Homeless Youth and Civic Engagement: Opportunities and Obstacles

• In Event: 45.093 - MTCC Roundtable Session 18
  In Roundtable Session: 45.093-10 - The Many Voices of Youth Organizing

Abstract

Through analysis of homeless young adults’ narratives and positionings, youth civic engagement indicators (Flanagan & Levine, 2010), and additional data, dominate and counter stories linked to youth civic engagement were uncovered (Collins, 2002). As part of a larger participatory-influenced (Cammorota & Fine, 2008) ethnographic dissertation study, the activist/empowerment club was held weekly at the Scope Resource Center (SRC), an urban drop-in resource center for homeless youth, in 2017. Participants included ten young people of color, interested in exploring power dynamics through youth activism.
Findings include specific barriers to youth civic engagement, as well as embedded opportunities at the SRC. Additional analysis of these indicators is needed in order to account for the economic and racialized barriers discussed (Ginwright, 2010).

Author

• Kate Haq, Independent Scholar