Necessary spaces

Nettles examines how learning took place within neighborhood networks across different eras and locations. Drawing on autobiographical recollections, she describes the informal teaching offered by community "coaches" as remembered by African American adults who grew up in the South. Their memories are set in homes, libraries, city streets, schools, churches, businesses, and natural surroundings.

From these accounts, Nettles identifies seven recurring experiences she calls "necessary spaces": connection, exploration, design, empowerment, resistance, renewal, and practice. She links them to present-day ideas about healthy development for Black children. Personal narratives are combined with social science theory, research, and examples of community-based programs that show how neighborhoods pooled people, buildings, and natural resources to support children's school success.

The book argues that community involvement can be built on the work of families, children, residents, school staff, libraries, museums, and others concerned with inequities in education, health, and the quality of the physical environment. Grounded in environmental memory, it presents a view of civic participation and sustainable development at the local level.

The intended readers are education researchers, policymakers, pre-service and in-service teachers, and those who work with young people in neighborhoods. Qualitative researchers will also find an example of a personal scholarly essay that connects individual experience to wider questions of policy and practice. Readers across the United States may recognize their own childhood memories in these pages.