Listening as Leadership: Centering Quiet Virtue and Youth Agency in China

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: International and Post-Colonial Contexts for Social Justice Leadership

Abstract

How do adolescents lead in contexts where silence carries moral weight? This study examines how Chinese youth enact leadership through ethical awareness, relational care, and adaptive influence, qualities often overlooked in Eurocentric frameworks. Drawing on interviews and scale development across two provinces (Sichuan and Anhui) and four urban regions, the Adolescent Leadership Skills Scale (ALSS) is grounded in Confucian and Legalist traditions, as well as students’ lived narratives. By centering the voices of migrant, female, and introverted students, often marginalized in local schooling and global research, the study advances epistemic justice. ALSS offers a culturally grounded tool to recognize youth agency, showing how adolescents navigate power, belonging, and care in complex moral ecologies.

Authors

• Xiaohang Luo, University of Pennsylvania

• Yuting Wang, Beijing Normal University