ballard, 2014). Barber and Battistoni (1999) and many others (Colby, Beaumont, Erhlich & Corngold, 2010;Ehrlich, 2000;Jacoby & Ehrlich, 1996;Jacoby, 2009) found additionally that secondary schools that serve predominantly minority students don't "emphasize constructions of democracy" (Checkoway, 2011, p.391) thus disallowing an opportunity for secondary minority students and equal opportunity to majority students for gaining competence in the area of politics and thus decreasing the opportunity to engage (Obradović & Matsen, 2007;Weinstein, Deci & Ryan, 2011). As Obradović and Matsen (2007) emphasize, "belonging to a social group provides youth with opportunities to further exercise [political] skills" (p. 4), which has long since been a barrier to students of color, specifically students of low socio-economic status (Youniss & et.al, 2002). Perduring and permeating influence to institutions and individuals that have in-turn produced contexts from which beliefs and values have been influenced students while unequally providing opportunities to engage students of color, specifically.
Ben-Porath (2013) and many other authors (Checkoway, 2013;Cohen & Chaffee, 2013;Curtis, 2012;Jenkins & Carpenter, 2013;McGovern 2013;Tyack, 1974) have found and recorded a historical and sociological negative influence by institutions and individuals to the environmental contexts of students of color, and specifically those students of families and communities who are economically challenged (Naughton, 2013). David Tyack (1974) 1974), there have always been conspiring groups "to keep black children ignorant, to keep them from the advanced knowledge that they needed for their liberation" (p.113). Such advanced knowledge is exemplified in students as citizens being active in the political processes and the resources for which those in power allocates, or not (Apple, 1993;Boggs, 2000;T Crayton, 2013;T Crayton, 2013a;Horowitz, 1969;Jenkins & Carpentier, 2013;Shipps, 2008). Hill and den Dulk (2013) remind us the effects of such negatively influencing contexts when stating that "It is important to note that feeling concern for the welfare of others is not a sufficient explanation of intrinsic motivation. One might have this concern yet fill entirely ill-equipped to act on it" (p. 183), or in a state of political illiteracy. Disallowing a student of color, specifically one who is economically challenged, denies the opportunity to come to feel competent, illequipped, in matters such as the integration of politics, thus continuing this denial of political literacy.
Richard Valencia (2010) illustrates the inequality of deficit thinking that permeates the consciousness and unconsciousness of institutions and the produced contexts among individuals in society. Kimberley Clark (2012) speaks to the irresponsible nature of not teaching and engaging students in politics in a manner that allows the ability for students of color and of economic challenge to wrestle with societal stimuli that conflict with lived experiences. As Clark (2012) presents: How to teach young people about the grave ecological and social crises of our times without crushing their sense of possibility? The author has come to believe that the nature of these crises, together with a widespread weakening of political and democratic culture, makes it irresponsible to teach young people about ''the 91 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies world as it is'' without simultaneously giving them opportunities to develop capacities for collective agency (p. 354).
Consciousness of discriminate inequality, especially in-light of knowledge of states of being for low socio economic students of color, as a correlation to socio-economic status, is important.
This correlation is important because it affects how education is understood, how education is conveyed, and students' roles as citizens are developed with knowledge and hope to change one's circumstances without moving to counter said inequalities is cruel and lacking the fulfillment of the historic purpose of public education (Buckley, 2010;Clarke, 2012;Cohen & Chaffee, 2013;Foote, 2005;Kapitzke & Hay, 2011;Lee, Robinson, & Sebastian, 2012). Cohen and Chaffee (2013) set the stage for becoming and remaining conscious of inequalities in education by finding and conveying that "White students and students from high socioeconomic status backgrounds are more likely to receive political education that builds their political knowledge and skills than non-White students and students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds" (p. 44). This inequality in preparation for citizenship is exacerbated by the findings that politicals is consistently being cut back or removed from public school curricula (Curtis, 2012;Fallace & Fantozzi, 2013). Alexander (2012) speaks to another contemporary context of denial of political literacy through maintained inequalities in finding that the highest concentrations for such illiteracy is among urban school districts with the higher proportion of populations of students of color and low socio-economic populations (Ben-Porath, 2013;Checkoway, 2013;Cohen & Chaffee, 2013;Curtis, 2012;Jenkins & Carpenter, 2013;McGovern 2013). In the school environment and climate, wrestling with the historical, negative and positive, conscious and unconscious, the contextual influences that students are presented in school needs breeds competence by being 92 | P a g e Qualifying Exam Response for Doctoral Candidacy of Troy Crayton in Urban Education Studies allowed to be reconciled with students' lived experiences in an autonomous manner (Weinstein, Deci & Ryan, 2011;Pinar, 2012). Ballard (2014) advises that the probability to engage issues politically beyond secondary school is enhanced as student interests and motivations are reconciled with the students' lived experiences (Weinstein, Deci & Ryan, 2011).

From Student Interests and Motivations to Political Attitudes and Political Knowledge
It is well established in the literature that student's lived and living experiences, establish values and beliefs that link significantly to the learning process (Deci & Ryan, 2000;Dewey, 1990;Dewey, 1991;Erickson-Nepstad, 1997;Paavola, Lipponen & Hakkarainen, 2004); thus revealing a potential route toward eradicating the denial of advanced knowledge or political literacy. Weinstein, Deci, and Ryan (2011) emphasize the importance of recognizing that cultural differences are important to integrating values, beliefs and interests. Weinstein, Deci and Ryan (2011) found and reported that "there is considerable variability in the values and goals held in different cultures, suggesting that some of the avenues to basic need satisfaction may differ widely from culture to culture" (p. 246).
Cooper, Cibulka, and Fusarelli (2008) and many others (Coplan & et.al, 2011;Fazzaro, 2006;Gordon, 1980;Horowitz, 1969;Lukes, 2005;Morriss, 2002;Wedel, 2009) have troubled the overall question as to whether public education systems for urban secondary students can intervene given what the literature is suggesting for increased political literacy, as there are significant sociological challenges and institutional interests to consider. For example, merely establishing and utilizing relevant material to evoke and utilize student interests in the learning endeavor toward political literacy becomes a challenge because of institutional interests outside the school and a lack of consideration of the interests and experiences of the student (Crayton,