How adults learn from youth: Understanding human rights lessons from marginalized citizens to drive policy and social justice

• In Event: Centering Youths' Perspectives and Experiences in Policy and Social Justice

Proposal

Adult learning theories have yet to explore how adults learn from youth. Academics and practitioners involved in advancing human rights through youth engagement have left an important field of study entirely untouched. Adult education theorists have examined informal learning, but not when the teacher is a youth. At the same time, youth participation research has yet to turn its attention to what is actually happening for the learner in the exchange, which is the adult. My research, therefore, presents a new field of informal adult learning theory. I propose that in order to understand what makes youth engagement either successful or ineffective when it is utilized for consultation for policy development and human rights advocacy, we must explore this untapped intersecting area of learning theories with the foundational question: How do adults learn from youth?

This topic is admittedly unusual, potentially uncomfortable, and even abrasive to entrenched adult professionals who have esteemed and dedicated careers within the youth-serving sector, policy development, and/or adult education. There has been great academic attention paid to ‘youth engagement’ or ‘youth-led’ processes and research, yet unfortunately, most of this work is tokenistic and fails to allow for an effective teacher-student trusting relationship to foster effective learning. This is a problem.

How can youth be authentically and ethically engaged, how can better policies for their services and care be undertaken, and how can legislation be updated to reflect the realities of current lived experiences of youth if they are not listened to, if what they have to teach is not viewed as credible, believed, or acted upon? Compare present-day youth as citizens to other historically marginalized citizen groups: Women are now for the most part, engaged in policy work even if not nearly at an equivalent frequency and influence as men; new immigrants are targeted for outreach strategy input; Indigenous consultation is strived for at nation-to-nation levels and often legislated as a necessity; racialized communities are surveyed, and their input is considered in planning cycles; the 2SLGBTQIA+ community is considered a constituency with a unique voice by all political parties, listened to by some parties more than others. Why then is it acceptable to have 8 million citizens in Canada who are not involved in their services, not having their participatory human rights realized? Youth are talked about and planned for when they are not in the rooms of power and are not part of the process. Why do adults think they can dismiss the notion of ‘nothing about us without us’ when it comes to youth citizens with outdated and inaccurate arguments about their capacity? What does this attitude demonstrate about adults’ power relations with youth?

My proposed research explores the unique learning process which transpires when youth share with adults who can help them contribute to policy, social justice, and overall advance human rights. It has now been more than thirty years since Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention contains Articles which pertain to the right for children and youth to be included in decisions which affect their daily lives and the services they receive. Youth by the factor of their age alone, are citizens who are usually excluded from policy processes (Grover, 2004; Jacquez et al, 2012; Lecic & Zuker, 2019; Lundy, 2007). When youth are included, they can share, for example, the lived experiences of growing up in child protection services, experiencing education disruptions, or the inability to access mental health supports (Hart, 1992; Invernizzi, 2011; Kiersey & Hayes, 2010; Saunders, 2009).

During the past three decades since the Convention was ratified, research in this field has focused on how, when, and where to facilitate youth participation in policy work and civic consultation (Lansdown, 2001; Yoshitaka et al, 2014; Zumbach, 2021); however, this canon of research has yet to examine the experience of the adult learner who is the agent holding the positional authority and social power to create change. Previous research has noted the limitations of understanding adult learning when youth are involved: “Even adults who are utterly sympathetic to the principle of enabling children to express their views may often feel uncomfortable with the ways, means and implications of putting this (type of learning) into practice.” (Lansdown, 2001).

Informal learning of this nature is a dramatic paradigm shift from formalized and professional development styles of learning that adults have historically self-identified as learning or have been presented with as learning opportunities. Adults do not always recognize and identify their own learning moments when they occur. When the learning occurs within an informal structure or through an incidental nature, adults may be even less likely to acknowledge that learning has occurred (Marsick et al, 2009). I add to the situation the factor of the teacher being an unconventional individual, making the exchange all the more foreign for the adult learner. Noted by Livingstone, “Education involves the presence of a teacher – someone presumed to have greater knowledge – and a learner or learners to be instructed by said teacher…mentors instruct novices in more spontaneous learning situations without sustained reference to a previously organized body of knowledge, such as guiding them in acquiring job skills or in community development activities...” (2012).

I argue that youth must be acknowledged to be keepers of this situational ‘greater knowledge’ in order to successfully impact an adult learner, to improve the adult’s skills to execute policy development work in the interest of human rights.

Author

• Wraychel Gilmore, O.I.S.E. University of Toronto