No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Lessons That Last: Former Youth Organizers’ Reflections on What and How They Learned
Abstract
This study examines the learning outcomes and learning environment of a youth organizing program that has been effective in promoting individual as well as social change. Drawing on interviews with 25 former youth organizers from the program, this study explores the lessons that stay with them as they transition to young adulthood and the factors they believe facilitated this lasting learning. Results show that the learning outcomes and the features of the learning environment that the participants identify reflect key tenets of Freirean critical pedagogy. As young adults, the participants indicate that they continue to draw on the critical thinking, introspection, communication, and interpersonal skills they developed as youth organizers, and they highlight the value of relevant content, an open atmosphere for discussion and debate, and peer education in promoting such durable learning. The relevance of critical pedagogy to the learning sciences is discussed.
... Several studies report on what youth learn as a result of participating in activism. These learning outcomes include both civic knowledge, such as a greater understanding of how change happens and how various governmental agencies work, and civic skills, including communication skills [27][28][29], time management and planning skills [30], and leadership skills [31][32][33][34]. In addition, youth describe honing skills of critical social analysis through the political education they experience in activist spaces [27,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. ...
... These learning outcomes include both civic knowledge, such as a greater understanding of how change happens and how various governmental agencies work, and civic skills, including communication skills [27][28][29], time management and planning skills [30], and leadership skills [31][32][33][34]. In addition, youth describe honing skills of critical social analysis through the political education they experience in activist spaces [27,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Activism may also impact racial identity development among racially marginalized adolescents, which may shape adolescents' social analysis and responses to discrimination [43]. ...
Engagement in youth activism has been linked to both positive and negative wellbeing. Drawing on survey results from a sample of 636 youth participants in the ACLU Advocacy Institute, this study finds that although youth generally report greater benefits from their activism than costs, the costs are significantly related to worse mental health, physical health, and flourishing, while benefits are positively associated with flourishing only. A sense of belonging to an activist community, however, emerges as a significant protective factor for mental health, physical health, and flourishing. Focus group respondents explain how peer support and a sense of belonging act as salves to burnout, the most common cost that youth activists in this sample report experiencing. They also identify three main sources of burnout: backlash in response to their efforts; pressure to be the savior generation; and the slow progress of change. This study advances understanding of the complex relationship between youth activism and wellbeing and raises implications for youth activists and those who support them.
... about issues of power, privilege, and oppression, engage in peer to peer organizing, and appropriate policy documents to accomplish political goals (Booker, 2017;Conner, 2014;Curnow et al., 2019). This research informs the design of social change efforts, ranging from local campaigns for quality schools to global climate justice networks (Curnow, 2014;Mendoza et al., 2018). ...
... Studies have documented a variety of activities that enable young activists to deepen their analysis of complex sociopolitical issues, including participatory action research exploring educational inequality (Cammarota, 2007), peer-led dialogs (Conner, 2014), or classroom-like workshops about the school-to-prison pipeline (Kirshner, 2015). Accelerated leadership refers to how newcomers rapidly move from peripheral to central roles. ...
Background
Research about learning in youth activism has generated important findings about how young people learn to critique inequality and exercise collective agency. This emerging line of research, however, has been limited by its geographic focus in North America, a tendency to assume single bounded groups as sites of learning, and limited engagement with theories of power and social change.
Methods
We draw on data from a three-year ethnography of a South African youth-led organizing group, Equal Education (EE), which successfully pressured the national government to adopt an education bill that it had previously resisted. Our inquiry is guided by a broad question: how did EE members learn to build power in this contentious sociopolitical context?
Findings
Facilitation and apprenticeship by more experienced near peers in EE supported young people’s understanding of inequality and their participation in nonviolent political activism. When stepping into a contentious public sphere, young people learned how to build political relationships with trade unions and community elders in order to claim power and influence political change.
Contribution
This study adds to literature on learning in youth activism by showing how young people learn how to navigate contentious politics and exercise political power through multigenerational alliances.
... The study was retrospective and exploratory in nature, as the data were collected from participants after the end of group membership (Street & Ward, 2010); and we wanted to understand the Bhow^and the Bwhat^of students' experiences (Ogawa, Sandholtz, Martinez-Flores, & Scribner, 2003;Yin, 2012). We chose to interview alumni rather than current group members in order to understand the long-term influence and lasting learning arising from participation (Conner, 2014). Conner (2014) defined lasting learning as Bthe skills, strategies, values, and understandings that are learned at one point in time and not only retained but also applied years later^(p. ...
... We chose to interview alumni rather than current group members in order to understand the long-term influence and lasting learning arising from participation (Conner, 2014). Conner (2014) defined lasting learning as Bthe skills, strategies, values, and understandings that are learned at one point in time and not only retained but also applied years later^(p. 455). ...
Interactional diversity, defined as informal engagement with diverse peers that occurs outside of the classroom, is one way for colleges and universities to facilitate connections between and among students (Bowman, 2010). Little is known, however, about the enduring effects of interactional diversity, particularly as it relates to disability. LEAD, an institutional, undergraduate disability awareness group, provides context for the exploration of interactional diversity and disability. The purpose of this retrospective, qualitative study was to understand what 17 LEAD alumni believed they learned as a result of their interactions with peers with disabilities. The results of this research highlight the potential of collegiate disability awareness groups and their importance as a possibility for promoting interactional diversity.
... A third approach to civic education, youth-led organizing or youth participatory action research, has routinely integrated youth voice into civic inquiry and action with the goal of fostering critical consciousness (Conner, 2014;Garcia, Mirra, Morrell, Martinez, & Scorza, 2015;Kirshner, 2015). Integrating Freireian critical pedagogy into civic education, educators in this tradition have encouraged youth to engage in introspection, using the self as text in collaboration and communication with peers (Conner, 2014), facilitating the connection of the private to the public. ...
... A third approach to civic education, youth-led organizing or youth participatory action research, has routinely integrated youth voice into civic inquiry and action with the goal of fostering critical consciousness (Conner, 2014;Garcia, Mirra, Morrell, Martinez, & Scorza, 2015;Kirshner, 2015). Integrating Freireian critical pedagogy into civic education, educators in this tradition have encouraged youth to engage in introspection, using the self as text in collaboration and communication with peers (Conner, 2014), facilitating the connection of the private to the public. Within this approach, youth develop collective public voice, working with peers to understand their shared concerns and to articulate those concerns to powerbrokers. ...
Drawing on a mixed methods study of a district-wide initiative to integrate civic learning practices into the high school humanities curriculum in an urban school district in Northern California, this article examines the relationship between face-to-face versus online civic learning opportunities and students’ motivation for engaging in practices related to online public voice, the affordances of online civic learning opportunities for the expression of public voice, and the features of online civic learning opportunities that optimize the expression of public voice. The findings provide insight as to whether and under what conditions digitally mediated civic learning opportunities promote the expression of public voice.
... For example, JLS papers in recent years have included studies of racialized and gendered identities in disciplinary learning processes, particularly for marginalized groups (e.g., Archer et al., 2016;DiSalvo, Guzdial, Bruckman, & McKlin, 2014;Langer-Osuna, 2015;Raes, Schellens, & De Wever, 2014). Other articles have focused on learning through participation in social change movements or organizations (e.g., Conner, 2014;Jurow & Shea, 2015), and learning about social inequality and oppression (e.g., Conner, 2014;Esmonde, 2014 These developments point to the strength of these strands of scholarship in the field, and the desire for developing a range of approaches to social justice research within the learning sciences. ...
... For example, JLS papers in recent years have included studies of racialized and gendered identities in disciplinary learning processes, particularly for marginalized groups (e.g., Archer et al., 2016;DiSalvo, Guzdial, Bruckman, & McKlin, 2014;Langer-Osuna, 2015;Raes, Schellens, & De Wever, 2014). Other articles have focused on learning through participation in social change movements or organizations (e.g., Conner, 2014;Jurow & Shea, 2015), and learning about social inequality and oppression (e.g., Conner, 2014;Esmonde, 2014 These developments point to the strength of these strands of scholarship in the field, and the desire for developing a range of approaches to social justice research within the learning sciences. ...
... Six, however, qualified or combined these gender labels with identities such as nonbinary, fluid, acknowledgment of gender as a social construct, and/or sexual identity markers like queer/gay. The interview protocol was designed based in part on previous studies of youth organizers transitioning into young adulthood (Boston Youth Justice Research Project, 2015;Conner, 2011, Conner, 2014. Open-ended questions sought life narratives, with follow-up questions focused on developmental transitions and turning points (Abbott, 1997;McAdam, 1990;McLaughlin, 2018). ...
Youth organizing can generate tangible improvements in community conditions and institutions while simultaneously promoting positive development among participants and contributing to broader movements for social change. Yet, organizing initiatives must navigate an array of challenges as they seek to continuously engage new leaders to build on the accomplishments of their predecessors who are aging out of youth organizing. This study examines the leadership development ecosystem enabling an exemplary youth organizing initiative to persist, expand, and enhance its impact over 15 years. Analyses of interviews with 19 adolescent and young adult participants reveal that engagement often begins before high school and continues long afterward, with more established older leaders playing a variety of roles to engage younger participants and support their development as leaders. Findings suggest practical strategies that can enhance the sustainability of these initiatives, which are key to the development and exercise of youth power for social justice.
... More recently, in the learning sciences, scholars have called for more attention to the critical role that social experiences and identities play in learning and engagement in formal and informal education. For example, a recent review article by the outgoing editors of The Journal of the Learning Sciences (Radinsky and Tabak, 2017) cited the following areas as having received increased attention: "social justice as a context of learning," gendered and racialized experiences and identities (Langer-Osuna, 2015), socioeconomic inequities (Conner, 2014;Esmonde, 2014) and learning through social justice movements (Jurow and Shea, 2015). Moreover, critical scholarship on racialized and gendered design practices in industry and academia has propelled greater attention to the design of technologies for widespread meaning making and information seeking Noble, 2018;Noble and Tynes, 2016;Richard and Gray, 2018) and youth and adult content creation (Richard, 2017;Richard and Kafai, 2016). ...
... However, youth rarely mentioned it as having a direct role in their process of learning from challenges. Research including the instructors' perspective would help with obtaining a more complete picture of peer processes since youth program participants may sometimes be unaware of leaders' role in facilitating their experiences (Conner, 2014). This deserves further study. ...
Introduction
Many youth development programs view adolescents’ process of grappling with challenges as a major driver of social-emotional learning. Our goal was to understand these processes as experienced and enacted by youth. We focused on the program Outward Bound in the United States because its students experience significant physical and social challenges and it has well-developed staff practices for facilitating learning from challenges.
Methods
Group interviews were conducted with 32 youth (ages 14–18; 50% female), immediately following their completion of Outward Bound expedition courses. Students were asked to provide a detailed narrative account of an episode on course in which they learned from challenges. Grounded theory analyses identified three processes that contributed to learning.
Results
First, students, described developing skills for persistence through successfully enduring distress and a process of experimenting with new mindsets that helped them rise above their anxiety and distress. Second, we found that peers provided skillful and responsive on-the-spot support that motivated youth, helped them succeed, and scaffolded students’ learning strategies for dealing with physical, social, and emotional challenges. Third, we found that this peer support and scaffolding was animated by a culture of compassion and mutual commitment, which was cultivated by staff and embraced by youth.
Conclusions
These findings from Outward Bound illuminate a learning model that may be useful to other youth programs. This model combines intense challenges with attuned peer support for adolescents’ active processes of addressing and learning from challenges. We highlight program structures and staff practices that support these processes.
... In this paper, we argue that the rise of nationalism across the globe demands more explicit attention to how power imbues the purposes, mechanisms, and consequences of learning, as well as our approaches to the design, study, and theorization of learning environments. In recent years, scholars in our subfield of the learning sciences have been engaging issues of culture, identity, race, and power more visibly in their work (e.g., Archer et al., 2016;Conner, 2014;Esmonde, 2014;Jurow & Shea, 2015;Nasir, Snyder, Shah, & Ross, 2013). We view this integration of diverse theories and methodologies as an important step toward the development of more robust and relevant approaches to studying and designing for learning, and we strive to see this movement extended. ...
... Since its founding in 1995, PSU has achieved many notable successes, including significant policy wins (Conner, Zaino, & Scarola, 2013) and a track record of positive academic outcomes for its participants (Conner, 2014;Rosen, 2019). Furthermore, PSU has established a reputation as a strong leader within both the educational activist community in Philadelphia and the youth organizing community nationally (Christens, 2019). ...
In the context of a neoliberal policy landscape, urban high school students who are constructed by policymakers as either dependents or deviants have little to no agency in the larger policy debates that shape what kinds of educational opportunities and choices are available to them. In this article, we explore how the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU), a youth organizing group, engaged in the debate around educational change and attempted to shift public opinion and understanding. Specifically, we examine how PSU derived and deployed power in a contest with school policymakers about educational reform. Understanding this exercise of power as a means of advancing youth voice and developing equitable systems of public accountability for all stakeholders can help us better appreciate the role youth can play in negotiating the terms of the debate over how best to improve the schools serving our nation's most vulnerable students.
... As a result, much of the scholarship on adolescents' developing awareness of structural racism focuses on the influence of school-based and out-of-school programming. For example, several scholars have reported on the role of out-of-school youth organizing groups in fostering adolescents' understanding of structural forms of oppression, including racism (Christens & Dolan, 2011;Conner, 2014;Kirshner, 2009;Larson & Hansen, 2005;Mediratta, Shah, & McAlister, 2009). Other studies focused on the role of schools and school-based programming in fostering adolescents' understandings of structural racism are described below. ...
Interpersonal and structural forms of racism contribute to a system of economic stratification in the United States in which children of color are disproportionately likely to be born into poverty and to remain poor as adults. However, only a small body of research has focused on Black and Latinx adolescents' developing beliefs about the causes of poverty or the relationship between such beliefs and their awareness of racism. The present study sought to contribute to this scholarship with a longitudinal investigation involving Black and Latinx adolescents (n = 457) attending urban secondary schools in 5 northeastern cities. Specifically, we investigated (a) these adolescents' change over time in their beliefs about the causes of poverty; (b) the relationship between their developing beliefs about the causes of poverty and changes in their awareness of racism; and (c) the role of a progressive schooling experience in influencing the adolescents' beliefs about the causes of poverty. Multivariate latent growth modeling revealed that participants demonstrated significant positive change over time in their conception of poverty as caused by structural factors as well as a significant relationship at each time point between adolescents' beliefs about the causes of poverty and awareness of interpersonal racism. However, we found that attending a secondary school featuring a progressive schooling model did not significantly predict adolescents' change in beliefs about the structural causes of poverty. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... While both kinds of organizing involve participants in political action around issues of concern, youth organizing groups are learning sites which support identity development, build leadership skills, and engage youth in critical social analysis (Conner, 2011;Lewis-Charp et al., 2003;Rogers et al., 2012). Many youth organizing groups take a Freirian (1970) approach to programming, seeking to recognize and challenge societal oppression (Conner, 2014;Jennings, Parra-Medina, Hilfinger-Messias, & McLoughlin, 2006). In doing so, youth organizing groups practice adult-youth power sharing and provide emotional support alongside intellectual challenge (Dibennedetto, 1991;Larson & Angus, 2010). ...
In addition to social action campaigns, some youth organizing groups provide formative learning experiences which engage youth in relevant sociopolitical issues through critical approaches. These groups support sociopolitical development (SPD), a self and socially‐oriented process which influences youth personally, politically, and professionally into adulthood. This study explored how youth organizing experiences influenced SPD in the professional domain, applying an empowerment lens. Phenomenologically‐based interviews were conducted with former sexual health education youth organizers and adult program staff. Former youth participants chose socially‐oriented career paths influenced by the group's empowering approach to sexual health education and advocacy. They related meaningful sociopolitical learning experiences (e.g., interpersonal, educational, and civic engagement) to empowerment outcomes (e.g., political efficacy, critical awareness, and participatory behaviors) which informed career decisions. Professionally, participants sought to empower others as the group empowered them, drawing upon youth organizing social and human capital as they worked toward this aim. Combining sociopolitical and empowerment theorizing, the study adds to what is known about how purposefully designed youth organizing experiences support long‐term development outcomes for individuals. Viewed as socially‐oriented career development sites, youth organizing groups build capacity for social change beyond the groups themselves. Implications for youth organizing scholars and practitioners are provided.
... With respect to inequality more broadly, 'once students understand that the world is more complex and social problems are more widespread than they thought, service-learning becomes a vehicle for acting on their beliefs and making a difference' (Cipolle 2010, 42). Theoretically, Cipolle's conception of 'change agent' resonates with the work of Paolo Friere, whose ideas relating to education and social change have shaped the work of myriad educators interested in social justice (Conner 2014). As Freire (2016) reflected, 'revolution is achieved with neither verbalism nor activism, but rather with praxis, that is, with reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed' (126). ...
While social justice is a well-recognized concept, it is less frequently examined through the lens of disability. In order to address existing gaps within social justice education, this qualitative case study investigates how participation in a semester-long Introduction to Disability Studies (IDS) course affected students’ orientation toward disability justice, or the conception of disability as an issue of social justice. The framework underpinning this research merges Cipolle’s theory of critical consciousness development with disability-based constructs. Findings reveal that participation in IDS allowed participants to develop an awareness of their ability privilege, understand the experiences of peers with disabilities, increase their social awareness of disability, and consider their work as disability allies. This article concludes with recommendations for social justice educators who are interested in applying disability justice practices.
... Youth also have been found to develop new friendships through their participation, and to gain interpersonal skills, including learning to listen and work collaboratively with others (Conner, 2014;Howe et al., 2011). Youth involvement in youth-adult partnerships also has been connected to young people's beliefs that they are able to express their thoughts and feelings to others, and to their level of empathy (Akiva et al., 2014). ...
Youth-adult partnerships in child and youth services engage the participants in collaborative, shared decision making, in areas such as governance, program planning and implementation, and advocacy. However, these partnerships often occur in isolation, and fail to engage in potentially useful, larger conversations about theory and research. Therefore, in an effort to provide common grounds for understanding and engaging in such partnerships, we offer an overview of current literature. We discuss definitions and discourses, describe models of youth-adult partnerships, and briefly consider current research on potential benefits for youth, adults, organizations, and communities. We also present challenges and promising practices for adult allies engaged in youth-adult partnerships.
Objective
Adolescents’ unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections have a significant impact on the individuals themselves and on society. Peer leaders are students trained to become role models and leaders who promote positive behaviour change in their schools and community. A few studies have examined the effects of taking the role of peer leaders on the teenagers themselves including the long-term benefits. The aim of this study was to enhance understanding of the peer leader experience as it relates to peer leaders themselves and to explore the lasting impact of their experience.
Design
The study used an exploratory qualitative design.
Setting
Included peer leaders were employed by a non-profit organisation working with Southeastern Massachusetts communities with a high teenage pregnancy rate.
Methods
Qualitative research included individual semi-structured interviews with 18 past and present peer leaders. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were coded and analysed for common themes.
Results
Being a peer leader was a life-changing experience. The benefits varied from learning reproductive health content to developing life skills, friendships and long-lasting career-related skills. Being a member of a peer leader group provided an instant support group and a new circle of friends as well as a purpose. It also removed peer leaders from health risk behaviours. Their experience assisting others in need was rewarding as well as being a confidence builder. Through community service, the peer leaders changed their perceptions about and towards the needs of the people residing in their community.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated the value of incorporating peer leaders in sexual and reproductive health programmes. The peer leader programme examined was not only instrumental in providing education in sexual health but it also created change in the lives of the peer leaders themselves, their families and communities.
This article explores the sociopolitical development (SPD) of youth activists involved in climate justice and gun violence prevention movements. Interviews with 52 youth members of five different youth-led activist organizations and follow-up surveys supplied the data. We found that involvement in youth-led activist organizations facilitates a particular kind of SPD we term "intersectional politicization." Intersectional politicization involves critical intersectional reflection paired with critical intersectional action. Critical intersectional reflection entails analysis of how marginalized populations are impacted by particular social problems and how various social issues and forces of oppression interconnect. Critical intersectional action consists of participating actively in multiple movements or activist organizations to address distinct issues simultaneously. Intersectional politicization is fostered through organizational trainings and programming, collaborative work with other organizations, dialog with fellow activists, and online activist content. Intersectional politicization raises new considerations for research on critical consciousness and youth SPD.
For computer science to be for all students, coding needs to be integrated within existing curricula for authentic and interdisciplinary computer science learning. The present study examined the use of transformative pedagogy of teaching coding through argumentation, specifically focusing on how teachers conceptualized teaching coding through argumentation. Fourteen elementary teachers learned coding and argumentation in a semester-long professional learning course. Participating teachers’ coding knowledge, views of coding, and beliefs about using argumentation in teaching coding were examined. A concurrent triangulation mixed methods design was used. Quantitative data included coding exams and surveys and qualitative data included interviews and course artifacts. Study findings include: (a) there were sustained groups with more complete coding knowledge and less complete coding knowledge throughout the semester, (b) coding was often viewed as a means to create another modality for other subject teaching with no difficulty of integration, (c) a few teachers articulated their beliefs about using argumentation in teaching coding with concrete relational connection to coding, and (d) teachers who consistently exhibited more complete coding knowledge conceptualized teaching coding with argumentation in more concrete ways.
Through youth organizing initiatives, young people conduct research into social issues and build power to address these issues. This study examines the developmental interplay between the cognitive components of two of the most influential civic developmental constructs—critical consciousness and psychological empowerment—through analysis of interviews with 19 current and former participants in a youth organizing initiative in San Bernardino, CA, all of whom identify as Latinx. Most participants clearly articulated viewpoints consonant with the cognitive components of critical consciousness and psychological empowerment, but these were much more pronounced among those who had been involved for longer periods of time. Findings provide insights into distinctions and crosscurrents between critical reflection and cognitive empowerment, and into the settings and processes leading to their development. Cycles of action and reflection can support the simultaneous development of critical reflection and cognitive empowerment.
Background
Using a conceptualization of learning as the act of organizing possible futures, I examine prefigurative relationship-building processes. Youth organizing research has shown that relational and political development are outcomes of participation, but offers limited examples of how these developments co-occur in discourse.
Methods
I research alongside Chroma, an LGBTQ+-themed community-based youth group whose members offer training to teachers and others about working with LGBTQ+ youth. Drawing on critical ethnography and discourse analysis, I engage the question: What was the character of the social relations Chroma youth organized together as they worked to advance their educational advocacy projects?
Findings
I develop a notion of educational intimacy, which describes relationships that allow for inclusive and productive engagement in advocacy and learning while also mirroring desired future social configurations. I ground my development of educational intimacy in audio data from Chroma meetings, workdays, and trainings.
Contribution
I situate educational intimacy in queer theoretic perspectives and existing learning sciences research. I conclude with some open questions about educational intimacy and learning in collective action projects. Educational intimacy offers a way of talking about how relational and political developments co-occur as learning processes in social movement spaces.
What responsibilities do researchers of learning have in the wake of Trump's election and the proliferation of far-right, populist nationalism across the globe? In this essay, we seek to prompt and engage a dialogue about the political role and responsibilities of our field at this historical moment. First, we situate the social hierarchies that were most pronounced during this election within a longer history of U.S. policies and practices. We then examine the ostensible division between research on learning and the political contexts and consequences of learning. We argue for the need to address this false chasm and build on scholarship that has demonstrated the inextricable links among learning, power, and politics. We conclude by exploring how research on learning might more meaningfully engage with the political dimensions of learning through teaching, engaged research, publishing, professional forums, and service.
As the gulfs between low-income and more affluent youth widen, researchers and practitioners continue to search for effective means of closing gaps in academic achievement, digital participation, and civic engagement. This article examines how youth organizing offers a bridge across these divides. We consider how one youth organizing group, The Philadelphia Student Union, integrated new media into its core functions and how the student members experience these tools. Drawing on extant research, we argue that when situated within an organizing framework, new media tools can help to promote the digital literacy, academic achievement, and civic engagement of low-income youth of color, who have otherwise limited opportunities to contribute to the civic life of their communities.
Community organizing groups that have built coalitions for local change over the past few decades are now involving young people as leaders in efforts to improve quality of life. The current study explores a particularly effective youth organizing initiative through review of organizational documents and collection and analysis of qualitative data. The study finds that this model for youth organizing is effective at producing impacts at multiple levels because it weaves together youth development, community development, and social change into a unified organizing cycle. The initiative encourages participants by promoting psychological empowerment, leadership development, and sociopolitical development. Simultaneously, youth organizing produces community-level impacts, including new program implementation, policy change, and institution building. Social changes include intergenerational and multicultural collaboration in the exercise of power. This interplay between youth development, community development, and social change is discussed in relation to the growing field of youth organizing and other efforts to engage youth in civil society.
Community-based youth organizations represent potentially powerful settings for activism among marginalized urban youth. This article uses quantitative and qualitative data collected in one such organization to examine the link between youth—adult relationships and youth activism. Survey data point to adults as contributing to youth's activist development and reveal pathways that lead to this outcome. Interview and observation data clarify youth's perceptions of adult support, highlight the complexity of building egalitarian relationships, and situate youth—adult interactions within broader public action. Analyses direct attention to transformations among youth and convey the challenges inherent in breaking out of conventional patterns of youth—adult interaction.
Recent criticisms of the goal of “science for all” with regard to minority students have alluded to the onerous culture of school science characterized by white, middle-class values that eschew personal everyday science experiences and nontraditional funds of knowledge, in addition to alienating science instruction. Using critically-oriented, sociocultural perspectives, this article explores the sixth grade classroom of a male, white, science teacher in an urban school that serves only minority students. Using Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain's (2001) notion of figured worlds, we look at what learning science looks like in Mr. M's classroom and how he provides the structural support to increase student participation by creating different figured worlds of sixth grade science. In these different figured worlds, we discuss the pedagogical strategies Mr. M uses to purposefully recruit nontraditional funds of knowledge of racial minority and low-income students, thereby positioning them with more authority for participation. Through this case study of Mr. M and the racial minority and low-income students he teaches, we discuss the role science teachers play in urban school science education and the agency and achievement racial minority and low-income students are capable of with appropriate support.
This article investigates the development of agency in science among low-income urban youth aged 10 to 14 as they participated in a voluntary year-round program on green energy technologies conducted at a local community club in a midwestern city. Focusing on how youth engaged a summer unit on understanding and modeling the relationship between energy use and the health of the urban environment, we use ethnographic data to discuss how the youth asserted themselves as community science experts in ways that took up and broke down the contradictory roles of being a producer and a critic of science/education. Our findings suggest that youth actively appropriate project activities and tools in order to challenge the types of roles and student voice traditionally available to students in the classroom.
Linking research to a compelling societal interest can build financial commitments to research, bring increased attention to findings, and grow support for scaling up impacts. Among many compelling societal interests that learning scientists can cite—such as increasing the quality of life, preparing citizens to make decisions in a complex world, and enhancing social cohesion among a diverse population—economic competitiveness is a compelling societal interest that resonates broadly among stakeholders. Indeed, it is now somewhat common to introduce learning sciences research, as in the Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences and the U.S. National Education Technology Plan, by citing economic rationales. Despite the utility of evoking a potential link between learning research and economic competitiveness in the minds of broader audiences, learning scientists engage in rather little critical discussion of whether such links are meaningful and empirically sound within their own programs of research. This article seeks both to problematize conventional wisdom about links between learning sciences research and economic growth and to suggest possible directions for future research aimed at discovering stronger links. Because the issues are complex, we do not reach firm conclusions. Rather, this article seeks to spark a discussion within the field.
Human systems, including institutional systems and informal social networks, are a major arena of modern life. We argue that distinct forms of pragmatic reasoning or ’strategic thinking‘ are required to exercise agency withinsuch systems. This article explores the development of strategic thinking in a youth activism program in which young people worked for social change. These youth came to understand different human systems, the school board, teachers, and students, and they learned to employ three strategic modes of reasoning: seeking strategic information, framing communications to the audience, and sequential contingency thinking. Although youth described themselves as agents of their development, adults played important roles in supporting their experience of a cycle of experiential learning. These findings suggest how the new cognitive potentials of adolescence allow youth to develop modes of reasoning that expand their capacity to exercise agency over a longer arc of time and across a wider interpersonal space.
In this article, we take a critical look at the growing interest in U.S. political participation as it exists in the youth civic engagement literature. Our critique draws from principles of liberation and developmental psychology, and from the incisive writings of experts in youth organizing. Youth Organizing evolved from the Positive Youth Development (PYD) and Community Youth Development (CYD) perspectives but its addition of social justice activism is consistent with liberation psychology. The essence of our critique is this: Although there is certainly value in the current civic engagement literature, much of it focuses on the maintenance of social and political institutions rather than on action for social justice. To promote a better balance, and one more relevant to the lives of youth of color and other marginalized young people, we offer a framework for empirical research on youth sociopolitical development. The focus is on the relationship between social analysis (including critical consciousness) and societal involvement that includes the full range of service and political work. Because youth is the focus, we also include a brief discussion of a distinctive challenge that adults face in doing just work with young people—namely, adultism. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 35: 779–792, 2007.
In this manuscript we examine how two students develop and express agency in and through high school physics. We tell the
stories of two youth from a low-income, urban community to elucidate the important components of critical science agency in
a physics context, and to situate a set of claims about how youth develop and express this concept. This research is part
of a larger multiyear study of democratic practice in middle- and high-school science. We present three claims: (a) that critical
science agency is intimately related to the leveraging and development of identity, (b) that critical science agency involves
the strategic deployment of resources , and (c) that developing critical science agency is an iterative and generative process.
Two university researchers have co-written this paper with the two students whose experiences serve as the cases under investigation,
to provide both an “emic” perspective and student-focused voices that complement and challenge the researchers’ voices.
Although the work of learning scientists and instructional designers has brought about countless curricula, designs, and theoretical claims, the community has been less active in communicating the explicit and implicit critical social agendas that result (or could result) from their work. It is our belief that the community of learning scientists is well positioned to build transformative models of what could be, to develop learning and teaching interventions that have impact, and to advance theory that will prove valuable to others. This potential, we argue, would be significantly heightened if we as a community embrace the critical agendas that are central to so many discussions in anthropology, philosophy, or even curriculum development more generally. Instead of simply building an artifact to help individuals accomplish a particular task, or to meet a specific standard, the focus of critical design work is to develop sociotechnical structures that facilitate individuals in critiquing and improving themselves and the societies in which they function, and then we use our understanding of participation with these structures to advance theory. As an example of critical design work, we describe the Quest Atlantis project and the methodology used in its creation.
Shor and Freire discuss here the dialogical method of liberatory education. Dialogue is not a mere technique to achieve some cognitive results; dialogue is a means to transform social relations in the classroom, and to raise awareness about relations in society at large. Dialogue is a way to recreate knowledge as well as the way we learn. It is a mutual learning process where the teacher poses critical problems for inquiry. Dialogue rejects narrative lecturing where teacher talk silences and alienates students. In a problem-posing participatory format, the teacher and students transform learning into a collaborative process to illuminate and act on reality. This process is situated in the thought, language, aspirations, and conditions of the students. It is also shaped by the subject matter and training of the teacher, who is simultaneously a classroom researcher, a politician, and an artist.
The interdisciplinary field of the learning sciences encompasses educational psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and anthropology, among other disciplines. The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, first published in 2006, is the definitive introduction to this innovative approach to teaching, learning, and educational technology. In this dramatically revised second edition, leading scholars incorporate the latest research to provide practical advice on a wide range of issues. The authors address the best ways to write textbooks, design educational software, prepare effective teachers, organize classrooms, and use the Internet to enhance student learning. They illustrate the importance of creating productive learning environments both inside and outside school, including after school clubs, libraries, and museums. Accessible and engaging, the Handbook has proven to be an essential resource for graduate students, researchers, teachers, administrators, consultants, software designers, and policy makers on a global scale.
Youth-led organizing, a burgeoning movement that empowers young people while simultaneously enabling them to make substantive contributions to their communities, is increasingly receiving attention from scholars, activists, and the media. This book studies this dynamic field. It takes an important step toward bridging the gap between academic knowledge and community practice in this growing area. The book's social justice-rooted perspective on the field's conceptual and practical foundations is an effective basis for analyzing youth-led community organizing, but it also offers glimpses of successful groups in action and helpful insight into how fledgling organizations can become stronger. These groups and their young participants represent the politics and activism of the future, and the book guides to their key aspects and recent developments.
Over the last two decades, youth organizing has emerged as an important strategy for social change, particularly within education policy; however, the ability of youth to influence policy is limited by the tendency of adults in positions of power to find reasons to distrust, discredit, or otherwise ignore them. This paper draws on interviews with 31 adult civic leaders in one American city to discern their views on a particular youth organizing group, Philadelphia Student Union (PSU), and to uncover the grounds on which they either dismiss or defend its work. Findings show that the tendency to doubt or deny the voices of youth organizers is not concentrated within any one institutional setting; that the most common reason for doubting or distrusting SFE's work is the belief that adult organizers manipulate the youth members; and that every reason adults offer to dismiss the youth organizers can be matched by a different reason other adults give to defend them, their work, and their place in the policy sphere. Implications for youth organizing groups, their adult allies, policy-makers, and the field are discussed.
Although research demonstrating the effectiveness of youth organizing for educational reform has expanded rapidly in the last two decades, the field remains substantially undertheorized. This article outlines a theoretical framework, based on 30 interviews with leading figures in education reform, that illuminates how a youth organizing group has achieved significant influence in the Philadelphia School District. The framework identifies three broad dimensions of effective youth organizing work and highlights 11 sets of paired strategies that have been useful in building the group''s power and efficacy. The framework showcases the complexity and artistry of sustained, successful youth organizing.
As the gulfs between low-income and more affluent youth widen, researchers and practitioners continue to search for effective means of closing gaps in academic achievement, digital participation, and civic engagement. This article examines how youth organizing offers a bridge across these divides. We consider how one youth organizing group, The Philadelphia Student Union, integrated new media into its core functions and how the student members experience these tools. Drawing on extant research, we argue that when situated within an organizing framework, new media tools can help to promote the digital literacy, academic achievement, and civic engagement of low-income youth of color, who have otherwise limited opportunities to contribute to the civic life of their communities.
Nationally, youth organizing groups have been gaining traction in their push for education reform; however, little research has considered how policymakers view their efforts. This study examines how 30 civic leaders in one under-resourced urban school district perceive the influence of a youth organizing group on educational policy decision making over a 15 year period. Results indicate that the group is widely recognized for having accomplished significant policy changes at school and district levels, including influencing the policy process in four key ways: insisting on accountability, elevating the role of student voice, shaping the agenda, and asserting themselves as powerful political actors.
JEAN RUDDUCK & JULIA FLUTTER, 2004 London: Continuum 189 pp., ISBN 0 8264 6531 5 (pb), 08264 6530 7 )hb)
Multiracial youth activism groups, based in working class and poor neighborhoods, seek to improve social conditions by organizing grassroots campaigns. Campaigns such as these, which require sophisticated planning, organizing, and advocacy skills, are noteworthy not just for their political impact, but also because of the insights they provide about learning environments outside of school. In this study I adopted Rogoff's (2003) theory of guided participation as a lens through which to analyze adult approaches to working with youth and how these approaches relate to opportunities for youth to participate in social action. Drawing on 2 years of ethnographic fieldwork in 3 multiracial activism groups, I found that adults managed tensions between youth empowerment principles and the task demands of campaigns in 3 distinct ways: facilitation, apprenticeship, and joint work. This analysis is relevant to educators who wish to support youth participation in mature social practices and researchers interested in elective learning environments.
Estudio sobre el desarrollo de los seres humanos, visto como procesos culturales que ocurren a través de la participación del sujeto, junto a otros miembros de su comunidad, en la construcción y reconstrucción de prácticas culturales que han sido heredadas de generaciones anteriores. Temas clásicos del desarrollo humano como la crianza, la interdependencia y la autonomía, las transiciones a lo largo del ciclo vital, el desarrollo cognoscitivo, el aprendizaje, los roles de género o las relaciones sociales son examinados desde una perspectiva cultural, que reúne ideas de la psicología evolutiva, la antropología, la educación y la historia.
This article provides an intensive case study of a change process in which members of a youth program developed relationships with and altered attitudes and behavior toward diverse groups, including those defined by ethnicity, social class, religion, and sexual orientation. Latino and African American members of a community youth activism program were interviewed over a 4-month period, and supplementary data were obtained from participant observations and from interviews with the lead organizer. Qualitative analyses revealed a process in which youth were active agents of self-change. Their reports suggest three stages of change: developing relationships across groups, learning and discovery, and coming to act with awareness in relation to difference. The program facilitated this change not only by providing Allport's contact conditions and affording youth personalized experiences but also by providing them with critical understanding of the interpersonal and systemic processes that create marginalization and injustice.
Recent studies have documented the potential of youth activism for influencing political change toward socially just ends. This special issue builds on such research by focusing on youth activism as a context for learning and development. What kinds of learning opportunities are generated through working on social action campaigns? How do adults support youth's participation in ways that foster youth engagement and leadership? In addition to previewing the articles in this issue, this introduction proposes and describes four distinctive qualities of learning environments in youth activism groups: collective problem solving, youth—adult interaction, exploration of alternative frames for identity, and bridges to academic and civic institutions. It concludes by highlighting directions for future research.
This article argues for attending to the perspectives of those most directly affected by, but least often consulted about, educational policy and practice: students. The argument for authorizing student perspectives runs counter to U.S. reform efforts, which have been based on adults’ ideas about the conceptualization and practice of education. This article outlines and critiques a variety of recent attempts to listen to students, including constructivist and critical pedagogies, postmodern and poststructural feminisms, educational researchers’ and social critics’ work, and recent developments in the medical and legal realms, almost all of which continue to unfold within and reinforce adults’ frames of reference. This discussion contextualizes what the author argues are the twin challenges of authorizing student perspectives: a change in mindset and changes in the structures in educational relationships and institutions.
Drawing on 3 years of qualitative data, this article broadens the concept of distributed leadership to include “student voice” in school decision making. Specifically, the article focuses on how adults can foster youth participation and leadership in school reform efforts. In this research, adults needed to work in partnership with youth conscientiously and continuously to develop patterns of interaction that aligned with the values of equitable relations. When adults did not strike a balance between support and letting go, the youth and adults often fell back into traditional teacher-student roles. The article identifies ways in which adults helped youth to move from the periphery to the core of group interactions, especially through a collective focus on developing shared norms, language, and skills.
In a dialog format, discusses the dialogical method of liberatory education. Dialog is a means to transform social relations in the classroom and to raise awareness about relations in society at large. In a problem-posing participatory format, the teacher and students transform learning into a collaborative process to illuminate and act on reality. (Author/BJV)
A liberatory pedagogy, from a Freirean perspective, seeks to transform the classroom into a dialogic and student-powered learning environment by restructuring the student-teacher dichotomy. The purpose is change—not only to individual students’ lives and opportunities but also to the wider social reality. While these are the goals of many science educators, we rarely see Freirean perspectives specifically applied to science teaching. This article considers liberatory pedagogy applied to science teaching where it is perhaps needed most—in a classroom with racially and economically marginalized youth—and explores the challenges that both the structures of urban science classrooms and traditional views about science education pose to the application of Freirean pedagogy.
This chapter describes our program of research aimed at understanding the developmental processes occurring within organized youth activities. What happens inside the activities that leads to positive change in young people? A guiding premise of our work is that youth programs are a context in which youth are active producers of their own development. We and others have found that when adolescents are signaled across the hours of the day, organized activities stand out as settings in which they report a psychological state of high motivation, attention, and challenge (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993; Larson, 2000; see also records
1993-98285-000 and
2000-13324-016). Youth experience themselves as deeply engaged and agentic in a way that rarely happens in other parts of their daily lives. These are psychological conditions under which they can be expected to be active learners: to be self-organizing. So organized youth activities appear to be a particularly fertile context for self-generated change. In our current research, we are developing grounded theory on how this change unfolds. What are the developmental processes that young people engage in within organized activities, and how do effective adult leaders of activities support these processes? In the first section of the chapter, we describe the longitudinal qualitative methods we are using to do this. In the middle section, we report the processes of change we have found in five domains of development. Last, we examine the role that adult leaders of youth programs (often called youth practitioners or youth workers) play in facilitating these developmental processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Nationally, youth organizing programs are growing in popularity. Although research has found positive short-term effects associated with participation, little work has examined longer-term implications. This study explores how alumni from one organizing group describe its influence on their subsequent developmental trajectories. Their descriptions highlight perceived effects in academic, professional, relational, and sociopolitical arenas. Although most respondents remain committed to the issues they came to care about as youth organizers, they express these commitments in various ways, including through traditional and nontraditional forms of civic engagement. They also credit a diverse set of programmatic factors with having influenced them. The findings introduce the various process and outcome factors that the participants find salient, raising implications for future longitudinal or survey research.
Systems thinking is an essential cognitive skill that enables individuals to develop an integrative understanding of a given subject at the conceptual and systemic level. Yet, systems thinking is not usually an innate skill. Helping students develop systems-thinking skills warrants attention from educators. This paper describes a study examining the effects of utilising systems modelling as a cognitive tool in enhancing a group of graduate students' systems-thinking skills. A significant improvement was observed in the systems-thinking practises of the students. A theoretical rationale for enhancing systems-thinking skills with modelling and the results of the study will be discussed.
Youth–adult partnerships (Y-APs) are an innovation being used increasingly as a key strategy for promoting youth development, as well as for building strong programs and communities. This article discusses three pitfalls that can undermine their effectiveness: (1) the assumption that youth should do everything of importance; (2) the belief that adults should “get out of the way,” and give up power, and (3) the focus on youth as the marked category. The article also describes three promising practices to overcome pitfalls: (1) integrate reflection into meetings; (2) articulate the logic of programs and Y-APs; and (3) engage a third party to help explore group assumptions and values. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 33: 75–85, 2005.
This article examines the emergence of a dialogue among urban youth about their educational condition, and the opportunities
for learning and collaboration that ensue. The study is based on observations and interviews with eight students in a community-based
program that supports the engagement of young people in school reform. Notably, the membership includes youth enrolled in
both urban and suburban high schools. Findings reveal that the students capitalized on their dialogic inquiry process by constructing
knowledge of educational disparity and forging coalitions across district lines. Implications include the possibilities for
structuring and supporting students’ social inquiry, and the potential for diverse, student-led dialogues to advance the cause
of educational equality.
KeywordsUrban youth–Educational inequality–Dialogue–Social inquiry–Paulo Freire
Recent interest in design-based research as a research and development methodology in education has begun to clarify the goals and commitments involved in this practice. So far, we have limited views into how the work of design and the work of research impact each other in the course of design-based investigations. In this article, I use the experience of the passion curriculum project, in which I person acted as researcher and as educational practitioner to provide a close trace of the interconnections between research and design in this work. I highlight 3 key functions in design-based research: how design considerations provide a focus for developing research questions; how design moves forward on several fronts simultaneously, with some design solutions informed by research investigations and theory and others developed through engineering of locally functional solutions; and how emergent theories inform both the design of interventions and the development of lenses for investigation. Examples from the passion curriculum project expose the operation of these functions in this particular context.
Upon its initial publication, many reviewers dubbed Dan C. Lortie's Schoolteacher the best social portrait of the profession since Willard Waller's classic The Sociology of Teaching. This new printing of Lortie's classicâincluding a new preface bringing the author's observations up to dateâis an essential view into the world and culture of a vitally important profession.
Items such as physical exam findings, radiographic interpretations, or other diagnostic tests often rely on some degree of subjective interpretation by observers. Studies that measure the agreement between two or more observers should include a statistic that takes into account the fact that observers will sometimes agree or disagree simply by chance. The kappa statistic (or kappa coefficient) is the most commonly used statistic for this purpose. A kappa of 1 indicates perfect agreement, whereas a kappa of 0 indicates agreement equivalent to chance. A limitation of kappa is that it is affected by the prevalence of the finding under observation. Methods to overcome this limitation have been described.
Over the past twenty years, youth organizing has grown across the country. Through organizing, young people identify issues of concern and mobilize their peers to build action campaigns to achieve their objectives. Youth organizing has been appreciated for its contributions to youth and community development. The authors use two case studies to trace the more recent emergence of youth organizing as an important force for school reform. The Boston-based Hyde Square Task Force began with a focus on afterschool programming, but its youth leaders now organize to get Boston Public Schools to adopt a curriculum addressing sexual harassment. Meanwhile, the Baltimore Algebra Project began as a peer-to-peer tutoring program but now also organizes to demand greater funding for Baltimore schools. These cases illustrate a broader phenomenon where students reverse the deficit paradigm by acting out of their own self-interest to become agents of institutional change.
Learning in and out of school in diverse environments: Life-long, life-wide, life-deep Context in science education
- J Banks
- K Au
- A Ball
- P Bell
- E Gordon
- K Gutierrez
- M Zhou
Banks, J., Au, K., Ball, A., Bell, P., Gordon, E., Gutierrez, K.,... Zhou, M. (2007). Learning in and out of school in diverse environments: Life-long, life-wide, life-deep. Seattle: University of Washington, LIFE Center and Center for Multicultural Education. Barab, S. A. (2006). Context in science education. American Journal of Psychology, 119, 5–15.
Critical design and critical theory: The challenge of designing for provocation We be burnin: Agency, identity and learning in a green energy program
- S Bardzell
- J Bardzell
- J Forlizzi
- J Zimmerman
- J Antanitis
- A C Barton
- E Tan
Bardzell, S., Bardzell, J., Forlizzi, J., Zimmerman, J., & Antanitis, J. (2012). Critical design and critical theory: The challenge of designing for provocation. In DIS'2012: Proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems 2012. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1874332/ BardzellEtAl_CriticalDesignCriticalTheory_DIS2012.pdf Barton, A. C., & Tan, E. (2010). We be burnin: Agency, identity and learning in a green energy program. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19, 187–229.
2013 national field scan
- E Braxton
- W Buford
- L Marasigan
Braxton, E., Buford, W., & Marasigan, L. (2013). 2013 national field scan. New York, NY: Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing.
Making youth known: More than service
- B Cervone
Cervone, B. (2001). Making youth known: More than service. What Kids Can Do Series, 1(4).