An Exploration of Young People's Experiences with Status and Power

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

An Exploration of Young People's Experiences with Status and Power University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Spring August 2014 On Being and Becoming: An Exploration of Young People’s Experiences with Status and Power Keri L. DeJong University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Other Education Commons Recommended Citation DeJong, Keri L., "On Being and Becoming: An Exploration of Young People’s Experiences with Status and Power" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 71. https://doi.org/10.7275/9zvb-3c13 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/71 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. On Being and Becoming: An Exploration of Young People’s Experiences with Status and Power A Dissertation Presented by KERI L. DEJONG Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION May 2014 College of Education Social Justice Education © Copyright by Keri L. DeJong 2014 All Rights Reserved On Being and Becoming: An Exploration of Young People’s Experiences with Status and Power A Dissertation Presented by KERI L. DEJONG Approved as to style and content by: __________________________________ Barbara J. Love, Chair __________________________________ Ximena Zúñiga, Member _________________________________ Patrick Mensah, Member ______________________________ Christine McCormick, Dean College of Education ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to my Dissertation Committee. To Dr. Barbara Love, you believed in me before I was able to believe in myself. I am so grateful for your guidance, imagination, hard work, commitment to young people, to healing, and to human liberation. Your powerful scholarship and praxis continue to inspire me and inform all of my work. To Dr. Ximena Zúñiga, thank you for challenging me to think about myself as a researcher and for being able to find organization in what felt like sheer literature review chaos. Thank you for also believing in me and for reminding me that when things get stressful, silliness is an excellent coping strategy. To Dr. Patrick Mensah, thank you for your thoughtful treatment of this dissertation. I appreciate your commitment to the integrity of this work. To my nieces, Jacoba Sage and Jasmine Rose, and to my nephew, Nicolas Bair, I dedicate this dissertation to you. I have learned so much about myself getting to be your Auntie Hachoo. Thank you for showing me what’s hard, complicated, sweet, and powerful about your lives. I’m all yours, forever. To my sister, Kimberly De Jong, thank you for being willing to share your struggles, triumphs, and excellent sense of humor with me and for being excited about this work. To my mom, Joanne Feenstra, thank you for your hard work, your commitment to our survival, and your willingness to take a different path from the one that had been carved out for you. You are amazing. To everyone in the Social Justice Education program, past, present, and future, thank you for including adultism/youth oppression in your own social justice work. Thank you, Maurianne Adams and Bailey Jackson, for challenging me to think differently about how to present the issues of adultism. Thank you, Carla Wojczuk and iv Julian Rowand, for dreaming with me, reading drafts, and for encouraging me to explore and include bodies of theory that were new to me. Thank you, Joanna Kent Katz, for cheering me on, for celebrating milestones with sweet notes and new earrings, and for reading my work and listening to my thinking. To Elaine Brigham and Diane Fedorchak, thank you for being my home-away-from-home and for living this work all summer long and for finding new ways to be in relationships with young people that inspire me! Thank you to Jen Daigle-Matos, Ojae Beale, Chase Catalano, Rachel Wagner, Christopher Hughbanks, Tyson Rose, Tommy Thompson, Amy Calandrella, Ananda Timpane, Beth Mattison, Romina Pacheco, Christopher Hamilton, Lisa Wall, and Emily Pritchard for all of your very important contributions to this work. Your friendship, support, challenge, and good thinking have been invaluable. To Nini Hayes, Molly Keehn, and Dre Domingue, thank you for keeping me company on writing dates and making dissertating fun. Also thank you to Tanya Williams, Teeomm Williams, Rani Varghese, Mike Funk, and Marcella Runnell-Hall for showing me how it’s done! And of course, to my editor, Elaine Whitlock, thank you for the challenges, the coaching, and the much needed encouragement. I am deeply grateful for the work and thinking of Yasmina Mattison who has presented sections of this research with me and has been an inspired, knowledgeable, and courageous consultant. Thank you to the students in my Exploring Youth Oppression class at Hampshire College for our thought-provoking discussions on adultism and youth oppression. Thank you to the participants of this study, who have made this work possible. I express my deepest gratitude for your gift of sharing your stories with me. v And finally, to Kris Baker, thank you for being a complete and total love and for seeing me through both the joyful and challenging parts of this process. I love you! vi ABSTRACT ON BEING AND BECOMING: AN EXPLORATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCES WITH STATUS AND POWER MAY 2014 KERI L. DEJONG, B.S., COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY M.Ed., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ed.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by Professor Emerita Barbara J. Love The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand how young people in a high school and a community-based setting experience status and power related to age. This study assumes that discourses of childhood are constructed with a socio-political purpose. Literature from Critical Youth Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Feminist Theory, and Social Justice Education provide the theoretical and conceptual foundations. This research expands social justice education literature to include adultism/youth oppression as a social justice issue, centering the voices and experiences of those targeted by youth oppression. Research questions explored 1) what information young people encounter on a daily basis that communicates age as a form of status, 2) the impacts of young people’s status related to age, and 3) ways in which young people see themselves exercising power. Through thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) of structured group and pair interviews, this study explores the thinking and critiques of a diverse group of fourteen young people about the period of childhood Findings suggest that participants regularly navigated negative beliefs about young people that were pervasive at interpersonal, cultural, and institutional levels. These beliefs often characterize young people as vii irresponsible, disrespectful, lazy, apathetic, and spoiled. Participants’ challenges were often trivialized or dismissed by adults on the basis of popular understandings that young people are immature, developmentally incomplete, and overly dramatic. Participants described navigating a harmful double standard of respect and a lack of supportive, equitable relationships with adults in a range of reported interactions. Some participants described “giving-up” as a strategy to maintain peace with adults, and forms of economic and political exclusion that kept them from challenging or changing their status. Other participants discussed ways they see “other” young people exercise power while acknowledging their own experience of powerlessness. Many participants described leadership opportunities as “charades of empowerment” that were limited and controlled by adults. This study concludes that young people’s status indicates oppression and that young people’s knowledge should be included in social justice praxis. The suggestions of participants and data analysis revealed nine specific strategies that adults can implement to support more equitable partnerships between young people and adults. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................ iv ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... xv LIST OF FIGURES .....................................................................................................xvi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................1 Problem Statement ..............................................................................................6 Statement of Purpose ..........................................................................................7 Rationale .............................................................................................................7 Significance for the Researcher ...........................................................................9 Significance for Social Justice Education .......................................................... 11 Research Questions ..........................................................................................
Recommended publications
  • CRITICAL THEORY and AUTHORITARIAN POPULISM Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism
    CDSMS EDITED BY JEREMIAH MORELOCK CRITICAL THEORY AND AUTHORITARIAN POPULISM Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism edited by Jeremiah Morelock Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies Series Editor: Christian Fuchs The peer-reviewed book series edited by Christian Fuchs publishes books that critically study the role of the internet and digital and social media in society. Titles analyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theory discussing the political relevance and implications of studied topics. The series is a theoretical forum for in- ternet and social media research for books using methods and theories that challenge digital positivism; it also seeks to explore digital media ethics grounded in critical social theories and philosophy. Editorial Board Thomas Allmer, Mark Andrejevic, Miriyam Aouragh, Charles Brown, Eran Fisher, Peter Goodwin, Jonathan Hardy, Kylie Jarrett, Anastasia Kavada, Maria Michalis, Stefania Milan, Vincent Mosco, Jack Qiu, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Marisol Sandoval, Se- bastian Sevignani, Pieter Verdegem Published Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet Christian Fuchs https://doi.org/10.16997/book1 Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism Mariano Zukerfeld https://doi.org/10.16997/book3 Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy Trevor Garrison Smith https://doi.org/10.16997/book5 Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare Scott Timcke https://doi.org/10.16997/book6 The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism Edited by Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano https://doi.org/10.16997/book11 The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies Annika Richterich https://doi.org/10.16997/book14 Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation Kane X.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Critical Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, and Radical Democracy at the Turn
    Critical Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, and Radical Democracy at the Turn of the Millennium: Reflections on the Work of Henry Giroux By Douglas Kellner (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/) After publishing a series of books that many recognize as major works on contemporary education and critical pedagogy, Henry Giroux turned to cultural studies in the late 1980s to enrich education with expanded conceptions of pedagogy and literacy.1 This cultural turn is animated by the hope to reconstruct schooling with critical perspectives that can help us to better understand and transform contemporary culture and society in the contemporary era. Giroux provides cultural studies with a critical pedagogy missing in many versions and a sustained attempt to link critical pedagogy and cultural studies with developing a more democratic culture and citizenry. The result is an intersection of critical pedagogy and cultural studies that enhances both enterprises, providing a much-needed cultural and transformative political dimension to critical pedagogy and a pedagogical dimension to cultural studies. Crucially, Giroux has linked his attempts to transform pedagogy and education with the project of promoting radical democracy. Giroux's earlier work during the 1970s and 1980s focused on educational reform, pedagogy, and the transformation of education to promote radical democracy. In Border Crossings (1992), Giroux notes "a shift in both my politics and my theoretical work" (1). The shift included incorporation of new theoretical discourses of poststructuralism and postmodernism, cultural studies, and the politics of identity and difference embodied in the new discourses of class, gender, race, and sexuality that proliferated in the post- 1960s epoch.
    [Show full text]
  • Structural Violence Against Children in South Asia © Unicef Rosa 2018
    STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN IN SOUTH ASIA © UNICEF ROSA 2018 Cover Photo: Bangladesh, Jamalpur: Children and other community members watching an anti-child marriage drama performed by members of an Adolescent Club. © UNICEF/South Asia 2016/Bronstein The material in this report has been commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) regional office in South Asia. UNICEF accepts no responsibility for errors. The designations in this work do not imply an opinion on the legal status of any country or territory, or of its authorities, or the delimitation of frontiers. Permission to copy, disseminate or otherwise use information from this publication is granted so long as appropriate acknowledgement is given. The suggested citation is: United Nations Children’s Fund, Structural Violence against Children in South Asia, UNICEF, Kathmandu, 2018. STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN IN SOUTH ASIA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS UNICEF would like to acknowledge Parveen from the University of Sheffield, Drs. Taveeshi Gupta with Fiona Samuels Ramya Subrahmanian of Know Violence in for their work in developing this report. The Childhood, and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral report was prepared under the guidance of of HAQ (Centre for Child Rights India). Kendra Gregson with Sheeba Harma of the From UNICEF, staff members representing United Nations Children's Fund Regional the fields of child protection, gender Office in South Asia. and research, provided important inputs informed by specific South Asia country This report benefited from the contribution contexts, programming and current violence of a distinguished reference group: research. In particular, from UNICEF we Susan Bissell of the Global Partnership would like to thank: Ann Rosemary Arnott, to End Violence against Children, Ingrid Roshni Basu, Ramiz Behbudov, Sarah Fitzgerald of United Nations Population Coleman, Shreyasi Jha, Aniruddha Kulkarni, Fund Asia and the Pacific region, Shireen Mary Catherine Maternowska and Eri Jejeebhoy of the Population Council, Ali Mathers Suzuki.
    [Show full text]
  • Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism
    CHAPTER 9 Authoritarianism, Discourse and Social Media: Trump as the ‘American Agitator’ Panayota Gounari 9.1. Introduction In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx citing Hegel famously writes that history repeats itself, ‘first as tragedy, then as farce’ (1972, 10). Don- ald Trump’s ascent to power, as the forty-fifth President of the United States, in the most powerful post on earth, can be perceived as a moment in history when tragedy and farce overlap. The farce aspect is obvious and is illustrated in the ongoing White House cir- cus: Trump’s demagoguery, oblivion, the blunt and effortless ignorance that he exudes in every context, his immeasurable narcissism and his sense of entitle- ment. The American public is slammed daily with fragments of his ignorance, often through hisTwitter account that, nevertheless, exudes a sense of ‘false familiarity.’ Trump puts forth for his audience an ‘act – something between a tragic recital and a clownish pantomime’ (Löwenthal and Guterman 1949, 4). While the ‘farce’ side might seem amusing, at times, where analyses focus on his gaffes, psychological instability, Twitter ranting and inability to carry out the smallest task as president, his administration is still delivering on his How to cite this book chapter: Gounari, P. 2018. Authoritarianism, Discourse and Social Media: Trump as the ‘American Agitator’. In: Morelock, J. (ed.) Critical Theory and Authoritar- ian Populism. Pp. 207–227. London: University of Westminster Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book30.j. License: CC-BY-NC-ND 208 Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism campaign promises to ‘make America great again’: a mix of racism and white supremacy, corporatism, and militarization, to the degree that it is not an ex- aggeration to speak about the embodiment of a neofascist administration.
    [Show full text]
  • Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education
    The William & Mary Educational Review Volume 4 Issue 2 Article 2 5-1-2016 Book Review: Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education Amanda Armstrong College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/wmer Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Armstrong, Amanda (2016) "Book Review: Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education," The William & Mary Educational Review: Vol. 4 : Iss. 2 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/wmer/vol4/iss2/2 This Articles is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in The William & Mary Educational Review by an authorized editor of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 4 The William & Mary Educational Review assumptions, values, and definitions regarding the role of HE. Although he does not call for a realization of past Book Review: ideals, he does hope that educators will Neoliberalism’s War on begin to “reclaim elements of a history in which the discourses of critique and Higher Education possibility offered an alternative vision of what form [HE] might take in a Amanda Armstrong substantive democratic society” (p. 139). Increasingly being viewed by the public As sensed from the title of as an individual, privileged, and private his book, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher right as opposed to a public good, HE Education, Henry Giroux (2014) frames is losing its appeal as a place for the arts, neoliberal governance, or plutocrats, humanities, and social sciences. as “parasites” (p. 9)—not only on Giroux (2014) considers a education, but also on society at large.
    [Show full text]
  • Henry Giroux | Beyond Neoliberal Miseducation Wednesday, 19 March 2014 by Henry a Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed Copyright, Truthout
    Henry Giroux | Beyond Neoliberal Miseducation Wednesday, 19 March 2014 By Henry A Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed Copyright, Truthout. This article draws from a number of ideas in Henry A. Giroux's newest book, Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education. As universities turn toward corporate management models, they increasingly use and exploit cheap faculty labor while expanding the ranks of their managerial class. Modeled after a savage neoliberal value system in which wealth and power are redistributed upward, a market-oriented class of managers largely has taken over the governing structures of most institutions of higher education in the United States. As Debra Leigh Scott points out, "administrators now outnumber faculty on every campus across the country."1 There is more at stake here than metrics. Benjamin Ginsberg views this shift in governance as the rise of what he calls ominously the "the all administrative university," noting that it does not bode well for any notion of higher education as a democratic public sphere.2 A number of colleges and universities are drawing Under the regime of neoliberal more and more upon adjunct and nontenured faculty - education, misery breeds a whose ranks now constitute 1 million out of 1.5 combination of contempt and source million faculty - many of whom occupy the status of of profits for the banks and other indentured servants who are overworked, lack benefits, receive little or no administrative support and are paid financial industries. salaries that increasingly qualify them for food stamps.3 Many students increasingly fare no better in sharing the status of a subaltern class beholden to neoliberal policies and values, and largely treated as consumers for whom education has become little more than a service.
    [Show full text]
  • Trumpism and the Challenge of Critical Education
    Educational Philosophy and Theory ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rept20 Trumpism and the challenge of critical education Henry A. Giroux To cite this article: Henry A. Giroux (2021): Trumpism and the challenge of critical education, Educational Philosophy and Theory, DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2021.1884066 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.1884066 Published online: 18 Apr 2021. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 134 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rept20 EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2021.1884066 EDITORIAL Trumpism and the challenge of critical education The United States government is on fire. For four years, the fundamentals of democracy and its mode of governance have been under attack by Trump, his Vichy-like Congressional Republicans, and right-wing media apparatuses along with numerous conservative digital and social media outlets. As the inferno gained momentum, it was doused with gasoline by reaction- ary media conglomerates such as Fox News, which spread disinformation, hate, and bigotry. At the same time, mainstream social-media companies such as Twitter and Facebook reproduced lies and conspiracy theories eagerly appropriated by a social base filled with fascists, neo-Nazis, militarists, and far right extremists. The slow burning fire of violence erupted on January 6th with a murderous assault on the Capitol. The storming of the US Capitol in Washington DC by a mob of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other right-wing extremists, incited prior to the march by Trump and his discourse of hate and call to violence, provided yet another example that the United States no longer lives in the shadow of authoritarianism and has tipped over into the abyss.
    [Show full text]
  • If You Don't Read, It Is Like You Don't Exist": the Transformative Power of Critical Literacy at an Alternative Charter High School
    LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations Summer July 2009 "If you don't read, it is like you don't exist": The Transformative Power of Critical Literacy at an Alternative Charter High School Jesse Sage Noonan Loyola Marymount University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons Recommended Citation Noonan, Jesse Sage, ""If you don't read, it is like you don't exist": The Transformative Power of Critical Literacy at an Alternative Charter High School" (2009). LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations. 251. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/251 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY "If you don't read, it is like you don't exist": The Transformative Power of Critical Literacy at an Alternative Charter High School by Jesse Sage Noonan A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the School of Education, Loyola Marymount University, in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education 2009 Loyola Marymount University School of Education Los Angeles, CA 90045 This dissertation written by Jesse Sage Noonan, under the direction of the Dissertation Committee, is approved and accepted by all committee members, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. ________________________________ Date Dissertation Committee ________________________________ Marta Baltodano, Committee Chair ________________________________ Martin Connell ________________________________ Yvette Lapayese ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful to the members of my dissertation committee: Thank you Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Youth Voice Power Point Deck
    youth voice Trainer Brought to you by: Date Location Agenda . Opening Activity . The Youth Voice Method . Youth Voice in Your Program . Closing David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE Youth Voice Workshop Objectives Participants will… . have the opportunity to explore the ways they offer Youth Voice in their programs. gain experience with Youth Voice strategies. understand the benefits of giving Youth Voice and how to offer meaningful opportunities for participation. David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE Housekeeping . Materials . Bathroom location . Take care of yourself (eat, drink, stretch, etc.) . Please silence your cell phone David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE Youth Voice and the Youth Program Quality Assessment (PQA) David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE Youth Voice Continuum David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE Adultism page 16 . Bias against youth . Assumption that adults are better than youth ADULTS ONLY David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE The Voice Ladder and Method pages 6-7 Opportunities Supports Shared Leadership Scaffolding Choice Increasing Input challenge [No Voice] David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE Expert Groups pages 6-11 . Read the section on your opportunity or support. Discuss what you’ve read with the rest of your group. Choose a spokesperson to share a summary of your discussion with the full group. David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality · YOUTH VOICE Youth Voice at Multiple Levels Individual Adults Combating Adultism Page 16 and Youth Within a Choice and program Leadership Page 26 session Opportunities Throughout an Teen Advisory Page 32 organization Council David P.
    [Show full text]
  • Unit on ADULTISM
    http://www.socialjusticeeducation.org Tools for Building Justice, January, 2003 Unit On ADULTISM Unit Outline Session # 1. Introduction Introducing the concept of unequal treatment for youth and adults, the session explores stereotypes and putdowns of young people and analyzes two scenes of youth/adult interaction. 2. Adultism This session focuses on adultism and internalized adultism: how young people are mistreated or discriminated against in adult-defined institutions and how young people can internalize mistreatment against themselves and other youth. Session closes with strengths of young people. 3. Adults This session examines the conditioning process of becoming an adult, identifying the costs and privileges of adulthood and the requirements for being an adult ally to youth. 4. Organizing/Action Unit on Adultism 1 SESSION 1. Introduction Aims • To introduce the unit on adultism • To identify and discuss two day-to-day conflicts between youth and adults Skills Students will: • Identify negative stereotypes applied to young people as a group • Identify target and nontarget group members in two conflicts affecting youth and adults • Apply the concept of unequal treatment of youth and adults to other youth/adult relationships besides those depicted Preparation Consult with appropriate school counseling personnel ahead of time about the unit, lining up adults for young people to talk to. Make sure you have reviewed local guidelines for mandated reporting of child abuse, and prepare a simple, clear statement to make to students. You will need photos and 2 pieces of butcher paper and markers for the adult/youth brainstorm. Note that there is one photo with uncaptioned and captioned versions: prepare the discussion accordingly.
    [Show full text]
  • Examining & Unpacking Oppression Packet
    EXAMINING / UNPACKING OPPRESSION AND HOW IT IS PRESENT IN OUR VIOLENCE & ABUSE PREVENTION AND INTERVENTION WORK: WHAT TO EXPECT This resource packet was created by The Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force's (SATF) Prevention and Education Subcommittee (PEC). SATF's mission is to advance a multi-disciplinary, survivor- centered approach to the prevention of and response to violence and abuse in Oregon. Our goal is to prevent violence from happening in the first place, while simultaneously improving our response efforts to mitigate trauma and ensure the safety and security of all people. The purpose of PEC is to define and promote abuse and violence prevention by engaging in activities to increase awareness of prevention strategies, and to provide support, guidance and training relating to prevention and education. In order to prevent abuse and violence before it occurs, efforts must focus on the root causes. To that end, we believe that addressing the connections between oppression and abuse and violence is an essential part of prevention work. This resource packet was informed by numerous voices around the state, including folks working in child abuse response and prevention, domestic and sexual violence response and prevention, health care settings, law enforcement and criminal justice partners, advocates, educators and more. This includes voices represented on SATF's Medical Forensic, Advocacy Response, Offender Management, Legislative & Public Policy, and Criminal Justice subcommittees. This packet includes two complementary resources: Examining Oppression in Child Abuse: Unpacking Oppression as a Root Cause of Abuse, Neglect and Violence This includes a case example to explore the ways oppression is present in child abuse intervention and prevention efforts in Oregon.
    [Show full text]
  • Youth Voice Definitions
    The following words are commonly used within the youth voice and youth development fields. For each, a definition is given. Adultism: refers to all of the behaviors and attitudes that flow from the assumption that adults are better than young people, and are entitled to act upon young people in many ways without their agreement. Adults Allies: refers to adult organizers who work with youth and are able to draw out the ideas of every member of the group, take them seriously, compliment them, and let young people make decisions for themselves. Community Principle: states that communities need to see youth development as a process that happens throughout a young person’s awareness of and interaction with the world around them.1 Community Youth Development: is a perspective dedicated to advancing the field of youth work; addressing the needs of all youth, including displaced and vulnerable youth; and promoting healthy participatory communities through youth/adult partnerships. Political Adultism: refers to elected officials neglecting or not listening to the concerns, voices, and opinions of young people when considering, writing, or passing legislation. This is done because young people are unable to vote. Youth Action: young people making a difference for themselves, their communities, and society as a whole. HEET HEET Youth Activism: refers to young people engaging in a practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action, especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue. Youth Civic Engagement: is the process of engaging youth in affecting policy and taking action on issues in their community. Youth/Adult Partnerships: efforts that involve young people and adults working together, sharing S S power, and learning from each other to build stronger communities.
    [Show full text]