Clark University
The challenge of youth development in the U.S. is indeed difficult. Youth in particular are faced with an array of contradictory messages about themselves and their generation. Youth are at once burdens on the society and the hope of the future. They are criticized for their apathy, but they are given few social responsibilities. They are supposed to conform to adult expectations, but their opportunities for decision-making are limited by many social practices. Regardless of competence, youth are constructed in our society as immature and manipulable for the purposes of development.
There is, however, another way of responding to youth. Youth can be respected by adults as resources to and collaborators in their communities. In taking youth as resources as a new metaphor for relating to and understanding youth as resources to the community, the question of youth development becomes less one of how to preserve the social order but rather of how to involve youth in changing the social order. Youth can contribute to social progress and to community change, because they can take responsibility as members of a community and can participate in public debate. In fact, a good deal of psychological research supports understanding youth in this way (Goodman, 1970). In fact, Kurth-Schai (1988) writes, youth "possess an unparalled potential to catalyze positive social change through the development and expression of diverse, exploratory, and optimistic images of future societies" (p.120).
The task of supporting youth development, of providing adult guidance in a framework of respect for the potential contributions of youth to social change in communities, requires adults to support youth in a different way from dominant discourses that emphasize control and remediation. The task of youth development is transformed into a project to assist youth in "the development of increasingly complex, creative, and socially-oriented self-definitions" (Kurth-Schai, 1988, p.124). In school and in other community settings, youth can and should, according to this view, be
encouraged to assume more active and discretionary
roles in shaping their educational experience, in
sharing the results of that experience with peers and
adults, and in generating and applying new knowledge
to benefit themselves and society. (Kurth-Schai, 1988, p.124)
Youth organizations are an important context for providing such active roles for youth. One of the most important frameworks for structuring such opportunities is through power-sharing. Power-sharing means that there is a conscious effort in many organizations to include youth in decision-making at all levels of the organization: planning, implementation, and even evaluation of programs (Lofquist, 1983). This level of inclusion has been particularly apparent in "alternatives" for youth in cities: so-called "midnight basketball," theater groups, art collectives, youth retreats, conferences, and speak-outs. In some cases, it has been elevated to state prevention policy. In Massachusetts, for example, The Department of Public Health demands that
Involvement of key community leaders from all
segments of the community is essential to alcohol,
tobacco, and other drug prevention efforts. An
effective prevention effort seeks the active
participation and involvement of all community
systems. These systems include parents, teachers,
school administrators, youth, local businesses,
health providers, churches, and local government.
They must be involved in the actual planning and
implementation of prevention programs and activities.
(MA Department of Public Health, 1994, p.19)
Recent sociocultural research by Heath & McLaughlin (1993) has pointed to the transformation effected when youth are included in planning in youth organizations. The sense of self that develops, they note, is a relational sense of self based on building relationships with others to create networks of support. Youth organizations nurture this process by sponsoring groups of youth involved in different activities, ranging from peer tutoring, peer counseling, and event planning. These groups are important to youth because in them "youth come together...to remind each others that they have futures in spite of what they see going on around them with their parents and their friends" (Heath & McLaughlin, 1993, p.32). In working on projects together, they come as well to develop a sense of competence and self-efficacy, while developing a common language to speak about their experiences.
In providing such active roles for youth and their peers in supporting one another through making their own decisions, it is not always clear, either in theory or in practice, what the role of adults in youth organizations ought to be. On the one hand, adults are to avoid making decisions for youth but must allow youth to make mistakes, learn from them, and continue to make their own decisions. On the other hand, backing off and disappearing from the scene is not a viable alternatives for adults who are paid to work with youth in these organizations. A different model, however, is needed, that highlights both aspects of the sociocultural processes involved in structuring these organizations and the concrete activities of care provided by individual staff.
In order to consider the outlines of such a model, I will consider ethnographic evidence from a youth conference called YouthPower. The YouthPower conference is an annual event that takes place in the summer in a mid-sized New England city. It is year-round, in that it involves youth in planning, implementing, and in some cases evaluating the conference. As a youth-organization, its sponsor, the Massachusetts Prevention Center, attempts to model power-sharing among adults, while providing strategic assistance to youth in their own development.
The first way in which YouthPower structures activities with youth is as a planning meeting. Planning meetings are a frequent form for decision-making practices in a variety of organizational settings and are used by highly structured and small grass-roots groups alike. They are an example of group gathersings that characterize what social psychologists sometimes call "action-oriented" groups, in that they are oriented toward defining a set of objectives and completing a set of tasks that are designed to accomplish those objectives (Auvine, Densmore, Extrom, Poole, & Shanklin, 1978).
Of particular significance for adult guidance in YouthPower is the way in which planning meetings as an activity form are egalitarian. In even the most hierarchical of planning meetings, every member both has the right and responsibility to contribute or assent by silence to what is planned. In planning meetings, "each member has something to contribute to the group and is provided a fair opportunity to do so" (Auvine et al., 1978, p.2). In planning meetings at Youth power, meetings are democratic-- or in Kurth- Schai's (1988) terms "youth-directed"--in that the agendas are decided by a team that includes youth and adults; decisions are made during the course of the meetings by members present; and when conflict arises on issues, it is typically resolved by argument rather than by the coordinator's assertion of authority.
The planning meeting practice positions participants--both youth and adults--in roles where they must advocate to the group for their view or proposal. In assisting youth in planning, adults have the opportunity to guide youth within a participant structure (Philips, 1983) quite different from that of school; here, there role is more collaborative. Just as with younger children, adults assisting youth in planning tasks form a kind of "problem- solving system" that supports the development of higher mental functioning (Wertsch, McNamee, McLane, & Budwig, 1980; see also Rogoff, 1990). In addition, the democratic structure makes possible youth questioning, arguing, and evaluating adult responses, where in school these activities are subsumed under the teacher's ongoing work to maintain authority within the classroom.
The particular way in which care is shown in planning activities, however, is essential to understanding why youth are motivated to come to planning meetings. The coordinator of YouthPower herself is an energetic and enthusiastic member of the planning team. While her voice is clearly heard within the meetings, she demonstrates her respect and care for youth by building relationships with them and by providing them access to local and state recognition for their activities. The coordinator herself assists youth with advice on getting jobs and by listening to youth tell about experiences that might in fact be far from her own experience as a youth. In this way, coming to a planning meeting for youth becomes a scene that is youth-friendly. Meetings themselves are often chaotic and informal, and just enough structure exists to accomplish whatever task is at hand. Humor, messing around, and disorder are cultivated, so that the peers can relate freely with one another while accomplishing the task of planning the conference. Adults present must (and sometimes successfully do) trust that the task of planning the conference will be achieved.
Adults must also orient themselves to being in the position of having to argue for their views in a setting where youth make important decisions about the planning process. Argument, I argue, is a second important way in which the activities of YouthPower are structured. The fact that adults must justify their views to youth means that they must, in a sense appeal to youth's motivations, interests, and values. In making such appeals, adults are "constructing" youth as having these values and interests, a process in rhetoric sometimes called "identification" (Burke, 1989). Furthermore, adults position themselves alongside youth, identifying "themselves with the opinions and values of their audiences" (Billig, 1987, p.194). In that way, adults making arguments in YouthPower meetings, as all orators,
identify with the audience, [and] part of the
orator's self is bound up with, or deliberately
portrayed as being bound up with, the communalitof the hearers. (Billig, 1987, p.234)
It is in this way, I argue here, that youth and adults come into a genuine relationship in which adults can support youth in developing a healthy sense of self. While the guidance is not "direct," in fact it is no less persuasive. The persuasion involved, however, requires adults to join youth in their own struggles rather than defining solutions ahead of time.
In YouthPower, the particular way adults argue supports the development of youth in the direction of openness to new relationships with other youth and of leadership in their communities. One Latino adult leader, in arguing a point in a meeting, stresses the importance to youth of including an activity because it is an "opportunity to meet other peer groups." These groups are of importance to the youth because they have "faced issues" like racism and homophobia, similar issues to those confronted in their own group. Furthermore, networking with other youth leaders is put forth as an ideal way to improve one's own service. Arguments like this support the development not only of relationship building among peers, but also between adults and youth as engaged in a joint planning activity. In this way, the particular way that adults argue within YouthPower supports the kind of positive sense of self typical of successful youth organizations.
It is important to consider both the way in which YouthPower both provides a structure, borrowed using various "cultural tools" that are well- suited for the task of providing youth with opportunities for decision- making and voice, and the way in which it provides concrete care in the form of individual actions as necessary for successful adult guidance. Both structure and the individual instantiation of that structure in particular settings combine in succesful organizations to provide the right setting of safety and respect for youth to develop. In YouthPower's case, it is both the democratic planning structure and the particular way in which meetings are made to be "youth-friendly" that make it a success. Similarly, it is the content of arguments made by respected adults that makes a difference, as well as the structure that requires adults to make arguments in their planning activities, that accounts for YouthPower's effectiveness.
In the end, moreover, it is what youth make of adults' contributions to the planning process that provide insight into the success of particular projects. It is not, in this case, simply because individual mastery is the telos of youth development, but because youth development is an important avenue toward the transformation of community. As Erikson wrote (1968), it is youth's own decisions about what to take from their parents' generation that forms the shape of the new community, the new society, and the new world.
Auvine, Densmore, Extrom, Poole, & Shanklin. (1978).
Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Burke, K. (1989). On symbols and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton.
Goodman, . (1970).
Heath, S.B. & McLaughlin, M. (1993). Introduction. In S.B. Heath & M. McLaughlin, eds., Identity and inner city youth. New York: Teacher's College Press.
Kurth-Schai, R.A. (1988). The role of youth in society: A reconceptualization.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.
Lofquist, W. (1983). Discovering the meaning of prevention. Boulder: Associates for Youth Development.
MA Department of Public Health. (1994). A framework for prevention. Boston: The Massachusetts Department of Public
Health. Philips, S. (1983). Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. New York: Oxford University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J.V. (1979). From social interaction to higher mental functioning. Human Development.
Wertsch, J.V., McLane, McNamee, Budwig, N.M. (19 ).