The Experience of Becoming: Emerging Youth Leaders in a Civic Leadership Program

• In Event: 60.084 - Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: 60.084-19 - Justice Through Collaboration: Foregrounding Youth Voice and Experience in Out-of-School Time Settings

Abstract

The notion of leadership as narrated by low-income high school youth participating in an after-school civic engagement and leadership program challenges traditional authoritative conceptions of leadership and instead introduces more relational ideas about leading one’s own life, setting examples for others, and providing space and opportunities for other underserved youth. Findings situate the self, engaging with others, and a developing social vision as key for enabling this kind of leadership development that instills participatory and engaged citizenship. This study relies on the voices of youth, gathered through qualitative interviews, and fills a void in the scholarship that tends to be dominated by the perspectives of practitioners and researchers.

Authors

• Amira Proweller, DePaul University

• Karen Monkman, DePaul University