Teaching Between the Lines

Buried beneath the formal classes and assignments in college lies a hidden curriculum, a series of unstated but powerful norms, expectations and language of how to operate at universities. Students that don't learn about these academic and social expectations before college face unanticipated barriers. In Teaching Between the Lines, Andrew Maguire shows how youth development organizations (YDOs) prepare students for these unexpected obstacles and support them in dismantling the hidden curriculum's unfair influence. Teaching Between the Lines tells the stories of YDOs across the country and the predominantly low-income students and students of color they support. Readers travel from the weekend classrooms of enrichment programs in Chicago and New York, where students see college academic norms modeled, to family dinners and college admissions workshops in San Diego and Boston. By sharing the perspectives of YDOs and their students, Maguire hopes to shine a light on these programs' transformative impacts on young people and the challenging choices YDOs face as they support students through a broken education system.