Youth-Led Organizing and Policy

• In Event: Rethinking Policies for Justice and Equitable Education Systems

Abstract

Objective
In this presentation, authors will examine data from youth organizers across two projects for the Funder’s Collaborative for Youth Organizing, including the Pipelines to Power Initiative and a 2020 national scan of youth organizing to shape this presentation. The state of youth organizing and its role in youth-led policy change will be explored more as a remedy to push for changes shaped by those who are impacted most directly by policies, youth, and families themselves. Further, the authors will provide new insights into how formerly incarcerated youth and systems-involved youth can offer unique policy perspectives on the types of social policies necessary to address examples of systemic racism in-school and out-of-school fueling the expansion of the criminal justice system.

Theoretical Framework
The authors’ present case studies and examples of youth-led policy change efforts that reflect new theories around more participatory policy-making models. Some of these models will also highlight new ways to involve youth who have been involved in the criminal justice system as change agents and experts in strategies for more youth-driven policy solutions.

Methods & Data Sources
Survey data from youth organizers nationally and mixed methods research on carceral education and policy will be the primary forms of evidence to help shape the paper’s findings and conclusions.

Results
Scholars will provide examples of how young people have been involved in policy design and decision-making, with a particular focus on understanding youth perceptions of policy change for systems involved youth. Doing so will allow for the authors to make recommendations for new scholarship and conceptions of policy that place young people at the center of policy responses.


Scholarly Significance
It has been well documented that youth are often excluded or marginalized in public policy deliberation and decision-making processes, even in policy decisions that primarily impact young people (Olascoaga et al., 2018). However, young people can bring new perspectives, passion, and expertise in how to think about and address enduring problems that have sustained and exacerbated social inequities. This is especially true for systems-involved youth, representing 7,529 youth held in juvenile justice facilities across the United States (Puzzanchera, C., Hockenberry, S., Sladky, T.J., and Kang, W. 2020).

Authors

• Michelle Renée Valladares, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Siomara Valladares, CU Boulder