Agents of Change, Even When They’re Not in Charge: Apprenticing Youth in Community-Based Organizing

• In Event: Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Are We in This Together? The Relational Nature of Community Organizing and Participatory Action Research

Abstract

Community-based youth activism organizations can be powerful spaces where youth can develop critical civic identities through participating with adults in challenging and organizing around issues of injustice in their communities. However, the roles of both adults and youth in these spaces need further exploration. This paper is based on a case study of an organization that takes an apprenticeship approach to working with youth and analyzes how the organization’s practices affect youths’ evolving critical and civic identity trajectories. Findings will discuss the factors that contributed to students seeing themselves as valued ‘leaders’ and agents of change within the program and in their communities, even when they understood that adult organizers within the program were ‘in charge.’

Author

• Jesse Moya, Siena College