A Historical Snapshot of Latinx Student Activism from the 1960s to 1990s: A University Archival Analysis

The activism efforts of Latinx students from the 1960s to 1990s at Michigan State University preceded the current resources available to Latinxs on campus today. Guided by transformational resistance, university library archival sources are used to showcase various activism efforts demonstrated by these collegians. Some include a grape purchasing boycott, a sit-in, and a massive library book check-out protest, which all collectively played salient roles in the development of transformational changes for Latinx students. Recommendations from the findings are provided to advance future research and practice for institutional agents in working for and alongside student activists versus against them.

A case for complexity-informed participatory action research with young people

This article addresses the fundamental issue of using qualitative research methods that encourage young people’s participation in settings that more commonly promote neoliberalism at the expense of social justice. Through a case study in an English primary school, it demonstrates how complexity-informed participatory action research could be advanced to enable young people’s participation rights, by building intergenerational relationships that reposition young people and adults within systems and by revealing local and global complexities involved in conceptualising transformational resistance. The developing method is discussed providing an original contribution to knowledge and practice in research with young people, with potential to reconcile schooling and socially just strategy.

The Transformational Resistance of Ms. Marvel in America

Using a transformational resistance framework and critical race theory analysis to document Kamala Khan’s private and public actions within her community, this chapter explores how the contemporary Ms. Marvel comic provides lessons and models for youth civic engagement. This essay explores, over the course of the first five issues, the conceptions of civic resistance and social justice in the actions of Khan and her alter-ego, Ms. Marvel. While tracking the development of Kamala Khan’s civic voice, agency, and self-identity, this chapter examines the role that comics can play in shaping readers’ civic identities.

Democratically Engaged Youth: Countering the Framing and Containing of Youth in Popular Discourses

Youth is an unstable demographic encompassing an increasing age range, and popularly imbued with innate negative characteristics. Youth are often negatively portrayed and youth status invoked to suggest an inability to responsibly engage as citizens in order to undermine the impact of youths’ positive political participation. They are constructed as violent, lacking positive coping skills, and apathetic. These negative constructions reinforce youth as on the margins of society, unable to responsibly participate as citizens. Despite popular negative portrayals some researchers have demonstrated the many ways youth are politically and socially engaged. Youth are engaged where they find meaning and feel they can have an impact. From organized activism through transformational resistance, and participatory action research projects youth are engaging in creative ways to shape the world they live in.