Allies Within and Without

Abstract

Most research on youth subordination and age inequality focuses on macrolevel institutions, ideologies, and discourses. While important, this macrolevel focus mystifies the ways in which young people themselves conceptualize and negotiate ageism. This article examines how adolescents collectively experience, politicize, and respond to ageism as they become active in educational justice and antiwar movements. Based on comparative ethnographic research with youth movement organizations in Portland, Oregon and Oakland, California, the author argues that adolescents' politicized understandings of ageism profoundly shape their social movement strategies. Furthermore, these understandings of ageism are rooted in young people's race and class social locations, and stand in relationship to social movement legacies. The divergent ways in which white, middle-class youth activists and young working-class activists of color collectively experience, interpret, and respond to ageism reveal the extent to which age inequality operates in conjunction with other systems of power and privilege.

Unraveling the Complexity of Critical Consciousness, Political Efficacy, and Political Action Among Marginalized Adolescents

“…Westheimer and Kahne (2004) found that critically conscious urban youth expressed a commitment to a distinct form of citizenship, such that adolescents exhibiting greater levels of critical reflection (i.e., were more aware of perceived social inequalities) are more committed to activism than to conventional political action. Ethnographies also suggest that adolescent activists with greater perceptions of societal inequities are more committed to social action participation than conventional political participation (Gordon, 2007;Taft, 2006). Finally, greater levels of CC-although in this case reflecting an undifferentiated conception of critical reflection and action-were not predictive of marginalized youth's conventional political participation (Diemer, 2012).…”

“…Critical action refers to participation in individual or collective action to produce social change (Godfrey & Grayman, 2014). Protest, or collective action taken to draw attention to an issue or to protest perceived injustice, is an archetypal form of critical action (Gordon, 2007;Taft, 2006;Watts & Flanagan, 2007) that is examined in this research. (For clarity, this construct is referred to as critical action: protest from this point forward.…”

“…The highest level of education that each participant's mother attained was used to measure social class. Maternal education is also a marker of social inclusion and access to social and cultural capital among the more privileged social classes (Diemer et al, 2013) that is predictive of political participation (American Political Science Association, Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy, 2004; Gordon, 2007). Only participants whose mothers' highest level of educational attainment was post-high school vocational training or enrolling in some postsecondary courses, but not completing a bachelor's degree, were selected to represent poor and working class status.…”

“…This yields a more precise and nuanced portrait of how different aspects of CC may be associated with different forms of civic and political action among marginalized youth. In contrast, previous research has relied upon an undifferentiated conceptualization of CC that blends its critical reflection and critical action dimensions (Diemer, 2012;Gordon, 2007;Taft, 2006) or only examines one component in isolation (e.g., critical action in Diemer & Li, 2011). This clouds our understanding of how distinct CC components, as well as distinctions among the subcomponents of critical reflection, may be predictive of different forms of civic and political action among marginalized adolescents.…”

Learning to Think Politically: Toward More Complete Disciplinary Knowledge in Civics and Government Courses

“…Undergraduates, who are of voting age, have more opportunities to become engaged in the political process. The majority of Mr. Monroe's students were at least 2 years from being able to vote, and although research suggests that Downloaded by [University of Colorado -Health Science Library] at 03:41 31 March 2015 adolescents can become involved in the political process (e.g., Diemer & Li, 2011;Gordon, 2007), the opportunities are fewer, and access to the political arena is often more difficult for K-12 students than for adults. Future research is needed to determine whether a greater disciplinary focus in high school civics classes leads to greater political engagement, both as adolescents and as young adults.…”