Zombies, Truants, and Flash Mobs: How Youth Organizers Respond to and Shape Youth Policy

2015 ◽  
Vol 117 (13) ◽  
pp. 203-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerusha O. Conner ◽  
Sonia M. Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Low Power ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
High Power ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Youth Organizing ◽  
Youth Policy ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Positive Valence

Youth organizing groups combine strategies from the fields of youth development and community organizing in order to mobilize young people to take collective action. Significantly, organizing work acknowledges that youth are commonly blamed for social problems that are beyond their control and repositions these youth as agents of positive social change. This approach complicates policy scholarship, which understands stakeholders as “targets” of policy initiatives. In a seminal work on public policy, Schneider and Ingram identify four quadrants in which target populations can be placed by policy formulations: advantaged (those with high power and a positive valence), contenders (those with high power and a negative valence), dependents (those with low power and a positive valence) and deviants (those with low power and a negative valence). Schneider and Ingram point out that young people are generally positioned as “dependents.” However, this chapter draws on empirical data from one youth organizing group to demonstrate how youth assert themselves as powerful stakeholders in important decision-making processes, contradicting policymakers’ construction of them as passive and weak.

Queer and Trans Youth Organizing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Sinclair-Palm
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Sexuality Education ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Youth Organizing ◽  
Youth Organizations ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Civic Society ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Trans Youth

Youth organizing is a form of civic engagement and activism. It offers a way for young people to identify and address social inequalities impacting their local and global communities. Youth are provided opportunities to learn about power structures and pathways to create meaningful change to support their communities. In formal institutional approaches, youth organizing is understood as part of positive youth development and a strategy to train young people about civic society and democracy. Youth organizing is also seen as a way for young people to seek support, empowerment, and resources and to develop their leadership capacity. Central to the field of youth organizing are questions on the role of youth within youth organizing. Researchers examine the leadership structure within youth organizations, the acquisition of resources for the organization, the process for identifying issues that the organization will address, and how youth experience their involvement. Youth organizing has been especially important for young marginalized people who may feel isolated and face harassment and discrimination. Researchers have extensively documented how youth organizing by people of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer and questioning (LGBTQ) young people in North America have played a large role in fights for social justice. However, it was not until the mid-20th century that queer and trans youth started organizing in groups connected by their shared experiences and identities related to their sexuality and gender. The development of Gay–Straight Alliances (GSAs) in schools and debates about sexuality education in schools provide examples for exploring LGTBQ youth organizing in the 21st century.

Interweaving Youth Development, Community Development, and Social Change Through Youth Organizing

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 528-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian D. Christens ◽  
Tom Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Program Implementation ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Youth Organizing ◽  
Implementation Policy

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.

scholarly journals Azerbaijani youth in transition: Is the state youth policy effective enough?

2021 ◽  
pp. 187936652110460
Author(s):  
Anar Valiyev ◽  
Abbas Babayev
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Youth Policy ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Employment Education ◽  
The Government ◽  
Education And Employment

This article analyzes the role of the state youth policy of Azerbaijan in supporting young people through their transition from school to work, which is one of the stages when young people can be in particularly fragile situation if not provided with necessary opportunities. The reason for studying the case of Azerbaijan is a considerable share of youth Not in Employment, Education, or Training (NEET youth) among the country’s youth community. The NEET indicator is considered as a comprehensive indicator within the post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda to measure youth exclusion and marginalization. The findings of this research demonstrate that while the government assumes a broad responsibility to provide youth with education and employment opportunities to support their transition, these intentions have not been translated into real actions. An alarming situation of the country’s youth population is at risk of further exacerbation due to poor understanding of local realities by such global advocates for youth development as United Nations. We discuss this considering the flaws in the operationalization and localization of the concept of the “youth participation” promoted by the United Nations to advance youth interests.

scholarly journals Youth Practitioners Can Counter Fascism: What We Know and What We Need

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 37-67
Author(s):  
Miriam R. Arbeit ◽  
Sarah L. F. Burnham ◽  
Duane De Four ◽  
Heather Cronk
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Young People ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Theoretical Integration ◽  
Current Challenge

Fascist, White nationalist, and misogynist groups are actively recruiting adolescent followers both online and in person. Youth development practitioners can play an important role in mitigating the influence of fascist ideologies on young people’s behavior and reducing the proliferation of youth-perpetrated harassment and violence. In this paper, we present a theoretical integration that draws on empirical research from multiple disciplines and youth development best practices to examine how youth practitioners can counter fascist recruitment of youth. There is much that youth development researchers and practitioners already know and do, or have the capacity to learn and do, that can mitigate the threat of fascist recruitment and deter young people from developmental trajectories leading them towards harmful ideologies and actions. In order to support youth development practitioners in effectively embodying this potential, we detail 3 sets of activities: (a) immunizing youth to reduce susceptibility to fascist recruitment, (b) intervening in fascist recruitment of specific youth, and (c) counter-recruiting youth into community organizing for social justice. For each set of activities, we describe the goals of each component, propose concrete actions it may entail, and highlight existing research and best practices in the field that can be applied to this current challenge. We then propose next steps in research–practice integration to further improve relevant strategies and point to existing resources for supporting youth in resisting fascist recruitment.

Critical Reflection and Cognitive Empowerment among Youth Involved in Community Organizing

2021 ◽  
pp. 074355842110621
Author(s):  
Brian D. Christens ◽  
Kathryn Y. Morgan ◽  
Erika Ruiz ◽  
Alicia Aguayo ◽  
Tom Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Psychological Empowerment ◽  
Youth Organizing ◽  
Simultaneous Development ◽  
Cognitive Components ◽  
San Bernardino

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.

scholarly journals CONCEPTUAL BASES AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EU YOUTH POLICY

2016 ◽  
pp. 136-144
Author(s):  
E. N. Grachev
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Young People ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
National Level ◽  
National Council ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Youth Policy ◽  
European Youth ◽  
Supranational Level ◽  
The Eu

Europe is making significant efforts to create a common space where not only common political institutions and values, but also common future is to be shaped. And it is young people who is selected to be the main policy object for building common European identity. To this end in recent years, the European Union has worked out the institutional mechanisms of its youth policy, has formed special agencies for its implementation, developed legal framework. The main document, which laid the conceptual basis of EU youth policy is the White Paper. The document determines the most challenging issues in youth policy that need to be resolved in the short and long term. The next major document - the European Youth Pact - has become a real legal act which came into force throughout the European Union. The most important document which determines the guidelines of the current EU youth policy is a strategy "Youth - Investing and Empowering." The strategy settles a key vector of European youth policy for all EU countries. All documents take into account the interests of the whole EU and not individual nation states that is why they influence young people at the supranational level. The European Union has developed a full-fledged system of management of youth policy on two levels: the supranational (pan-European) and national. Council of Europe and European Parliament are responsible for the implementation of youth policy at supranational level. Various national agencies are responsible for the implementation of certain EU youth programs at national level. The EU documents on the youth policy show that the youth is viewed by European politicians as one of the most politically important social groups in Europe. That is why youth policy is directed not only at youth development, but has to it a significant political component. A significant part of the youth policy is related to the involvement of young people in the democratic institutions, the involvement of young people in the EU governance.

Youth Development in Europe

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 372-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katariina Salmela-Aro ◽  
Ingrid Schoon
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Transition To Adulthood ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Integrative Framework ◽  
Reciprocal Interactions ◽  
The Family ◽  
Key Players

A series of six papers on “Youth Development in Europe: Transitions and Identities” has now been published in the European Psychologist throughout 2008 and 2009. The papers aim to make a conceptual contribution to the increasingly important area of productive youth development by focusing on variations and changes in the transition to adulthood and emerging identities. The papers address different aspects of an integrative framework for the study of reciprocal multiple person-environment interactions shaping the pathways to adulthood in the contexts of the family, the school, and social relationships with peers and significant others. Interactions between these key players are shaped by their embeddedness in varied neighborhoods and communities, institutional regulations, and social policies, which in turn are influenced by the wider sociohistorical and cultural context. Young people are active agents, and their development is shaped through reciprocal interactions with these contexts; thus, the developing individual both influences and is influenced by those contexts. Relationship quality and engagement in interactions appears to be a fruitful avenue for a better understanding of how young people adjust to and tackle development to productive adulthood.

Less Power, Greater Conflict

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra C. Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Low Power ◽  
High Power ◽  
Goal Pursuit ◽  
Goal Conflict ◽  
Personal Goals ◽  
Multiple Goals ◽  
Objective Performance ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

Abstract. Power facilitates goal pursuit, but how does power affect the way people respond to conflict between their multiple goals? Our results showed that higher trait power was associated with reduced experience of conflict in scenarios describing multiple goals (Study 1) and between personal goals (Study 2). Moreover, manipulated low power increased individuals’ experience of goal conflict relative to high power and a control condition (Studies 3 and 4), with the consequence that they planned to invest less into the pursuit of their goals in the future. With its focus on multiple goals and individuals’ experiences during goal pursuit rather than objective performance, the present research uses new angles to examine power effects on goal pursuit.

YOUTH POLICY IN MODERN RUSSIA. ABSENTEEISM AND POLITICAL PROTEST

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.I. AVTSINOVA ◽  
М.А. BURDA
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Youth Organizations ◽  
Youth Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Russian Politics ◽  
High Level

The article analyzes the features of the current youth policy of the Russian Federation aimed at raising the political culture. Despite the current activities of the government institutions in the field under study, absenteeism, as well as the protest potential of the young people, remains at a fairly high level. In this regard, the government acknowledged the importance of forming a positive image of the state power in the eyes of young people and strengthen its influence in the sphere of forming loyal associations, which is not always positively perceived among the youth. The work focuses on the fact that raising the loyalty of youth organizations is one of the factors of political stability, both in case of internal turbulence and external influence. The authors also focus on the beneficiaries of youth protests. The authors paid special attention to the issue of forming political leadership among the youth and the absence of leaders expressing the opinions of young people in modern Russian politics. At the same time, youth protest as a social phenomenon lack class and in some cases ideological differences. The authors come to the conclusion that despite the steps taken by the government and political parties to involve Russian youth in the political agenda, the young people reject leaders of youth opinion imposed by the authorities, either cultivating nonparticipation in the electoral campagines or demonstrating latent protest voting.

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