Youth Organizer Identity Formation in the Ecology of Youth Organizing

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: The Role of Youth Identity Formation in Organizing for Educational Justice (Table 4)

Abstract

Youth organizers are individuals who follow a specific set of practices in order to educate, mobilize, and develop youth as civic actors, however the ecology of the youth organizing “community callings shaped a boundaryless identity and culture” (Vasudevan 2019, p. 195), which researchers are only beginning to understand. Recent studies suggest organizers identify beyond typical demographic dimensions like race, ethnicity, gender, and age, to include aspects that most demographers would find difficult to count. While other studies suggest being an organizer is also an identity to be claimed by youth organizers. We leverage interviews from a national sample of youth organizers to understand and describe the communities their organizations are nested in.

Authors

• Matt Garcia, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Kate Baca, University of Colorado - Boulder