Principles 11 страница

also was dropping during this time and people were less likely to join with co-workers in formal associations. Meanwhile, church attendance has de-clined, ‘‘and the churches we go to are less engaged with the wider com-munity’’ (2000, 79), since evangelical Christianity is rising while member-ship in mainline denominations is falling.

Putnam (2000, 338) sees voluntary associations as incubators for social capital, describing them as ‘‘places where social and civic skills are learned— ’schools of democracy. ’ Members learn how to run meetings, speak in public, write letters, organize projects, and debate public issues with civility. ’’ How-ever, holding office or serving as a committee member in a civic association also has declined, and ‘‘active involvement in face-to-face organizations has plummeted, whether we consider organizational records, survey reports, time diaries, or consumer expenditures’’ (63). Finally, Putnam (2000, 115) observes that:

[T]he last several decades have witnessed a striking diminution of regular contacts with our friends and neighbors. We spend less time in conver-sation over meals, we exchange visits less often, we engage less often in leisure activities that encourage casual social interaction, we spend more time watching. . . and less time doing. We know our neighbors less well, and we see old friends less often. In short, it is not merely ‘‘do good’’ civic activities that engage us less, but also informal connecting.

Yet, while civic participation may have diminished in many realms, the past several decades also have witnessed increased challenges to the power of professionals in a wide variety of areas, including medicine, human ser-vices, mental health, law, public health, and all levels of education (Finn and Checkoway 1998). McKnight (1995) argues that professionalism has ex-panded at a rapid rate with the growth of a service economy, making the country ‘‘ambivalent’’ and ‘‘confused’’ about the impacts of professional pro-liferation. ’’ McKnight makes a strong critique of the counter-productivity of the service economy, and maintains that ‘‘the power to label people defi-cient and declare them in need is the basic tool of control and oppression in modern societies’’ (16), and that the various professions have abused this power, expanding their various domains in the process. He cites three anti-professional arguments: (1) inefficiency—that is, professional service often is ineffective; (2) arrogance born of elitism and dominance; and (3) the iat-rogenic negative effects and unintended consequences of professional help-ing, which have contributed to the backlash against professionals.

Regardless of the causes, during the last twenty-five years of the twen-tieth century, users and consumers of a broad array of services began to assert their rights to question the judgment and performance of professionals who previously had operated as uncontested experts. At the individual level, the number of lawsuits filed against service providers began to sky-rocket; an assortment of consumer advocates suddenly appeared on the scene; and a vast amount of advice was dispensed to service users through

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every medium (television, radio, books, magazines, newspapers, work-shops, Internet). The expertise of professionals of every type and stripe was challenged, including that of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, lawyers, professors, and teachers.

At the collective level, there was an explosion of organizing activity including, but not limited to, the self-help movement (Riessman and Gart-ner 1984; Riessman and Carroll 1995), patient’s rights, mental health con-sumer rights, student rights, and parent involvement in the schools. These consumer initiatives first began to take shape during the organizing move-ments previously referenced in chapter 3 (civil rights/people of color, wel-fare rights, women’s rights, environmental justice, elderly rights, gay and lesbian rights, rights for people with disabilities), and they continue today. This consumer movement has been profoundly democratic, participatory, and anti-elitist. As a result, the gap between professionals and the people whom they serve has narrowed significantly, and a new paradigm of pro-fessional helping has emerged. This new model rests on the conceptual foun-dation of empowerment, which draws from a strengths perspective and an emphasis on client and community resiliency.

There are many different conceptions of empowerment, with no univer-sally accepted definition; and there is general agreement that it can arise from many sources ( Jennings et al. 2006; Simon 1994). However, a number of common themes and elements can be found in the literature. For exam-ple, empowerment is operative at both the personal and collective levels (Petterman 2002; Lee 1997; Cox 1991; Staples 1990), and it often focuses on oppressed groups with an emphasis on changing the stigmatization and unequal structural relations of power that perpetuate personal and social problems (Boehm and Staples 2004; Itzhaky and York 2002; Moreau 1990; Solomon 1976). This concept refers to both the process by which individuals and groups move from relative powerlessness to increased power and the outcome dimensions or end products, such as the right to vote, access to in-formation, availability of educational degrees, or increased economic re-sources (Miley and Dubois 1999; Zimmerman and Warschausky 1998; Staples 1990).

The ability to act efficaciously on one’s own behalf (or as a group) goes to the heart of this concept; it is not possible for someone to fully empower another person or group (Staples 1999). Empowerment is based on the prem-ise that relatively powerless individuals and groups nevertheless possess capacities, skills, strengths, and assets that can be powerful resources during any helping process or initiative to bring about social change (Tomlinson and Egan 2002; Cowger 1994). Indeed, a ‘‘strengths based approach’’ (Saleebey 1992) is in sharp contrast to a traditional deficit model, which has evolved from medicine and focuses almost exclusively on weaknesses, lim-itations, vulnerability, and pathology. When client/consumer/community strengths are a starting point in any helping process, the individuals and groups being assisted are in a position to take a more active role in that

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process—a key element in empowerment (Gutierrez 1990). And these abilities and skills also will be further developed and refined when provider professionals actively involve those being served in the helping process (Dodd and Gutierrez 1990).

The concept of resiliency, or competency for a variety of adaptive be-haviors in the face of adversity, also is highly relevant for empowerment. It has been defined as ‘‘the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances’’ (Masten, Best, and Garmezy 1990, 426). These authors have identified three distinct types of resilience: (1) ‘‘overcoming the odds’’ in spite of being in a situation of high risk; (2) ‘‘sustained competence under stress, ’’ which entails various forms of coping; and (3) ‘‘recovery from trauma, ’’ which might include a particularly stressful life event or situation. A number of variables have been associated with resiliency, including both the factors related to external protection and those linked to internal self-resiliency, such as spirituality, cognitive competency, behavioral/social skills, emotional stability, and physical well-being (Kumpher 1999).

Freire (1970, 1973) maintained that critical consciousness is an essential element in the development of empowerment. He urged service providers to function as ‘‘teacher-learners’’ and to raise questions (‘‘pedagogy of the question’’), rather than simply providing answers for clients and commu-nity members. In fact, while empowerment can not be created for another person, it can be facilitated through a number of practice principles and techniques that tend to be nondirective and that underscore the need for consumers to make decisions and take initiative (Staples 1999; Gutierrez 1990).

Provider professionals who embrace an empowerment approach essen-tially operate under a different paradigm of helping (see table 5. 1) than the traditional professional model. While the figure employs ideal types, and such pure distinctions may seldom exist in actual practice, nevertheless the fundamental differences in assumptions, principles, methods, and tech-niques do, in fact, constitute two separate approaches: the traditional model and the empowerment model. We submit that the traditional model has been challenged over the past several decades and that the dominant par-adigm of helping now is in transition. It should be noted that while these two approaches can be generalized across all the helping professions, the lan-guage used is most consistent with human services.

In practice, a provider professional that is operating under an empow-erment model commits to actively involving consumers of services and com-munity members in the helping process. Such active engagement is most possible when one starts by identifying and working from the strengths of those being helped. This entails recognition of and respect for expertise, capacities, and skills. No longer is the professional the sole actor working as all-knowing expert; instead, the professional supplements his or her own expertise by drawing on consumer and community assets and resources.

Table 5. 1 The Changing Paradigm of Helping

Traditional Model	Empowerment Model

General Approach	General Approach
Deficit Model	Strengths Model
Formal helping systems	Formal and informal helping systems
	(natural supports: extended
	families, friends, churches,
	small businesses, and other
	nontraditional settings)
Vulnerability	Resiliency
Identify pathology	Identify assets and resources
Treat problems	Prevent problems and promote
	opportunities
Individual responsibility	Individual and institutional
	responsibility
Agency-driven programs:	Consumer and community-driven
Top-down approach	programs: Bottom-up approach
Programs for individuals	Programs for individuals,
	families, and communities
Categorical, specialized programs	Comprehensive, holistic programs
Success defined by agency	Success defined by consumers/
	users and community members
Conception of People Served	Conception of People Served
Clients	Consumers/users, community
	members
Passive	Active
Individuals	Individuals, families, and
	communities
Relatively helpless, lacking capacities,	People served do have lived expertise,
skills, and expertise	capacities, and skills
Role of Professional	Role of Professional
Expert	Expertise, facilitator, enabler, catalyst
‘‘Do to’’ and ‘‘Do for’’ clients	‘‘Do with’’ consumers/users
	and community members
Professional as sole actor	Partnership with consumers/users
	and community members
One-way relationship	Mutual two-way relationship
Provide answers	Ask questions
Find solutions	Help identify options and choices
Formal	Informal
Distance	Closer relationship (with boundaries)
Protect clients	Challenge and support consumers/
	users and community members

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This new role requires professionals to function effectively as facilitators, enablers, and catalysts; and to establish two-way partnerships in which they ask questions that enable consumers and community members to identify their own options, make their own decisions accordingly, and develop a greater degree of critical consciousness in the process. Providers who use an empowerment approach ‘‘do with’’ rather than ‘‘for’’ or ‘‘to’’ whomever they are serving, decreasing professional distance (although maintaining bound-aries), acting more informally, and challenging and/or supporting people who have strengths and resiliency, rather than simply protecting ‘‘vulner-able clients. ’’

At the programmatic level, there is not a sole focus on individual treat-ment, but rather an emphasis on preventing problems and promoting op-portunities. Responsibility is lodged with external institutions, which are held accountable to both consumers and the larger community (see dis-cussion about COINS above). Programs result from bottom-up community-driven processes rather than top-down agency agendas. Professional service providers supplement their work with formal helping systems that engage informal networks and settings, including extended family members, friends, faith-based aggregations, small businesses, and other nontraditional re-sources (Delgado 1996, 1999). Success is defined by consumers and com-munity members, and participatory evaluation methodology is employed (Minkler and Wallerstein 2003; Coombe 2005; Finn 1994).

In short, the empowerment model of professional helping, and the ac-companying consumer movement, has been a democratizing force in Amer-ican society. Participatory democracy has been enhanced by the establish-ment of egalitarian relationships between providers and recipients of services. As discussed above, active participation is central to the empow-erment concept, which is fundamentally democratic and anti-elitist by its very nature. Professionals who adopt this approach emphasize the direct in-volvement of service users and community members in the helping process.

Linkage to Youth-Led Organizing

Over the past decade, participatory democracy has gained considerable attention in the youth field and its accompanying professional literature (Checkoway and Gutierrez 2006; Ginwright, Noguera, and Cammarota 2006). Foster (1998) makes an impassioned plea to have youth achieve a role as a legitimate constituency of a civil democratic society that is based on their demographic significance and their potential to develop as important contributing members. In order to make such a goal a reality, a society must develop mechanisms for encouraging significant youth participation (Lar-son and Hansen 2005). The Youth Council for Northern Ireland (Green 2004) notes that it is essential for a democratic society to provide youth

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with genuine opportunities to use power democratically and responsibly. Such political education serves as the foundation for youth to assume a decision-making role in helping to shape society (Watts, Willams, and Jagers 2003).

The concept of participation is manifested in a variety of ways. Ac-cording to Youniss and colleagues (2002, 126):

Perhaps the fairest conclusion is that there is not a definite demarcation between the political and civil realms. Rather there is a continuum be-tween formal political acts such as voting, political actions such as pro-testing for a moral cause, and performing a service such as working in a rural literacy campaign. Scholarship concerned with young people’s prep-aration for civic participation as adults would be wise to take into account the whole range.

There are various perspectives on how civic engagement and participa-tion can be operationalized for youth (Skelton, Boyte, and Leonard 2002). For example, Bass (1997) advocates for the use of a public-works approach to develop active citizenship. He stresses civic renewal and ‘‘new citizen-ship’’ that entails service learning through collaborative problem solving among youth and between youth and adults. The Forum for Youth Invest-ment (Building Nations 2001) identified six forms of youth action/civic involvement: (1) service and service learning; (2) voter education and get-out-the vote; (3) governance; (4) youth development; (5) issue advocacy; and (6) youth organizing. Each of these forums can use a variety of methods that take into account organizational and youth goals, and each can cover distinct periods of time, both short and long term. Gil (1998) notes that one of the important lessons gained from studying social-change activists is the importance of differentiating between short-term or emergency measures and long-range goals.

Youth civic participation can also be found on organizational boards, advisory committees, commissions, and task forces, for example (Hohe-nemser and Marshall 2002; MacNeil and McClean 2006; Stoneman 2002). The 1990s witnessed continued efforts to bring about youth representation in a structured and sustainable manner. This form of youth civic partici-pation has continue to expand during this decade, and all indications are that it is no longer viewed as novel and is slowly becoming institutionalized across the country (Delgado 2002; Frank 2006; Young Wisdom Project 2004).

Watts, Williams, and Jager (2003) advance the concept of sociopolitical development (SPD), or political education, as a process through which youth acquire knowledge, analytical skills, emotional faculties, and the capacity for action. This action, however, must entail struggle against all forms of oppression in a political and social system. As a result, youth participation must address issues of social and economic justice for SPD to occur and reach its potential for youth transformation. Political education provides youth with the necessary language to engage in problem solving and critical

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thinking—essential components in achieving social change (Roach, Yu, and Lewis-Charp 2001; Stepick and Stepick 2002).

Certainly, participatory democracy and empowerment have been central features in the youth-led field, which is based on an assets paradigm that highlights the potential for positive contributions to society through direct participation, action by young people on their own behalf, youth leadership, and the exercise of political power in the pursuit of social and economic justice (Ginwright and James 2002; O’Donoghue, Kirshner, and McLaughlin 2002; Susskind 2003). If youth are to experience significant empowerment, they must be active participants in the process of social change, not passive recipients (Checkoway, Figueroa, and Richards-Schuster 2003; Gutierrez 1990; Pinderhughes 1983; Rappaport 1981).

Therefore, adults interested in facilitating youth empowerment and par-ticipation should use the pedagogy of the question more often than in-structing youth about what should be done and how to do it (Freire 1970). Opportunities for decision making and collective action should be maxi-mized, along with chances for developing participatory competencies and skills (Cervone and Cushman 2002; Kieffer 1984). Decision making cannot have significant and long-lasting meaning without corresponding attention to increasing youth knowledge and competencies in the process.

Downton, Downton, and Wehr (1997) conducted a series of qualitative interviews in communities undergoing periods of great challenge (tensions, threats, and violence). Their findings call attention to the importance of youth’s making a commitment to the creation and maintenance of a social justice movement. This commitment is fostered over an extended period through meaningful opportunities for youth engagement in collective ac-tion. Cowan (1997, 194) specifically ties the concept of youth participation in civic life to community organizing by identifying four key lessons: (1) ‘‘the real problem is politics, not young people’’; (2) ‘‘service leads to service, not politics’’; (3) ‘‘don’t agonize, organize’’; and (4) ‘‘a new politics begins at home. ’’ These lessons, not surprisingly, have tremendous applicability to all spheres of life and are not restricted to social action.

Other research focuses on values, relationships, and organizational cul-ture as important variables that impact motivation to become involved in youth organizing. Scheie (2003) found that youth are more likely to partic-ipate in community affairs when their parents hold values of social respon-sibility. Nevertheless, youth frequently are attracted to community organi-zations for different reasons from their parents (Costello et al. 2000). While it is a well-established principle in community organizing with adults that the key to participation is immediate self-interest on particular issues of con-cern, other motivational factors for youth involvement frequently are rele-vant. According to Stahlhut (2004, 74), ‘‘[w]e have learned that, like it or not, prime reasons for youth to be involved in organizing are to get out of the house, do something with their peers that is productive, safe and fun, and get away from their parents (not necessarily in that order). ’’ It is necessary to

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create multiple points of entry to attract youth with different interests and talents (Beyond Base, 2004; Sanchez-Jankowski 2002).

We have emphasized the importance of building relationships of trust and solidarity in all the successful youth organizations examined in this book. Indeed, it has been noted that ‘‘youth organizing provides the very space and social cohesion that many gangs across California afforded’’ (Pintado-Vertner 2004, 23). Therefore, the organizational culture of youth groups is supremely important. The most effective efforts emphasize having fun, providing social activities, offering relationship building, and suggest-ing individual development, as well as guiding collective action for social change. Interactive processes are given equal weight with product outcomes. The individuals involved are seen as ends in themselves and are not viewed solely as means toward an end of achieving people power. It logically fol-lows that a key to youth organizing is recruitment through peer relationship networks. Youth who are respected and admired by others have the ability to engage their friends and followers.

Conclusion

Participatory democracy is a central concept underlying youth-led orga-nizing, and there are both challenges and opportunities attendant with it. Certainly entrenched interests and dominant elites can be expected to resist bottom-up participation that threatens their ability to retain and exercise power. And youth continue to hold the status of a relatively powerless group in American society—one that makes it easier for them to be marginalized, demonized, or dismissed. Elitism is antithetical to the egalitarian, partici-patory ethos that infuses youth-led organizing, and this sentiment often poses a significant barrier to popular democracy.

As discussed in chapter 2, the phenomenon of adultism also is a perva-sive and persistent problem in virtually all types of youth work. The dom-inance and control exercised by adults is fueled by ageism directed against young people. Adultism plays out in practice when youth are not em-powered to make their own decisions freely and/or are not trusted to exercise true leadership when taking action on choices that have been made. The restriction of free will, self-determination, and voluntary action is funda-mentally undemocratic, and adultism remains one of the greatest impedi-ments in the youth-led movement.

While the subjugation by adultism operates in a manner similar to the other ‘‘isms, ’’ in fact youth-led organizing disproportionately involves low-income young people of color who also must deal with the pernicious, interactive effects of poverty, classism, and racism. And many, if not most, of the organizing issues related to social and economic justice are products of these other forms of oppression. This constellation of negative societal

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forces operates at multiple levels and in a variety of ways to challenge youth of color who are poor. Their participation in youth-led collective action may be limited by a broad array of factors, including the need to work multiple low-paying jobs, perceived threats to personal safety, required gang mem-bership, responsibilities to care for younger siblings, lack of adequate hous-ing, health or mental health problems, substance abuse, a great deal of schoolwork, multiple extracurricular activities, and other competing de-mands on their time. As noted by Lourdes Best, a staff member at YUCA (Weiss 2003), it may be necessary to provide a weekly stipend for core par-ticipants, enabling them to avoid having to make the difficult choice be-tween organizational involvement and paid employment.

Earlier in this chapter we discussed the perversion of authentic democ-racy that occurs when mere participation supersedes genuine power. Under such circumstances a dominant minority elite may employ strategies such as cooptation or tokenism to suppress bona fide participatory democracy. However, another phenomenon, often termed tyranny of the majority, poses a different challenge for proponents of participatory democracy. Essentially, a majority can make a democratic decision that is discriminatory, prejudi-cial, and disempowering to a minority group by race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, age, disability, or a host of other statuses. Cook and Morgan (1971, 14) assert that ‘‘the only way to break. . . the ‘tyranny of the majority’ is to shift toward nonelitist decision-making units that permit a minority to avoid being submerged in majority sentiment and preference. ’’ But such an occurrence also underscores the fact that, while participatory democracy usually is a high-order value, there are times when it can be abused, to the detriment of minority constituencies.

Beyond these limitations of participatory democracy as it relates to youth-led organizing, there are particular opportunities associated with this demo-graphic. Certainly, the energy and enthusiasm of young people can feed broad and deep participation in many actions, activities, and events. Youth have the capacity to mobilize more quickly and with greater vigor than many other groups in society. The uniqueness of youth culture also can be a tre-mendous asset for recruitment, engagement, and collective action. For in-stance, as discussed in chapter 3, hip-hop can serve as a means of self-expression, a setting for building relationships and networking, a venue for engagement, a free space for developing critical consciousness, a forum for political protest, and a tactic for social change. Hip-hop can best be appreci-ated and understood from a multifaceted perspective as it relates to youth-led community organizing. Indeed, as part of the tactical repertoire of young people, hip-hop is a prime example of legendary community organizer Saul Alinsky’s (1971) dictum to stay within the experience of your own constitu-ency and go outside the experience of the opposition. Additional challenges and opportunities can be expected to arise in the years ahead, but partici-patory democracy will remain a primary principle and motivating force in youth-led community organizing, for it is at once both a means and an end.

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