Healing and Combating White Supremacy as Youth Organizing Strategies

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Learning About Remedy and Repair From Research on Youth Organizing in California (Table 8)

Abstract

Objectives
This paper argues that current youth organizing strategies support youth development but also expand on them by offering young people a culturally sensitive and healing space that encourages political critique, imagination and hope.

Framework
We draw on theories of healing justice to understand the approach taken by youth organizers to cultivate healing spaces that are simultaneously focused on social justice change and well-being for youth leaders (Ginwright, 2015; Page & Woodland, 2023).

Methods
This study draws upon two phases of research with youth organizing group leaders to learn how CA youth organizing groups work toward long-term systems transformation while incorporating innovative youth development practices. In 2022, 11 interviews were conducted with youth organizing group leaders. The interviewees represented statewide, Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Central Valley efforts. In 2023, 12 semi-structured focus groups via Zoom were conducted with 29 leaders from 28 youth organizing groups. The focus group participants represented the broader San Diego area, the Inland Empire, the Central Valley in addition to youth organizing leaders from statewide, Bay Area, and Los Angeles groups.

Findings
Youth organizing groups take advantage of established best practices for youth development such as promoting autonomy and decision-making, cultivating relationships and belonging, scaffolding the development of skills and competencies, and facilitating civic engagement (Dukakis, et al., 2009; Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Explore SEL, n.d.). At the same time, they experiment with—and expand upon— conventional youth development strategies in three ways: 1) Organizing groups scaffold young people’s leadership in multigenerational political coalitions; 2) they offer activities and supports that respond to youths’ everyday realities; and 3) staff model and practice critical consciousness and healing justice.

Significance
Youth organizing groups shared frameworks and strategies that sought to combat white supremacy from its root and intentional healing practices represents a relatively recent shift in the youth organizing field. The role of political education and knowing one’s history was increasingly cited as a youth organizing strategy. In keeping with existing research on youth organizing (e.g., Sabo Flores, 2020; Valladares, et al., 2021; Watts, Kirshner, Govan, & Fernandez, 2018), participants framed their work as being tied to healing. Some linked healing to social and emotional development as a core strategy. To youth organizing group leaders, “leadership is healing and healing is leadership.”

Authors

• Danielle N. Aguilar, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Ben Kirshner, University of Colorado - Boulder