Immigrant Youth and Activism: Developing a Critical Social Consciousness and Immigrant Identity

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Ethnographic, Mixed-Methods, and Community-Based Participatory Research: Equity and Vulnerable Populations

Abstract

Immigrant and undocumented high school students are becoming more active in the struggle for educational and human rights for immigrants. This ethnographic study explored the developmental outcomes for immigrant youth as they participated in grassroots organizing in their schools and communities. Data collection included participant observations of youth meetings as well as interviews with youth over the course of sixteen months. Findings suggest that these immigrant high school students developed critical youth development outcomes through their organizing efforts, particularly related to their identity as undocumented or immigrant youth and their understanding of social and political inequities affecting the immigrant community.

Author

• Roseanne Macias, California State University - Dominguez Hills