Discussion: Out of School Time

Youth Organizing as a Developmental Context for African American and Latino Adolescents

Ben Kirshner1 and Shawn Ginwright2

1University of Colorado at Boulder and 2San Francisco State University

ABSTRACT—Research on adolescence has begun to recog-

nize the centrality of ecological context in human devel-

opment. Ecological approaches, however, need to pay

greater attention to the political context of young people’s

lives, both in terms of how youth interpret their sociopolit-

ical world and how they participate in changing it.

Research on youth organizing among African American

and Latino youth offers insights about these dimensions of

sociopolitical development. Youth organizing enables

young people growing up in difficult circumstances to

identify the social origins of problems and take action to

address those problems. Emerging research suggests that

youth organizing has the potential to contribute to youth

development, community development, and broader

social movements. Youth organizing challenges social con-

structions of adolescents as apathetic or self-involved and

offers an alternative to deficit-based orientations toward

youth of color.

KEYWORDS—youth organizing; civic engagement; race and

ethnicity; ecological context; youth programs; activism

Research on adolescence has made progress by recognizing the

centrality of ecological context and diversity in human develop-

ment (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Lerner & Steinberg, 2005;

Rogoff, 2003). Ecological approaches strive to avoid deficit-based

assumptions about youth from nondominant cultural groups and

have begun to examine how developmental pathways for youth of

color are influenced by social stratification and oppression

(Garcı́a Coll et al., 1996; Lee, Spencer, & Harpalani, 2003).

We argue, however, that developmental scientists have not

paid sufficient attention to the political context of development

for African American and Latino adolescents. By political con-

text, we refer to ways that young people experience policies in

their schools and communities and how they participate in solv-

ing problems as political actors (Youniss & Hart, 2005). To

understand more about this sociopolitical domain, we examine

emerging research about youth organizing among youth of color.

Organizing enables young people growing up in working-class

and poor communities to identify the social origins of problems

and take action to address those problems (Warren, Mira, &

Nikundiwe, 2008; Watts & Flanagan, 2007). Youth organizing

offers an alternative to deficit-based perspectives toward youth

of color (Ginwright, 2010). In this article, after explaining our

theoretical framework, we critically assess the existing literature

to articulate what is known and not known about individual,

community, and societal impacts of youth organizing. We con-

clude with suggestions for future research directions.

YOUTH ORGANIZING: WHAT IS IT?

Youth organizing is a form of civic engagement in which young

people identify common interests, mobilize their peers, and work

collectively to address quality-of-life and human rights issues in

their schools and communities. Contemporary youth organizing

has its historical roots in the Civil Rights Movement, when Afri-

can American college students organized lunch-counter sit-ins

and Mexican American high schoolers organized walkouts in Los

Angeles (Carson, 1981; Rosales, 1997). Youth organizing gained

renewed momentum in the 1990s. This reflected a broader socie-

tal push for greater youth community engagement (Youniss et al.,

2002) but was fueled in particular by dissatisfaction in communi-

ties of color with quality-of-life issues such as safety, education,

and policing (James & McGillicuddy, 2001). Today organizing

groups, working with low-income youth of color and other mar-

ginalized groups, address a range of issues. A report by the

Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing identified 160

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ben Kirshner, School of Education, University of Colorado, PO Box 249, Boulder, CO 80309; e-mail: [email protected].

© 2012 The Authors

Child Development Perspectives© 2012 The Society for Research in Child Development

DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2012.00243.x

Volume 6, Number 3, 2012, Pages 288–294

CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES

groups primarily focused on education reform, followed by racial

justice, environmental justice, the economy, juvenile justice,

immigration rights, health, and issues related to girls and young

women (Torres-Fleming, Valdes, & Pillai, 2010). Groups tend to

work with adolescents between the ages of 14 and 20; they typi-

cally include youth of a range of ages and grade levels (Kirshner,

2008). Although some organizations may recruit college students

as staff or support, the target population of organizing groups is

typically high school age.

Youth organizing represents one type of civic engagement

among a constellation of civic opportunities, such as community

service or participation on youth councils (Pancer, Pratt, Huns-

berger, & Alisat, 2007). Youth organizing groups can be charac-

terized by three shared features. First, their campaigns are

guided by social justice values aimed at developing power to

change systems, institutions, or policies (Larson & Hansen,

2005; Warren et al., 2008). This is distinct from versions of

community service that engage youth in charity (Countryman &

Sullivan, 1993). Second, organizing groups are often led by

young people who focus on youth’s concerns and mobilize young

people as agents of change (Delgado & Staples, 2007; Ginwright

& James, 2002). Third, groups are often formed on the basis of

shared social identities linked to experiences of discrimination

or marginalization (HoSang, 2006).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Youth organizing groups pursue goals at multiple levels: promot-

ing individual members’ civic and personal development, build-

ing social and political capital in local communities, and

strengthening connections to broader social justice movements.

To add to the complexity, these levels are interconnected: Per-

sonal feelings of efficacy and engagement, for example, are

likely to increase when one participates in a broader social

movement, such as occurred among Freedom Riders in the Civil

Rights Movement (McAdam, 1988) We propose, therefore, that

research about the impacts of youth organizing should attend to

three interrelated levels of change: individual, community, and

society. This effort to conceptualize multiple levels of change is

consistent with interdisciplinary scholarship on youth organizing

(Christens & Dolan, 2011; Oakes & Rogers, 2006).

To conceptualize how youth organizing contributes to individ-

ual development, we draw on political social identity theory,

which asserts that a sense of collective identity is necessary for

group members to engage in collective action (Sturmer & Simon,

2009). The extent to which individuals see themselves as group

members depends on a group’s history, social experiences, and

relative dominance in society (Sanchez-Jankowski, 2002). By

participating in social action groups, youth learn to address

community and social problems that they view as unfair. These

civic activities might include protests, hunger strikes, and civil

disobedience (Kennelly, 2009). Westheimer and Kahne (2004)

describe this form of civic engagement as “the justice-oriented

citizen who emphasizes collective work towards community bet-

terment while maintaining a more critical stance on social, polit-

ical, and economic issues” (p. 21). It has been well documented

that urban youth of color are motivated to engage in these forms

of civic activism (Cohen et al., 2006; Ginwright, 2007; Marcelo

Barrios, Hugo Lopez, & Hoban Kirby, 2007).

With respect to community development, which refers to the

process of strengthening social capital through organizing, we

draw on Putnam’s (1993) definition of social capital as “features

of social organization, such as networks, norms, and trust, that

facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (p.

36). Youth organizing contributes to political networks and

norms that serve as social resources for community improvement

(Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999). This view of social capital

acknowledges structural constraints in communities, and views

youth as active participants facilitating institutional change

through strong social networks.

Concerning societal development, which refers to those fea-

tures of civic engagement that contribute to a vibrant democ-

racy, we propose that youth organizing supports the

development of a healthy and robust democracy when young

people, particularly those who are too often disengaged from pol-

itics, become engaged in the democratic process and various

forms of collective action (Carson, 1981). Of the three levels of

change, this one is the most challenging to study—but we

include it because it captures an important element of the long-

term social movement goals of youth organizing.

EMERGING EVIDENCE ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF

YOUTH ORGANIZING

Emerging research about youth organizing in the United States

is often published in foundation reports, nonrefereed articles,

and invited book chapters rather than in refereed journals. For

example, in winter 2011, we searched three social sciences da-

tabases (ERIC, PsychInfo, and Social Sciences Full Text) using

two search terms, “youth organizing” and “youth activism,”

bounded between 1995 and 2011. These searches identified

nine peer-reviewed studies. Ethnographic and case-study

accounts were common because youth activism is an emerging

domain of research, in which open-ended, exploratory inquiry is

appropriate (Larson & Hansen, 2005). Because there are a rela-

tively small number of peer-reviewed studies, for this article we

also report findings from books, book chapters, white papers,

and evaluation reports. The majority of studies we found focused

on individual development, which explains why that section is

the most extensive of the three.

INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT

Civic Development

Studies of youth organizing—and closely related activities that

emphasize political empowerment and participatory action

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 6, Number 3, 2012, Pages 288–294

Youth Organizing 289

research—provide evidence that youth participants experience

growth in three developmental domains: civic development,

psychosocial wellness, and academic engagement. Of these, evi-

dence about civic development is the strongest, with particular

emphasis on participants’ growing sense of agency and capacity

to accomplish complex political campaign goals. Larson and

Hansen (2005), for example, drawing on interviews and observa-

tions, analyzed developmental opportunities that emerged as stu-

dents worked to change policies in the Chicago Public Schools.

They found that youth organizers’ sustained efforts contributed

to the development of strategic thinking, including how to navi-

gate bureaucratic systems, frame messages with policy makers,

and respond to unexpected contingencies. Kirshner (2009) used

ethnographic methods to study African American and Asian

American youth organizers’ effort to improve student leadership

opportunities in local high schools. Kirshner reported evidence

that the campaign provided a venue for organizers to form a

civic identity defined by connection to community, group soli-

darity, and a sense of collective agency. Christens and Dolan

(2011), relying on interviews and document analysis of a cam-

paign to address root causes of youth violence, reported a pro-

cess of psychological empowerment in which youth organizers

expressed confidence that they were prepared to take on leader-

ship roles and work with a group to make community-level

change.

Multisite evaluations of two youth organizing initiatives, whose

respondents were mostly African American and Latino, also pro-

vide evidence of a link between organizing and civic develop-

ment (Gambone, Yu, Lewis-Charp, Sipe, & Lacoe, 2004;

Mediratta, Shah, & McAlister, 2008). Gambone et al. (2004)

combined surveys with qualitative observations in order to com-

pare developmental supports and opportunities for young people

in three types of youth programs: youth organizing, identity sup-

port (i.e., groups focused on psychological support for youth with

shared social identities), and traditional youth development. In

their statistical analysis, the authors found that youth organizers

reported significantly higher levels of opportunities for decision

making and leadership than did the other two groups. Also, those

involved in organizing and identity support reported significantly

higher levels of civic efficacy than did the respondents from tra-

ditional youth agencies. One limitation of this nonexperimental

study was that the samples were not random and there was some

variation in the demographic composition of each group.

Mediratta et al.’s (2008) evaluation of eight community orga-

nizing groups focused on the frequency of civic behaviors and

future intentions to be civically active. They found that youth

members reported higher civic and political engagement on sur-

veys than did a comparative national sample, as measured by

participating in protests, contacting public officials, working on

community problems, and planning to be civically engaged in

the future. These authors also reported that participants reported

high levels of future intentions to participate: More than 90%

said that they were “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to stay

involved in activism and to learn more about politics in the

future.

Although findings about civic development are suggestive,

they are based on a small number of studies that only begin to

address explanatory processes. For example, because groups are

typically based on voluntary membership, it could be that the

key drivers of development have to do with their small size, the

personalities of adult leaders, or the fact that participants self-

select into them.

Psychological Wellness

In addition to attention to civic engagement outcomes, commu-

nity psychologists argue that there is a connection between polit-

ical activism and psychological wellness (Prilleltensky, 2003;

Watts, Williams, & Jagers, 2002). Psychological wellness is a

broad term that refers to a sense of hope, empowerment, and pur-

pose in life (Prilleltensky, 2008). Researchers in this tradition

theorize that building an awareness of justice and inequality,

combined with meaningful social action, contributes to greater

well-being for youth who are growing up in an oppressive social

context (Freire, 1970; Potts, 2003; Watts & Flanagan, 2007).

Empirical studies that examine the relation between sociopo-

litical action and well-being provide some evidence for this con-

nection. For example, Thomas, Davidson, and McAdoo (2008)

developed an after-school intervention for African American

girls that introduced them to Black history, notions of collectiv-

ism, critical perspectives on racism and oppression, and activism.

Their quasi-experimental evaluation found that participation in

the program contributed to higher levels of ethnic identity,

awareness of racism, and intention to engage in activism. Also,

Perez, Espinoza, Ramos, Coronado, and Cortes (2009) surveyed

undocumented Latino high school students and found that com-

munity engagement was associated with psychological resil-

iency. Qualitative research by Cammarota (2007) documents

how Latino students who engaged in social activism developed a

critical consciousness about historical inequities and the rele-

vance of academic learning to their lives. More research is

needed, however, to conceptualize and study the relation

between youth organizing and broader indices of wellness and

resiliency.

Academic Engagement

Emerging evidence shows a positive relation between activism

and academic engagement. In qualitative, peer-reviewed

research, Cammarota (2007) reports findings from a school-

based social justice education project that aimed to empower

youth to study and take action about issues affecting their lives.

Students described a shift from being alienated from school

toward seeing its relevance. For example, students reported

learning how to use academic tools—such as ethnography or

critical theory—to interpret and challenge discrimination or

inequality. Students began to see academic content as a vehicle

for them to accomplish socially relevant goals.

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 6, Number 3, 2012, Pages 288–294

290 Ben Kirshner and Shawn Ginwright

Mediratta et al.’s (2008) evaluation provides support for this

claim as well. Youth organizers self-reported changes in their

academic engagement, with 90% of the students indicating that

their involvement in youth organizing made them more moti-

vated to complete high school, 80% indicating that their grades

improved, and 60% indicating that they took more challenging

coursework due to their involvement in organizing. In an article

based on this evaluation, Shah (2011) reported that the post-

graduate ambitions of youth organizing participants exceeded

those reported by a national sample of Latino and African Amer-

ican youth. Similar to other findings reported above, these find-

ings are limited by their self-report nature and the prevalent

finding that young people’s academic aspirations do not always

match their behavior.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Youth organizing groups aim to improve community institutions,

such as schools, youth programs, and police departments, by

mobilizing networks of youth and forming intergenerational ties

with adult allies and policy makers. The most tangible conse-

quences of these efforts are seen in institutional changes or new

public policy. For example, a common target of organizing cam-

paigns is public education (Mediratta et al., 2008; Torres-Flem-

ing et al., 2010). Warren and Mapp (2010), for example, used

interviews and archive analysis to document the efforts of an in-

tergenerational group called Padres y Jovenes Unidos (PJU) to

improve the quality of a chronically underperforming neighbor-

hood school. The group’s efforts contributed to a number of

changes at the school, including the decision to redesign the

school around a core set of college preparatory goals. Youth par-

ticipated throughout this multiyear process by designing and

administering surveys, participating in reform committees with

teachers and community members, and holding press confer-

ences. PJU’s emphasis on academic preparation has been shared

by organizing groups across the country that want to ensure that

low-income students of color are prepared to succeed in college

(Oakes & Rogers, 2006; Speer, 2008). In Los Angeles, youth

organizing groups partnered with community organizations to

successfully persuade the school district to make college-level

classes the default expectation for all students (Renee, Welner,

& Oakes, 2009).

In addition to focusing on schools as targets of local organiz-

ing, studies have documented efforts to change juvenile justice

policies, promote interracial peace, and secure public funding

for youth opportunities (Gordon, 2010; Kwon, 2006). Christens

and Dolan (2011), for example, describe a multiyear campaign

developed by Inland Congregations United for Change in South-

ern California to change city approaches to youth-violence pre-

vention. The group argued successfully for a paid jobs program

as well as other youth programs. In this study, as well as in

Warren and Mapp’s (2010) discussed above, a distinguishing

element is the process of trust building that occurred as young

people forged intergenerational social capital with adult allies

and policy makers. Data from these campaigns suggest that

adult decision makers began to view youth in new ways and that

young people gained confidence that they were being listened

to.

IMPACT ON SOCIETY AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

With some exceptions, the past two decades have seen declines

in young people’s involvement in civil society, particularly

among youth of color in urban neighborhoods (Levinson, 2007;

Lopez et al., 2006). Youth of color from low-income families,

especially those not on track to college, experience fewer oppor-

tunities for civic participation relative to their middle-class, col-

lege-bound peers (Hart & Atkins, 2002; Hyman & Levine,

2008; Kahne & Middaugh, 2009). Flanagan and Levine (2010)

attribute disparities in voting and volunteering between college-

and non-college-educated youth to “a lack of institutional oppor-

tunities for civic activities for young adults who do not attend

college” (p. 165) linked to declines in union membership. This

decline in civic engagement and corresponding gaps in electoral

power pose a serious threat to a healthy and robust democracy

(American Political Science Association, 2004).

Youth organizing, on the other hand, is a place where low-

income youth of color build skills and connect to other groups

pursuing allied causes. This form of civic engagement that aims

to build a social movement continues to be one of the most

significant features of social change and is necessary for the

flourishing of democratic institutions. One needs only to study

the 2008 presidential election, or the major political events in

Egypt and Tunisia, to understand the possibility of youth orga-

nizing for social change.

The most compelling examples of the impact of youth organiz-

ing on societal change stems from research on the Civil Rights

Movement in the United States (Carson, 1981; McAdam, 1988;

Piven & Cloward, 1979; Rosales, 1997). This research docu-

ments the activities of young civil rights activists and the ways

that their involvement contributed to awareness among the gen-

eral public of racial inequality in the South (Carson, 1981).

McAdam (1988) argues that understanding the dramatic social

changes of the 1960s and 1970s (student movements, antiwar

movements, women’s movement, Black Power, free speech)

requires a close examination of the youth organizing Freedom

Summer campaigns during 1964.

More recently, youth organizing groups have been active in

the national movement to reform immigration policies (Pallares

& Flores-González, 2010). News descriptions of undocumented

students telling their stories in community town halls, meeting

with state legislators to promote tuition equity at public universi-

ties, and traveling to Washington, DC, are evidence of a social

movement led by young people to pass the DREAM Act, which

would create a path to citizenship for youth whose families

brought them to the United States as minors (Gonzales, 2008).

Child Development Perspectives, Volume 6, Number 3, 2012, Pages 288–294

Youth Organizing 291

Although the DREAM Act failed to pass the Senate in 2010,

the durability of this movement is demonstrated by a subsequent

redirection toward statewide campaigns related to immigration

policy (Dobuzinskis, 2011).

DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH AND THEORY

According to our three-level framework, youth organizing has

the potential to contribute to individual youth development,

improved schools and community institutions, and civic renewal

in the broader society. But such claims are based on a small

base of evidence that deserves further research. In particular,

we recommend three directions for scholarship.

First, longitudinal research that examines the connection

between organizing experiences in adolescence and later civic

participation is needed. Few studies have had the resources to

follow a sample of youth organizers, particularly in comparison

to matched youth. Currently, many of the studies rely on mea-

sures of future intentions, such as intention to vote or be active

in community politics, rather than examining people’s behavior

as they transition into adulthood. Such research could describe

developmental processes of political engagement and age-

related differences more precisely.

Second, research should look not just at individual trajectories

but also at setting-level processes that promote sociopolitical

development. One of the central premises of youth organizing, for

example, is that sociopolitical empowerment involves an aware-

ness of racism, inequality, and oppression (Cammarota, 2007;

Watts et al., 2002). In this article, we described some evidence

that youth organizers develop this critical awareness but further

studies are required to describe what this process looks like in

groups and conditions under which conversations about topics

such as oppression lead to action rather than apathy. Research

about setting-level processes is important because it has the

potential to extend what the field knows about culturally respon-

sive programming for Latino and African American youth (Bandy

&Moore, 2011).

Third, we believe that research on youth organizing offers fer-

tile ground for extending and deepening ecological theories of

development, particularly as they relate to youth of color (Bron-

fenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Lerner & Steinberg, 2004). Ecologi-

cal perspectives have strengthened the field’s understanding of

how various levels of social context shape developmental paths

for youth of color (Chao & Otsuki-Clutter, 2011; McBride

Murry, Berkel, Gaylord-Harden, Copeland-Linder, & Nation,

2011). Also, youth-development scholars have emphasized

human agency in navigating these ecological systems (Larson,

2011). What is needed is more work that integrates these two

elements of an ecological systems approach—social context and

human agency. Youth organizing, with its emphasis on channel-

ing youth’s awareness of inequality into social action, provides

an especially valuable context for studying the bidirectional

relations between ecological context and human development.

CONCLUSION

Given the vibrant role that young people played in earlier social

movements for rights and equality, and the more fragmented

state of youth-driven social movements today, attention to con-

temporary settings where youth are mobilizing is important.

Knowledge of how social settings and political context influence

development should aid in understanding the conditions under

which youth of color either connect or disconnect from political

life. Such research is important not just for promoting develop-

mental outcomes for African American and Latino youth but for

fostering broader community and societal rejuvenation.

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