Youth Empowerment in Context: Exploring Tensions in School-Based yPAR
This paper was presented at the 12th biennial conference for the Society for Community Research and Action in Montclair, NJ.
Abstract
In much of the youth empowerment literature, researchers focus on the relationship between youth and adults involved in empowerment programs while neglecting the broader social framework in which these relationships and the program itself functions. Utilizing an ecological model, the current research examines the tensions that surfaced in attempts to create an empowering setting in an after-school PAR program with fifth-graders. Challenging assumptions about youth, structural challenges, and conflicting theories of change are highlighted. Results examine the role of sociocultural context as PAR researchers attempt to create a setting in which students gain skills to become change agents within their school. The study suggests that youth empowerment is a context dependent process that requires attention to a multiplicity of factors that influence possibilities for empowerment via second order change.
Introduction
Youth empowerment has received attention from psychologists and practitioners because of its practical applications in social justice work. As a relational, non-linear process that expands people's control over access to the resources that affect them (Rappaport 1981), empowerment is especially relevant to researchers who are interested in facilitating systemic change. Yet a disjuncture between the theoretical conceptualizations of empowerment and its empirical realization is apparent in much of the literature. It is often applied to prevention-focused youth development programs, where empowerment tends to be predefined for youth by adults running the program, rather than co-constructed with youth. In addition, empowerment in this context is often equated with a reduction in “unhealthy” behavior (Ginwright and Cammarota 2002). Empowerment is also critiqued for its narrow focus on the individuals within a particular setting at the expense of a more contextualized consideration of the broader setting, leaving the overarching structures that facilitate or inhibit empowerment unexamined (Ginwright and Cammarota 2002; Kohfeldt and Langhout 2010).
Recently, educators and psychologists concerned with research that contributes to socially just change have called for a more critical awareness of the contextually bound nature of youth empowerment processes (Esposito and Evans-Winters 2007). Recognizing that youth empowerment processes often take the form of organized programs that occur within particular sociocultural and political settings, researchers must consider how tensions surfacing from such encounters shape the process of youth empowerment (Kohfeldt and Langhout 2010). Utilizing an ecological model to conceptualize youth empowerment, this paper reveals the tensions and challenges that arose in a school-based participatory action research project with fifth-grade students. Specifically, tensions related to the school as the sociocultural context in which the research project was embedded are explored. The sociocultural context includes the school as an institution, organizational roles and structural constraints that were present in this setting, and the roles of adults in the context.
Youth Empowerment and PAR
Youth empowerment, although under-theorized in the psychological literature, can be defined as a process by which individuals and groups gain increased control over access to the conditions and resources that affect their lives (Rappaport 1981). For youth this may include not only material resources, but also the narratives, policies, services and discourses that are relevant to them (Rappaport 1995). Although the context-dependent nature of empowerment makes rigid instructions for how to create empowering settings inappropriate, some elements have been theorized to be particularly important. The process entails non-tokenized youth participation in decision making, a focus on facilitating critical consciousness through unearthing root causes of social problems, and socially just social action informed by critical reflection (Kohfeldt and Langhout 2010).
An ecological model of youth empowerment emphasizes movement toward second-order change. Second-order change involves a change in the socially constructed role relationships among people. As an example Sarason (1995) reminds us that firing and hiring all new teachers in a school would not affect long-term outcomes; instead, role relationships need to be converted, which signifies a change in underlying values and ideals. Indeed, as a shift in the relationships among the parts of a system (Speer et al. 1995), second-order change can be seen as altering the underlying structure that maintains its operation. In other words, processes or goals are developed in ways that fundamentally transform the system (Perkins et al. 2007). Because second order change is also considered transformative (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007; Perkins et al. 2007), alterations in these role relationships must address power such that more stakeholder groups have decision-making authority over the resources that affect them. This type of systemic change is considered more sustainable because of the scrutinization and alignment of practices, values, and goals.
With goals and values that are consistent with those of youth empowerment, including the democratization of knowledge production, valuing diverse perspectives, facilitating critical consciousness and working toward social justice (Maguire 1987), participatory action research with young people (yPAR) is an epistemological position that can facilitate second-order change. Indeed, PAR (and thus, yPAR) alters relationships among stakeholders by creating roles where, in this case, young people interrogate a problem definition they define, research it, and determine possible interventions. This process alters power via shifts in knowledge, knowledge production, and voice (all are forms of power), and opens a space for young people to have more voice in the policies and practices within the setting. By definition, this process also facilitates their empowerment because they gain more control over the resources that affect them.
Sociocultural Context of Youth Empowerment
Despite the lofty goals of youth empowerment and its potential for contributing to substantial social change, in practice youth empowerment programs are highly contextualized settings where theoretical principles are not easily applied. These programs often exist within institutions such as schools, community resource centers, and youth agencies that have well-established hierarchies, discourses and norms that dictate who has a legitimate right to participate and what this participation should look like (Dworski-Roggs and Langhout 2010). In fact the broader sociocultural context in which youth empowerment programs take place may have long histories of precluding youth participation in decision-making about issues affecting them.
We have developed an ecological model of youth empowerment that accounts for the broad sociocultual context in which youth empowerment efforts are enacted (Kohfeldt and Langhout 2010). The model theorizes how organizational context, social climate, and adult and youth involvement facilitate individual, organizational, and community outcomes. Organizational context and social climate include attending to the policies, procedures, norms, history, and roles of those within the organization. These aspects are important because it is likely that the systems in which youth and others operate have considerable power over the empowerment process. Adult roles are defined by power sharing, being self-reflective regarding power and assumptions about youth, connecting youth to resources, and facilitating their critical consciousness. Youth roles encompass their meaningful participation and roles, as well as recognition of their expert status regarding their own lives. Hypothesized individual outcomes include: civic learning, critical consciousness, skill development, identity development as change agents and learners, civic action, and critical reflection on actions. Organizational outcomes focus on enhanced participatory structures, increased accountability to relevant stakeholders, and the practice of interrogating policies and procedures. Community outcomes are comprised of more resources for the youth setting, new sustainable partnerships, change that young people define as meaningful, and power shifts such that young people are recognized as capable civic actors.
The ecological model of youth empowerment challenges researchers to critically attend to the settings in which youth and adults are embedded and to consider how these shape the empowerment process, as well as how the process might change the setting (Kohfeldt and Langhout 2010). These considerations facilitate second order change that is aligned with the theoretical principles of youth empowerment in that the model focuses on changing role relationships via enhanced participatory structures, increased accountability, and community-wide power shifts regarding how young people are viewed. The model also alters control over resources via new sustainable partnerships that benefit young people and focuses on creating social change that youth themselves view as meaningful. These alterations embody a set of underlying values based within social justice and therefore should be transformative.
Given that the current research is embedded in a school-based setting, a consideration of the historical context of schools is necessary to inform an ecological perspective. The rift between the elements of empowering settings (e.g., participating in decision making, centering the voice of subordinated groups, focusing on critical consciousness and structural analysis, democratizing knowledge production, valuing diverse perspectives) and schools as institutional settings is well-documented in the literature (e.g., Bragg 2007; Dworski-Roggs and Langhout 2010; Fine et al. 2005; Pearrow and Pollack 2009; Yowell and Gordon 1996). The goals of schooling can be conceptualized as both complimentary (Dewey 1916) and contradictory to the purposes of youth empowerment. For example, although schools provide an ideal setting for learning about democratic citizenship in an embodied manner (Dewey 1916), schooling practices and curriculum policies have also been associated with limited student and teacher participation, collusion in colonization and assimilation (Duncan-Andrade 2005), and support structures that reinforce and reward student invisibility (Langhout 2005).
In addition, school is an organization that serves young people whose position is largely devoid of power due to sociocultural constructions of childhood (Durand and Lykes 2006). Ambivalence toward children as valuable contributors to society is situated in social and cultural narratives that infantilizes young people and equates childhood with dependency (Davis and Hill 2006; Thomas 2000). Children are perceived as “dependent and recipient” rather than “in[ter]dependent and contributing” to the social capital of their communities (Thomas 2000, p. 198). Indeed, studies have shown the tendency for teachers, especially in primary school, to harbor paternalistic beliefs about children and enact behavior consistent with a caretaker or guardian role, including the habit of listening “for” rather than “with” or “to” students (Bragg 2007). The norms and values that underlie teacher roles are entrenched elements of the school as a system, reinforced and reproduced through ongoing patterns of interaction between students, teachers, administrators, parents, and the community that support the maintenance of such structures (Gee 2000–2001). Teachers who resist the traditional teacher identity sanctioned by the educational institution “risk being seen as eccentric, if not outrageous” (Zembylas 2003, p. 226), and can face recrimination from other teachers, administration, parents, the community, and even students (Robinson 2007).
The above outlined systems, goals, histories, policies, beliefs, and positionalities of the school as an organizational context coalesce to influence the youth empowerment process. Tensions are inevitable in this setting. Indeed, tensions are indicative of the very necessity of youth empowerment agendas because they provide confirmation of the limitations placed on youth participation and voice. Interrogating tensions is necessary, yet much of the literature on youth empowerment and participatory research focuses on tensions that arise between youth and adults, among youth participants themselves, and between the researcher and the researcher-participants. Foregrounding these tensions as interpersonal are important in facilitating a better understanding of relational dynamics that influence the success of the project. The problem, however, lies not in the focus on individuals, but in the lack of consideration for how interpersonal tensions are a product of the broader system. Thus, restricting the analysis to the individual contributes less to a contextual understanding of the structures that shape individual behavior, which constrains the possibilities for a more structural analysis.
The goal of this paper is to move beyond an “us” versus “them” perspective to examine tensions as indicative of institutional forces. Further, this paper aims to situate interpersonal/individual interactions within a network nuanced by the complexities of the social context of the organization of school. An analysis of the organizational context facilitates a more structural analysis and better allows for the examination of second order change because this analysis is where the youth empowerment PAR project and the school have the most contact and so is the place where tensions are likely to be visible (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007).
Our specific research questions are: (a) What tensions surfaced in the attempt to create a school-based yPAR setting conducive to youth empowerment? and similarly (b) With second order change as a goal of the youth empowerment process, where are altered role relationships the most intractable to change, and is there evidence of movement toward second order change within the setting? We aim to utilize tensions to critically analyze both resistance and movement toward second order change within the school-based context in which we operate. For the purposes of this study we are primarily concerned with utilizing one particular element of the ecological model (i.e., the interaction between the yPAR program and the sociocultural setting within which it was nested) to examine tensions, but this was surely not the only area where conflict arose. Yet, because a great deal of attention has already been given to intragroup and interpersonal dynamics in the current literature on yPAR, we argue that an emphasis on the broader context in which these conflicts surface is warranted.
Tensions are likely when values conflict, as well as when pressure is being applied to changing the values of a system (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007). Although many youth empowerment programs, including the one which is the focus of this study, are small in scale (e.g., under 20 participants) and take place in institutions with an overwhelming maze of bureaucracy, policy, and system layers, the goal is structural, second order change. Community psychologists and systems theorists hold that leveraging change in large systems necessitates applied understanding of the “deeper structures” that uphold the larger system (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007; Kelly 2006; Olson and Eoyang 2001). These include the norms, values, beliefs, and customary modes of interaction that characterize everyday actions and activities within a given context. It is alteration in these deep structures, or the underlying beliefs that circumscribe interpersonal interaction, that supports system change. For instance, a change in the assumptions teachers hold about youth initiated through a “small scale” yPAR project can facilitate change beyond the individuals directly involved in the project (Christens et al. 2007; Kelly 2006).
Method
Study Context
This research takes place in an after-school program at Maplewood Elementary School,1 one of three public elementary schools serving Maplewood, a large, unincorporated area in central California. To understand the positionality of Maplewood Elementary School, it is useful to view it within the broader community context of Maplewood. With a resident population exceeding 25,000, Maplewood is the third largest populated area in the county, and is home to a growing Latina/o and immigrant population (Schilling and Hearon 2008). Although the community boasts beautiful beaches, mild weather, and significant social capital among its diverse local residents, it faces unique challenges as an unincorporated area. As such, it experiences a dearth of public resources, community services, and representative local governance. In addition, many residents face economic hardship. Maplewood has a large amount of low income housing, and in 2000, 14.4% of children lived below the poverty line (Schilling and Hearon 2008). Yet Maplewood is unique in that affordable low income housing and high concentrations of mobile home parks are juxtaposed with pockets of great wealth.
Maplewood Elementary School is the second largest elementary school in the district, with approximately 450 students in preschool through 5th grade (California Department of Education 2007). The student body is racially and ethnically diverse, with roughly 62% of the student body identifying as Latina/o, 29% white, 6% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 3% African American. Fifty one percent are designated as English learners, and most of these 222 students speak primarily Spanish at home. In addition, 78% of the students are considered low income (compared to 49% county wide), meaning that their total family income falls below $34,873. Yet the median household income for the area is over $60,000, and the median home value is nearly $480,000 (Yahoo Real Estate 2008).
The after-school program is facilitated by the Maplewood Participatory Action Research team (MPAR). At the time data were gathered, members of the team included a faculty member, graduate student, and four undergraduate research assistants, all of whom worked in or attended a local public university. Three members of the research team self-identify as white, one as Filipina, one as Chicana, and one as mixed race. In addition, one of the fifth grade teachers, a white woman, was also present at each session, and was involved in planning the weekly lessons by recommending developmentally appropriate teaching strategies and providing feedback after each session.
The teacher involved in the program, as well as the principal of Maplewood Elementary School, are members of a local grassroots organization that advocates for structural community change and social justice. This organization is an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), begun by Saul Alinsky, and is comprised of organizations and faith-based groups in the surrounding counties actively engaged in community-based organizing efforts to improve Maplewood and the broader region. The IAF asserts that its principal purpose is to empower people and communities with the power to take action for social change (Industrial Areas Foundation 2008). The IAF does not claim any particular ideological stance, but admits that it is explicitly political, and aims to organize institutions such as schools, faith-based groups, neighborhood groups, and community centers to mobilize for social justice. In addition, the IAF endorses second-order change as its primary vehicle for justice by advocating for renewed and restructured relationships among members of society. It is noteworthy that the school faculty and administrator involved in the after-school program are engaged in local organizing efforts because it implies that they endorse radical change efforts, in this case youth participation. Their membership is likely a significant reason that MPAR was and continues to be able to implement a project such as the one described in this study at a public elementary school.
Background
In 2006, the faculty member of the research team partnered with Maplewood Elementary School to determine how to best serve as a resource to the community. The principal, a teacher, a support staff member, and the university faculty member decided that MPAR could act as a resource to the school by teaching students about action research. It was determined that students would participate in designing, researching, and implementing actions to address problems they identified at their school. In the Spring of 2007, MPAR began to pilot a school-based action research curriculum in which the members of student council met biweekly during lunch to learn about and undertake a research project. The following year the program was modified to ensure the inclusion of a more diverse group of students, allow more time for lessons, and allocate more time to sessions over the course of the Winter and Spring quarters. This curriculum was revised based on feedback from the pilot year and was implemented in Winter of 2008. Although this paper focuses exclusively on data gathered during the first year of the full implementation of the program, the ecological model that serves as the theoretical foundation for the program presumes long-term engagement. As community social psychologists committed to a long-term, accountable relationship with the community of Maplewood, the yPAR program has continued to the present day, and based on the mutual interests of stakeholders involved, this program is anticipated to continue well into the future. It should also be noted that empowerment is a process that is theorized to take an extended period of time to develop (Kieffer 1984). Just as the “deep structures” that make up a system develop over a very long period of time, restructuring role relationships in ways that are sustainable will likely also involve a lengthy process.
The students involved in the yPAR program met for 1 h each week where they learned about and participated in research design and methodology, developed a problem definition, designed and implemented actions to address the problems they identified, and gave scholarly presentations. A particular focus was identifying and exploring root causes of problems they determined in their school community, and on designing actions to target those underlying issues. Weekly meetings consisted of an array of activities from mastering concrete skills (e.g., learning data collection and analysis methods, oral presentation skills, PowerPoint software, interviewing skills, etc.), to engaging in critical discussions about power in schools, to brainstorming ways for the school environment to be more responsive to student needs. Given the long-term nature of the program and the empowerment process, the focus of the first year was primarily on problem definition and analysis, as this is a necessary starting point for later action. Research suggests that the successful implementation of change initiatives rests partly on the perceived legitimacy of the change agents (Hollander 1958; Lewin 1945/1996). Because the legitimacy of youth as contributors to social change is historically contested, a focus on skill building, knowledge, and critical consciousness is a strategic method for laying a foundation that prepares youth to operate successfully in a system that questions their right and ability to participate. Indeed, youth who are well-prepared to navigate systems of power (e.g., through preparation, skill development, knowledge development, etc.) are perceived as more legitimate participants in decision making (Huebner 1998). In fact, failing to do so may risk reinscribing assumptions about the inability of youth to critically engage in decision making processes (Camino and Zeldin 2002; Huebner 1998).
In addition to increasing student participation and involvement in school issues, an overarching goal of the after-school program was to create an empowering setting for students, in which the boundaries of participation and action among members of the community (adults, teachers, principal and students) were destabilized, facilitating second-order change. An increased awareness of the potentially mutable nature of power, and therefore power asymmetries can facilitate a more socially just environment because it makes visible that which is often rendered invisible. This process falls in line with the five stage theory of sociopolitical development put forth by Watts et al. (1999). In developing critical consciousness, stakeholders are able to harness an increasing awareness of how power works in constructing new efficacious, agentic self-definitions. This cognitive process in turn lays the foundation for transformative actions of stakeholders within their environment. Thus, second-order change can begin to happen with praxis, or the junction of thought, reflection, and action, as students develop a growing consciousness regarding their roles as change agents in the decisions that affect their lives within their school community. Heightened scrutiny of how power works can also bring more attention to artificial asymmetries, thereby sparking a process whereby subordinated groups begin to demand a change in the boundaries of their participation, thus increasing their access to control over the resources that affect their lives (Dworski-Roggs and Langhout 2010). Our goal of transformative, sustainable change is unlikely to occur in the first year of the program's implementation, although we have witnessed early evidence of movement in this direction.
Participants
One of the recruitment goals for this program was to engage a group of students who represented a broad and diverse range of interests and backgrounds in relation to the school. Our rationale was that this kind of program would be perceived as inclusive of many student interests, rather than just the group for the “smart kids” or the “student council kids,” and would therefore be more legitimate to the student body as a whole. To recruit participants for the after-school program, the research team gave presentations to all three fifth grade classrooms at Maplewood Elementary School, in which a brief description of the program was presented to generate student interest. The program was described as an opportunity to learn more about social science to make a positive change in their school. Students filled out “application” forms to indicate their interest in participating. Fifty-seven students were interested in joining the program. Because the program could only accommodate 15–20 students, the following week the 5th grade teachers asked the 57 students whether they were still interested in participating. Information packets and informed consent forms were handed out to each of the 28 students who indicated they were still interested in participating, and additional copies were mailed home to facilitate the ease and likelihood of receiving completed forms. A total of 17 signed consent forms were returned. Of these 17 participants, 11 (65%) were female, 15 (88%) were Latina/o and 2 (12%) were biracial. The average age of the participants was 10 years. Roughly 75% of the children also attended ASES, which is a state-wide after-school program that serves mostly low-income students who have been labeled as academically behind. The teacher who helped facilitate the sessions described the students who chose to be in the program as not only the “top” high achieving students, but also the “harder kids, not the top students.” At least one participant was a new student to the school who had recently immigrated from Mexico, whereas several others had attended Maplewood Elementary since preschool. Two participants were student council members (the treasurer and the president) who were perceived as very involved in school; several others were described by the teacher as “difficult” or “not serious about their studies.”
Data Collection
Data were collected throughout the first year of the after-school program, which included 17 weekly sessions and spanned approximately 5 months. Data include fieldnotes documenting ethnographic observations, a teacher interview, weekly lesson plans and student evaluations. The research team assumed active roles as participant-observers within the weekly after-school program.
Ethnographic Observations
Each member of the research team completed ethnographic fieldnotes following the procedures outlined in Emerson et al. (1995). They contained observations of all participants in the setting, including students, university researchers, the teacher, and other school administrators and staff. Fieldnotes were completed following each weekly after-school session, within 72 hours of contact. Each week 5–6 members of the research team were present in the afterschool setting, which allowed for triangulation of fieldnote data written from multiple perspectives.
Interview
A semi-structured interview was conducted with the teacher involved in the program at the conclusion of the school year. Questions revolved around her experience as an adult facilitator, her unique perspective as both a teacher during school hours and a member of a participatory action research after-school team, her critiques of the program, and suggestions for next year.
As previously stated, this first year of program implementation focused primarily on building a foundation upon which the students themselves could identify, define, and research a problem definition. Although ethnographic data was gathered to document observations of students, teachers, the principal, and other school staff, a formal interview was limited to the teacher involved in the program. Others in the school setting were not directly involved in the yPAR program, and we did not expect that clear and obvious changes had occurred that would be highly visible to others in the setting (e.g., other teachers, administrators, etc.) in the first year. As the program becomes more established within this school and participants move through more visible stages of the research and empowerment process (e.g., planning and implementing interventions, taking action, evaluation, engaging other stakeholders, etc.), we anticipate that interviews with those in the larger setting will be justified.
The interview was transcribed and double checked for accuracy by the primary author. Transcription followed a format consistent with Briggs (1986). Specifically, short pauses were marked with a comma, long pauses with an elipses, and stutters or a change in direction was marked by a dash connected to the last letter of the word or syllable. A single colon denoted a drawn out word (the equivalent of one extra beat), and additional colons were added for words that were drawn for more beats. For short interruptions or overlapping speech, parentheses were included within the sentence and the speaker (“I” for interviewer) was noted. Double slashes (//) denoted longer interruptions. Emphasized or stressed words were typed in all capital letters. Finally, double parentheses denote transcriber's comments.
Data Analytic Techniques
The first step in the data analysis was the collaborative construction of a codebook by the four authors based on the ecological model of youth empowerment described in the introduction (Kohfeldt and Langhout 2010). The codes were generated by outlining and operationalizing the elements of empowering settings as described by the ecological model. The completed codebook consisted of five sections: the broader organizational context, organizational roles, social climate, adult roles, youth involvement, and capacity building, skills, and action. All data were coded using this codebook. A content analysis of the data was conducted to look for elements consistent with the model of empowering youth settings. The data utilized for the purpose of this study consist only of the organizational setting and adult roles sections of the codebook (See Appendix A) because these were the most relevant to analyzing tensions within the organizational framework of the setting.
Utilizing consensus coding (Ahrens 2006; Russell 2000) a total of four coders (three trained graduate students and one professor) were involved in coding the data, with three coders responsible for each piece of data. Two of the coders were insiders, involved in the program the previous year, whereas two were outsiders not involved in the program. One of the outsiders was a former high school teacher. In long-term, engaged research, those researchers present in the setting have a unique and more valid perspective than outsiders who are unfamiliar with the participants and contextual nuances of the setting. Yet outsiders offer a valuable critical perspective to the analysis.
The consensus coding process entailed each person independently coding each piece of data, and then comparing their results. Over the course of about 20 weeks each coder spent roughly 2–4 hours per week coding data independently, and another 3–5 hours per week comparing and discussing these results with the other coders. Coding occurred using an iterative process in which the meeting from the previous week informed the coding in later weeks, and at times this resulted in changes to the codebook for clarity and differentiation. This subsequently entailed the revisiting and recoding of previous weeks' data. The procedure for handling disagreements was to discuss the rationale for the code and try to come to a consensus. If consensus was not reached within five minutes, the issue was tabled and returned to later. Final codes only include those where consensus was reached.
A member-check regarding the results of this study was conducted with three (one male and two females) of the student participants from the yPAR after-school program. The contact information on file for the other student participants was out of date and unfortunately these students could not be reached. The students we were able to reach approved our interpretations of the fieldnotes utilized in this study.
Results and Discussion
Three key areas of tension arose from the contact between the school (the sociocultural context) and the youth empowerment yPAR project. These include challenging assumptions about youth, structural challenges, and conflicting theories of change. Although these tensions can be gleaned from the data as having separate and compounding influence on the empowerment process, they overlap and occur in tandem in these data. They are separated in the following sections for ease of analysis, but they should be taken to represent the complexity of systems that characterize the school setting. These tensions are further delineated through a consideration of constraints upon teachers. Finally, evidence that signals early signs of movement toward second-order change is discussed.
Challenging Assumptions About Youth
Interviewer: How was the decision making process in th- in the after school program different from um, in a typical classroom?
Teacher: It's very different I think because in the, in the school setting work generally the teacher's telling them (I: right) what they can do and what they can't do… so, um even though we discuss why we have rules and all that (I: yeah) basically we only do that on the first day or whatever, and we get right on to (I: yeah) this is the rules and this is what we're gonna do and [because] we have to teach certain standards and you have (I: right) to learn it and there's not a whole lot of leeway on what, how the kids want to learn it because, um, it would probably they'd want to draw a lot and they'd wa- it would be awesome if we had the time and the (I: mhmm) money and we had more computers for each kid and, to do the things that they want to do (I: mhmm) um, but they kind of get left out of a lot of it and (I: yeah), just get told ‘this is what we're doing’ and (I: right) ‘this is how we're doing it,’ and that's how it goes.
As the teacher's response indicates, it is uncommon for students to have a say in how the school day unfolds, where rules are typically created and enforced by adults. The teacher's response is not unusual or shocking given the realities of working in a constraining system where teachers are under pressure to “teach certain standards” within a limited timeframe. The teacher's language use (i.e., “this is what we're doing” and “this is how we're doing it”) shows how the broader system of policies (e.g. the Bush Administration's No Child Left Behind Act and the Obama Administration's Race to the Top Initiative) mandated from above impacts the authority of individual teachers, which influences interactions and norms concerning student decision-making. When teacher performance is constantly connected to students' standardized test scores and when district funding is connected to teacher performance (McNeil 2009), the pressure on teachers to structure their day so as to maximize student performance is enormous. It is noteworthy that excluding students from involvement in decision-making is perceived as the only option in a constricted system. Another possibility, according to Sarason (2004), would be involving students in deciding how their class will run, which could make students more accountable and learning more engaging, thus increasing the likelihood of success in teaching the standards in a timely manner.
So I asked them to come up with 5 reasons that they feel students write their feelings on the bathroom walls…Elena said that you can't write your feelings in class. Maya said that was true because [the teacher] took her diary away one time [when] she brought it to class, and that she wasn't even writing in it but she still took it away and that she was embarrassed. I asked her if she got it back and Maya said that [the teacher] gave it back to her at the end of the day and told her to never bring it back to school. (JM, Fieldnote Week 10)
[The teacher] interrupted, saying loudly that she must insist on no white boards. She explained that we were encouraging the kids to stay in the bathroom and write mean things…She said by putting white boards in the bathroom we are just encouraging them to stay there and draw until they get it perfect. She continued…saying that she believes that no teacher would like the idea, because it is a “really bad idea,” and no teachers will support it. (DK, Fieldnote Week 15)
White boards won't work in elementary school. They probably wouldn't even work in middle or high school. The students are too young to handle that kind of responsibility and would wind up spending time that should be used for class work drawing in the bathroom. (DK Fieldnote, Week 15)
Competence and maturity are clearly tied to age in this rationale. Although it is certainly possible that some students would in fact misuse the white boards, the point here is that the assumptions about youth that operate in this setting served to be powerful enough to exclude children from even participating in a discussion about why this might be so and possible alternatives to white boards. Concerns about time and class work also surface, again illustrating the demands on teachers to teach certain standards without “a whole lot of leeway.”
When contextual norms about how people should interact within a particular setting conflict with a new way of interacting (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007), such as in the case of the yPAR project, dilemmas can arise between listening to youth voices and listening to the voices of other stakeholders. Bragg (2007) asserts that “deciding whose voices are to count is an ethical and highly charged political matter” (p. 510). The intention of youth empowerment projects should be to create a space where youth can lead, where they have more responsibility and control over their boundaries of action, and where they can participate meaningfully rather than tokenistically in decisions about issues that affect them. Because of their position as youth, the students occupy a less powerful status in many social contexts, and this is especially true in schools, where teachers are not just adults, but guardians, gatekeepers, authorities, and disciplinarians. Indeed, adults ultimately do still have veto power within this setting. In addition, the teacher and principal in this particular school benefit from their white skin privilege, which distinguishes them from the students in the program, who are youth of Color. Attending to children's goals can be a strategy in youth empowerment projects, as the research team is permitted to be in the school as long as the school officials allow it. Although we occupy an invited space within the organization, the research team can use their white skin privilege (when salient) and university affiliation privilege to amplify the voices of children.
Structural Challenges
As the yPAR project engaged students in researching their school community, our efforts were sometimes met with structural challenges; these may include limited resources due to budgetary constraints, the concentration of power within the higher echelons of hierarchies, or the formal and informal rules and channels of power that operate at a structural level. Like the other tensions that arose in the setting, structural challenges circumscribed the actions of youth in the program.
[The principal] re-iterated that she did not want the students to focus on negative things this year, but instead wanted them to focus on ways to be more engaged. She said she knew that things were rushed last year and that we ran out of time, but she still wants the kids to be more positive because the negative things can spiral downhill. (RDL, Fieldnote Week 2)
During the previous year's pilot program, the students had used the Photovoice method to take pictures of what they liked and disliked about their school. A common issue they focused on was the school lunches, which they perceived as unhealthy and distasteful. Their pictures showed explicit images of these sentiments (e.g., pretending to vomit the lunch). The principal expressed a preference for the research team to steer the students in a different direction, on ways to “engage” them in school. Although a passionate distaste for the school lunches may have led to students engaging in any number of actions to improve this identified problem, the principal seemed to define engagement in terms of focusing on something positive from the outset.
This fieldnote surfaces a challenge the research team encountered numerous times over the course of the program: the tension between creating a context where the students could determine the direction of their project, and at the same time attending to the goals of other stakeholders involved, such as the principal. The principal represents a formal power within this setting, and the research team and students involved in the program are expected to abide by her preferences given the power conferred to her role within this system.
an examination of power within a system focuses on influence—specifically, who and what influences how resources are distributed, how actions are carried out, and how decisions are made. It also includes an investigation of how individuals and groups gain and leverage the power they hold (p. 209).
[The teacher] said that there was no way that they were going to get white boards in the bathrooms, she didn't care what [the principal] said. The teachers wouldn't support it because she (the teacher) wouldn't support it. She said, ‘Mrs. K says no.’ We need to encourage them to go to the bathroom and come back. She said that this is a difference between me and her. She knows the white board isn't going to happen and therefore we shouldn't waste time talking about it with the kids because it's a non-winnable issue. (RDL, Fieldnote Week 15)
This example tells a deeper story about the hidden, informal power hierarchies at the school. Until this moment the research team had not realized the influence this particular teacher wielded at the school, in terms of the sway she held over group decisions. If the norms, discourses, and formal and informal levers of power within a system dictate its maintenance, then it follows that change agents must know the system in order to effectively facilitate second order change. Therefore, this was important information for the research team because it implied that if this particular teacher is on board with students' agendas, then other teachers may also be likely to support them. In other words, her status within this setting may be strategically leveraged to grant legitimacy to the process in which the youth are engaged.
Conflicting Theories of Change
[The teacher] said that we also need to know that there are some things that the kids can't change, like the wood chips and that this is why [the principal] wants them to have more direction this year in terms of their pictures. The kids need to focus on something that they can change like the bathrooms or getting another playground structure. I said that this is something that's hard with a project like this because we can't really control what they take pictures of. [The teacher] agreed but said that we still need to steer them in the direction of looking at what they can change. (RDL, Fieldnote Week 5)
Teacher: Well creating the world the way we want it to be ((hahaha)), um, I think it does fall in there because the kids are coming together and trying to see you know if they could change things what would they change, and so it does fall in line with what APOC tries to build it from the kids' perspective, and um building leaders from within instead of (I: ok) teachers being the leaders or you guys (I: right) being the leaders (I: right) and saying ok we're gonna do this, (I: ok) making the kids understand that THEY can change (I: mhmm) things themselves, so, if they get together and get organized and follow the right channels and ((laughs)), (I: right, yeah) so that kind of, I mean that's a lot of what APOC does too.
Noah said that he wanted to change the wood chips. I asked why and he said because they hurt. He said that he wished they had the sand back. John agreed. The teacher said that the woodchips are brand new and that it cost a lot of money and that this wasn't going to change and that it was dump trucks upon dump trucks of woodchips. Noah said again that they should have the foam because he gets splinters on his feet when the wood chips get into his shoes. John said that they couldn't change that. The teacher said that there were other things that they could change. (RDL, Fieldnote Week 5)
The teacher's behavior, reinforced by the school administration and staff, which focused on what was winnable, shaped the students' possibilities for action despite the fact that the research team never told the students that they could not focus on changing the woodchips. This vignette also illustrates how the teacher has more influence, and therefore more power, than the university researchers over students and therefore their focus in this school-based context.
Although directing youth toward what is possible within the system may have positive consequences for youth in that they are not disappointed when they find that their goal was indeed unwinnable, this perspective can have serious negative consequences for youth empowerment programs. One consequence is high participant drop out rates as students lose interest and motivation to rally for the concerns of the “facilitator” when their involvement was initially touted as youth-centered (Bragg 2007).
It should also be noted that a focus on critical consciousness, which may include unearthing root causes of problems, examining the reasons why some issues are “unwinnable” within a given system, and utilizing change tactics that have not been “road tested” such as formal channels to complain (e.g., school board meetings), also has flaws. For example, this focus might also postpone action in favor of analysis and dialogue, or change efforts may fail, thus lowering morale of participants and contributing to increased feelings of failure and helplessness (e.g., Fine 1991). Although both theories of change share a common interest in social justice, tensions can surface when trying to enact actions to move toward change.
Constraints on Teachers
It is necessary to include attention to the structure of schools as institutions, as the school structure shapes and informs the actions of people within that setting. The fieldnotes are based on individuals, however, the level of analysis is not only the individual. An ecological model facilitates interpreting the interactions and behaviors of individuals as indicative of the system in which they operate. Other studies that have taken place in schools have shown these types of structural restraints/constraints (e.g., Langhout and Mitchell 2008). If these structures are surfacing in this study, even when the focus was not on the structural constraints on teachers, then paying particular attention to teacher constraints would have likely yielded copious data on this subject.
Researchers interested in youth empowerment cannot assume that students are the only subordinated group within schools. Others in the context (e.g., teachers), as well as the policies and structures that have a hand in shaping every person's experience and interaction, are also relevant. In a social and political climate where teachers feel as though they are being managed (Lasky 2005) and “constantly exposed as having some kind of flaws” (Zembylas 2003 p. 228), the constraints placed upon teachers must be acknowledged and addressed in order to facilitate youth empowerment work within the school setting. Therefore, it seems likely that failing to attend to and address these tensions as indicative of where attention should be focused may result in less empowering settings in the long run (Langhout and Mitchell 2008).
Teacher: Hahaha, money is always a problem with teachers, teacher experience too is the same thing (I: right), um, for instance [the janitor] was just talking to me (I: mhmm) before you came about the recycling (I: yeah), and that we need more bins (I: yeah) and I guess the company charges you after you get ten (I: wow) recycling bins, they charge you (I: for recycling) seven dollars a month (I: wow) for each extra one that you have, that seems ridiculous to me (I: yeah) cuz they don't do that with um regular customers, you know it's FREE to recycle, (I: haha) so I was kind of shocked by that ((laughs)) (I: yeah), that kind of stuff, it makes you want to (I: yeah), yeah, go talk to somebody or write a letter or something (I: yeah) you know, why are the schools getting charged for recycling (I: right) that doesn't seem right…things that involve money like the recycling thing, it won't get resolved unless some, somebody says yeah we'll pay the extra for (I: yeah) that ((laughs)) you know, or the company waves the fee or something (I: yeah), I don't know, so, (I: mmm ok) you get a little frustrated with that (I: ok), all of us ((laughs)), yeah.
Other issues that surfaced in the data included one white male teacher telling students who were interested in creating a student break table in the back of the classroom, “I can't take a break…I have to work;” in response to students raising the issue of the dilapidated student bathrooms another teacher stated “the teachers don't have a nice bathroom either.” These data show some of the myriad ways structural boundaries located within the system of the school work to complicate the youth empowerment process. Time pressures, lack of resources, and the management of excessive responsibilities, such as those highlighted here, are representative of a system that rewards teachers for abiding by mandates, and simultaneously poses a challenge to their autonomy to change the existing norms.
Working Toward Second Order Change
Because systems are upheld by the normative beliefs, values, and assumptions of those who inhabit them and structures are reproduced through behavior, shifting dominant norms within a system is necessary for second order change to occur. In fact, sustainable second order change can take hold within a particular system context “only by altering the underlying beliefs and values that direct daily practices and behaviors” (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007, p. 205).
Well I thought, over the summer I thought it was funny ‘cause I thought about the time when I got a little bit angry at one, one meeting because the kids wanted to put white boards in the (I: oh right) bathrooms (I: mhmm) and I was sitting here going ‘there's just no way we're gonna allow that (I: uhuh), I don't care if [the principal] says it's’, you know the teachers would have a fit (I: right) if they go in there and have white boards ‘cause they would waste time, and we just want them to go to the bathroom and come back you know (I: mhmm), but then what I was, what I heard [the professor] say afterwards was that she was trying to get the KIDS to that point (I: yeah), to where they could see my side (I: right) of it, all by themselves without me jumping in there (I: right) and I thought a lot about that afterwards (I: ok) and that it was really good for me to say yeah they probably would have come to that decision if I would have just shut up, hahaha…I mean you know, I heard, like Noah was talking about, you know, we could do this and this but then he was thinking that that wouldn't work (I: yeah) you could see it in his little head, like the wheels were turning, and that was the whole point of the program (I: right) was to get the kids to think (I: hahaha) and so I felt really kind of like, oh:, you know (I: right) I could see my side but I could see you guys were doing a better job of helping the KIDS understand it too (I: hahaha), so there you go, I wanted to say that, haha.
The teacher recognized the assumption she had made about the students' inability to empathize with her perspective. In hindsight she expressed that she should have allowed the students the opportunity to participate more fully in the decision making process by providing space for dialogue and critical thinking. Taking into account the considerable power this particular teacher holds in relation to the other teachers and even the principal at the school, this shift in perspective may have substantial influence over beginning to change some of the assumptions about youth that underlie their exclusion from participating in most decisions in school.
[The principal] started off by saying that she was “so impressed” with the quality of the presentations, and with the hard work the kids had put into all of it. She said that she was taking notes at first, but had stopped because she really wanted to listen to the presentations…She said, “one day someone's going to ask you how you became such a leader, and you'll realize that it started right here.” (DK, Fieldnote Week 14)
As this fieldnote demonstrates, the principal in this school was interested and willing to listen to the perspectives of children. Additionally, she was engaged in their presentation. This fact speaks to the possibilities for second order change in this setting because a first step in the youth empowerment process is an openness to listening to the ideas, concerns and recommendations of youth. An unwillingness to do so precludes their authentic participation in decision-making about issues that affect them. In addition to listening to the students the principal acknowledged their contribution to the school and their positions as “leaders” within the school, not only listening to them but validating their effort.
[The principal] asked the kids if there were some actions that they felt were more important than others, things that they might be able to still implement this year so that the current 5th graders will be able to enjoy it. She said that some things could be implemented now, because they were just a matter of material resources like money, and some things would take more time because they are a process, like feeling like the school is theirs… Andy started to talk about fund raising ideas for the materials, and [the principal] told him that the school has some money that could go toward their ideas. The teacher mentioned that student council could also vote on whether they would like to donate some money as well…[The principal] had been writing down their answers to which actions they felt were the most important, and asked if there was something she could have with all of them written down. The professor gave her the folder we had prepared with all of the actions in it. (DK, Fieldnote Week 14)
The students not only presented their recommendations for actions to take to address the problems they identified in their school, they also requested a response from the principal indicating whether they had permission to proceed on the actions, as well as a deadline for this response. As demonstrated in the fieldnote, the principal did indeed respond to their action plan. Following their timeline, she also read through their suggested actions and responded in detail about which actions they could initiate. This illustrates a change in the typical operation of schooling, in which adults set deadlines for children. Clearly, the consequences for students who fail to meet deadlines set by teachers are very different than those this principal would have faced, but the shift in these roles can begin to challenge the norms and discourses that dictate who has a right to determine what issues are important and the timeline on which they should be addressed.
In addition to their formal presentation to the principal, the students also presented their research findings and interventions at a school-wide assembly at the end of the school year. The focus of school-wide assemblies is typically arranged by adult coordinators, with some students (usually student council members) selected to act as master of ceremonies or co-hosts. Not only did this presentation alter the standard flow of these gatherings, it also represented the allocation of institutional resources the students had identified as valuable, namely the time and space for them to share their story in a public venue within the school. The students made their findings and their requested interventions explicit to all in attendance, thereby setting up the expectation that their concerns will be addressed and potentially increasing accountability of other stakeholders. Furthermore, the assembly provided a site where the students themselves defined their concerns, values, and expectations, in essence enabling the surfacing of a self-determined narrative. Control over one's own narrative is a form of voice and power that is an important resource for subordinated groups (Rappaport 1995). In this instance the students expanded the boundaries of their participation within the school setting via altering their role within the school and working to access the resources that affect them.
Yet another action the students decided upon was presenting selected research findings and possible interventions to teachers to discuss how they might be implemented within the classroom. Third through fifth grade teachers were invited to attend this meeting, and five teachers (out of 6 total) attended, listened, and participated in a discussion afterward. Just as during the school-wide assembly and the presentation to the principal, the students again had the floor and articulated their perspectives to other stakeholders within the setting. Once again, the students were accessing roles typically reserved for adults in schools (e.g., that of teacher, knowledge constructor, requestor). After the presentation the students and teachers engaged in a dialogue about how best to implement their suggested interventions, which resulted in collaborative problem solving. As stated earlier, alterations in power can occur through shifts in knowledge production and voice, especially when youth have more say in the policies and practices of the setting. Despite the tensions that arose during the first year of this project, it is important to note that the actions of people who wield considerable power within this institution, namely the principal and the teacher involved in the program, can be interpreted as supportive of the idea of youth empowerment. Indeed, the actions of the principal (i.e., listening to youth, taking notes on their presentation, responding to requests by their deadline, allocating school-wide time and space) explicitly confer legitimacy to these students as change agents in this setting.
Limitations and Implications
This study utilized tensions as a unit of analysis to examine both challenges and successes in a school-based yPAR program. Our findings contribute to a relatively under-examined area of yPAR projects, where tensions are typically framed as interpersonal rather than structural in nature. Yet the current study does have several limitations. We chose to examine tensions related to opposing theories of change, structural constraints, and challenging assumptions about youth, yet this is not an exhaustive list. Due to space constraints it is not possible to give all the tensions that arose the space they warrant, and these also deserve further attention in the literature.
Formal interviews were not conducted with all of the adults in the school setting (e.g., the principal and other teachers). Only the teacher directly involved in the program was interviewed, leaving other adult perspectives unexamined. This was a conscious omission on our part because second order change, or changes in role relationships, is a long and complex process that we expect will take many years to develop. Given the fact that the program was in its infancy at the time these data were collected it is unlikely that changes in the perspectives of those not directly involved in the project would have been evident. In other words, the students had not progressed to the “action” phase of the participatory action research so their engagement was not highly visible to others in the setting. Interviews will be appropriate as the project progresses. On a related note, these data reflect tensions that surfaced early on in a yPAR project, and it would be wise to examine whether and how these tensions transformed or dissipated as time goes on.
Although the results of this study were presented to and checked by three student participants from the program, it was not possible to locate all of the students. A more comprehensive member-check may have provided additional confirmation of the validity of our results.
Finally, this study is based on a yPAR project in one school. As such, it may be inappropriate to generalize the findings to other settings. Yet we have provided sufficient information about the site and participants to allow the reader to adequately evaluate the applicability to other settings. Further research is necessary to document the tensions that arise in other settings and populations implementing youth empowerment efforts. Despite these limitations, this study includes several important implications.
The broader context contours the youth empowerment process, yet the youth empowerment process also shapes the broader setting. Researchers have invited others interested in youth empowerment to ask how the youth empowerment project may affect people and structures outside of the bounds of the project itself (e.g., the participants and the research team; Kohfeldt and Langhout 2010). This study suggests a mutual interaction among those immediately involved in the project and the broader context, which includes not only the people involved, but the social/systemic norms that operate at a deeper level and underlie interactions and behaviors within the organizational setting. This study highlighted tensions around challenging assumptions about youth, structural challenges, and conflicting theories of change that arose in a school-based yPAR program, but also demonstrated movement toward second order change within this setting.
The fact that tensions surfaced at all indicates that the students, guided by the research team, were applying pressure toward second order change because of the subsequent responses. Bragg (2007) states that “[student] voice undoubtedly troubles existing relationships and identities, but it also fosters new ones” (p. 517). The teacher's statement regarding her own false assumptions about youth disrupts the taken for granted beliefs about youth within this school. The adoption of different, more just beliefs about youth can facilitate an openness to greater youth participation, which is an important resource (Clayton and Opotow 2003). This change in perspective entails a change in individual perceptions (e.g., the teacher's statement about allowing space for the students to come to their own conclusions), but it is also a change in power because power is relational, enacted, and denotes having control over one's boundaries of action (Dworski-Roggs and Langhout 2010). When narratives and perceptions shift and new ones replace them, this is also a kind of shift in power, signaling empowerment (Rappaport 1995).
One implication of this research is the importance of examining tensions when aiming to facilitate an empowering setting, as these challenges may be common across settings that are situated within organizations. It is necessary to look beyond tensions as failures and understand them instead as challenges because the very fact that they arise can point toward where role relationships and therefore structures are the most intractable to change, indicating where the most pressure needs to be applied. Tensions can signal the potential for transformation because they not only aid in our understanding of the deeper structures that uphold system maintenance, but can also signify movement toward transformative change (Foster-Fishman et al. 2007).
Other researchers have stressed the importance of taking an ecological perspective in programs that aim to facilitate empowerment (e.g., Kelly 2006). This is especially important when working with youth from subordinated groups (including race and class, e.g. youth of Color, working-class and poor) within an institution that has traditionally failed to serve them as effectively or equitably as majority culture youth (e.g. middle-class, white, suburban) (Yowell and Gordon 1996). In terms of the current research, it is important to take an ecological approach because it facilitates a structural analysis that allows a revelation about where role relationships or structures are the least responsive or receptive to change, and to what resources are the least accessible. This awareness is important because a deeper understanding of the resources that are (not) readily accessible will help researchers to determine how to manage best their approach to changing settings.
This study also illustrates the slow, albeit encouraging, process of youth empowerment programs with the explicit goal of second order change. “Bottom up” processes that target youth as change agents can be slow, yet they can also contribute to social change around higher order “deep structures” because when actions come down from the top they rarely seem to be implemented as intended (e.g., policies and programs that are implemented in ways that are racist, classist, sexist, and in many other ways institutionally oppressive) (Gillborn 2005; Leonardo 2007). As a methodology that facilitates a conversation between people who have the most at stake and are the most knowledgeable about their own lives, and those who create policy, yPAR enables socially just change that is based within people's actual lived experiences. Subsequently, this study also points to a limitation of youth empowerment programs that are short-term in nature.
As Williams (2007) argues, power in PAR projects is not located within the research team only, but “power, as a dynamic and fluid force within the research process, is exercised rather than possessed. While power is exercised in vertical directions (for example, ‘researcher’ over ‘researched’), it is also exercised from the bottom up” (p. 625). Therefore, it is important to remember that the project is not made up of only the “researchers” from the university and the “participants” from the student population, but other actors and stakeholders, such as teachers, parents, principals, and the people, policies, and structures that are often unseen by university researchers but are of influence, nonetheless. As this study illustrates, power is also inherent in the informal and formal power structures of the organization.
Acknowledgments
This paper was supported, in part, by grants to the fourth author from University Community Links, the UC Santa Cruz Social Science Junior Faculty Research Grant program, and the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community. The authors wish to thank Mylene Acosta, Samuel Jain, Mariah Kornbluth, Jessenia Meza, and Jeremy Rosen-Prinz for their assistance with this research. The authors also thank the UCSC Community Psychology Research & Action Team and Professor Craig Haney for their suggestions regarding this manuscript.
See Appendix A
Table 1.
| # | Code | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. Broader organizational context | |||
| 1 | Broader school context | Evidence that reveals the broader school context in which the after-school operates Kids may refer to the fact that they cannot do certain things because they're at school | -A student invites Danielle to the talent show, and Danielle asks the professor if it is ok to attend. (This demonstrates the existence of a set of rules or norms distinct from the after-school program) -A kid tells us that some participants might not show up today because the other after-school program is having a party |
| B. Organizational roles | |||
| 1 | Structural constraints –Informal OR –Formal | Systemic barriers that impede certain actions. Informal constraints are those that are understood by school faculty/students, but not part of the officially sanctioned, written rules | -Teacher explains that he cannot put another table in the classroom because it is already overcrowded -Teacher informs us that the kids cannot change the lunches because that would require permission from higher school officials |
| 2 | Working within structure | Talking about or doing things that get around structural constraints or work within structural constraints. The focus is on what is possible within the limitations of the system | -The teacher says the kids cannot change the lunches, and the professor suggests they could plant a garden |
| 3 | After—school program embedded within, but separate, from school | Talking about or acting in ways that demonstrate that the after school program is connected to but distinct from the school. Kids talk about school structure, including perceptions of power, which may be explicit or implicit Kids may make reference to the fact that they get to do things in the after-school program that they can't do in school | -Kids say that they can talk to their friends and have fun in the after school program and mention that they cannot do this in class |
| C. Adult roles | |||
| 1 | Power Sharing/depowerment OR Not sharing power/No depowerment | Kids are able to help make rules and contribute to setting the agenda for how to use meetings. Kids and adults make decisions that will affect the group together. This refers to authentic, substantive choices, not token choices | -Kids fill out evaluation forms at the end of the meeting in order to inform the agenda for the next meeting -Research team decided on which group kids would be in without their input |
| 2 | Encouraging youth ideas and perspectives OR Ignoring or dismissal of youth ideas and perspectives *If C2, then also C6 | Adults do or do not elicit kids' opinions, ideas, and perspectives on issues. This could mean they are asked to give their perspective, or it could mean an adult is excluding their perspective from consideration. Adults may acknowledge a kid's idea while also engaging them in a discussion about why it might not be realistic | -Research team asks kids to talk about what kinds of things they would change in their school -A kid says she wants to help the janitor clean the bathroom and a teacher says it is a bad idea and she is not allowed to. This ends the conversation |
| 3 | Self-reflexivity | Adults talking about their realization that they have certain assumptions about youth. May talk about changes in their assumptions | -Teacher says that she should let the kids make their own decisions because they are actually capable (self-aware) |
| 4 | Assumptions about Youth -Positive OR -Negative | Adults make comments (stated as fact) that reflect a particular sociocultural assumption about youth, which could be positive or negative | -Danielle states that kids at this age are always energetic -Teacher states that kids will fool around in the bathroom if they have white boards |
| 5 | Connect resources | Adults use knowledge of the system to connect kids to people or things (resources) they might not have had access to. This can include material resources like money or supplies and structural resources like access to people or institutions | -Teacher arranges a student presentation in from of the whole school -The professor mentions that we have some money kids could use for their actions |
| 6 | Facilitation | Adults help kids think through issues by asking questions, suggesting ideas, and/or managing discussions by making sure people have a chance to speak (managing group dynamics). Helping students think critically through issues. It should be related to the substance of the project | -Kids have difficulty answering a question so Danielle asks it in a different way -All of the kids were talking at once so the professor reminds them that their rule was that only one person speaks at a time |
