Working Toward Justice Through Critical Youth Empowerment: Supporting Disenfranchised Youth as Critical Citizens

• In Event: 61.086 - Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: 61.086-10 - Community-Based Critical Education for Social Justice

Abstract

This two-year ethnographic study examines the practices of a civic engagement program based on the international Public Achievement model to understand how it supports and constrains the development of disenfranchised youth as critical citizens and community change agents. Guided by the Critical Youth Empowerment (CYE) framework, the findings a) provide in-depth analytic description of how participants engaged in critical civic capacity building through the PA stages; b) explicate how program practices supported participants in moving from community service to community change; c) compare/contrast practices for cultivating civic capacity that were constructed during the two year-long programs and, d) examine how youth and young adult mentors negotiated opportunities and barriers to developing as critical citizens through their talk and interaction.

Authors

• Louise B. Jennings, Colorado State University

• Malcolm Earl Scott, Colorado State University

• Noorjehan Kelsey Brantmeier, James Madison University

• Laurie Lyter, Colorado State University - Fort Collins