‘And school won’t teach me that!’ Urban youth activism programs as transformative sites for critical adolescent learning

ABSTRACT

To challenge deficit discourses and victim narratives of youth marginalized due to their race, gender, class, age, and/or sexuality, child and youth service providers can build on young people’s agency by implementing creative, radical, and social-justice-oriented services. Youth activism programs offer such opportunities by supporting young people in understanding and working toward dismantling the marginalization they face. These programs can also offer supplemental learning opportunities usually missing from schools, stimulate positive identity development, foster youth civic agency, and motivate young people to agitate for social change. However, while many studies have described what youth do in activism sites, what youth learn from activist engagement is less evident in the literature. In this study, we analyzed focus group data from adolescents participating in six adult-supported youth activism community programs, in an urban United States context (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), to investigate what youth learned as they developed critical consciousness, or the skills required to analyze and then act on oppressive social phenomena. Rooted in a Social Justice Youth Development framework, findings suggest that through their participation, young activists developed increased self-, social-, and global-awareness, while also learning additional important skills (e.g. technical skills, interpersonal skills, and the benefits of creating a network).

KEYWORDS:

• Youth activism programs
• youth organizing
• youth development
• adolescent learning
• critical consciousness
• out-of-school time

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Heinz Endowments [grant number 2037].