Principles 17 страница

3. Family finances may be such that young people are expected to seek employment for after-school hours as a means of contributing to basic economic support.

4. Cultural attitudes, particularly conservative behavior involving girls, may severely limit their participation in outside-of-school activities.

5. The undocumented status of parents may curtail youth involve-ment for fear that their participation in high-profile social-change activities will bring unwelcome attention on the family and pos-sible deportation.

6. Parents may have concerns that their daughters’ and sons’ in-volvement in campaigns will take time away from their studies and thereby limit their options for further education.

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The reader probably has concluded that family is a factor affecting all facets of a youth-led community organizing campaign, depending on local circumstances to a greater or lesser extent. However, young activists whose parents have positive organizing experiences can offer a support system and a legacy of social justice work that will prove of immense value to any campaign. The field will advance in qualitatively significant ways when pro-grams recognize the role and importance of family and, as a result, gather information on this dimension as part of a process-oriented evaluation of youth-led campaigns (Youth in Focus 2004).

10. Role and Importance of Communication and Information Technology in Youth-Led Organizing

There is consensus that technology has shaped modern-day society in ways that few visionaries could even imagine twenty years ago (Schon, Sanyal, and Mitchell 1999; Tacchi 2004). In fact, there is no aspect of life that has escaped the reach of technology, as evidenced in the worries generated by the onset of the millennium just a few short years ago. For our purposes, information technology and communication technology are used interchange-ably in this book.

Certainly, one area where youth often have a decided advantage is in the use of technology. Much has been written about the impact of electronic technology on participatory democracy, for example. There are arguments that there is growing potential for popular engagement and influence ‘‘from below. ’’ Smith (2004, 177) notes:

[T]here are unmistakable signs that the Internet has opened new pos-sibilities for citizen involvement in public life. Leaving aside the vast amounts of information available on the Internet and dealing only with the interactivist phenomenon, we find that Net organizers have been re-markably successful in their recent efforts to involve millions of people in national and international political debates. Innovative organizations like MoveOn. org—which has skillfully utilized electronic mail, online peti-tions, local meet-up opportunities, and small-donor fundraising drives to raise the volume of progressive voices—have made it easier and more rewarding for citizens to reenter the public sphere.

The field of community organizing has not escaped the influence of in-formation technology, which, when applied to efforts to bring about social change, has been given a variety of labels, including terms such as electronic advocacy, Internet activism, and online organizing. In fact, the first book solely devoted to community organizing and technology was published in 1991 (Downing et al. 1991). Over this past decade, technology has become more accessible through the reduction of costs and its availability in public set-tings, such as libraries and schools. Recently, there has been increased atten-

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tion to the question of how technology can help organizations and commu-nities bring about social change. The broader accessibility has increased the options for residents in marginalized communities to participate in the workings of government and society, both nationally and internation-ally (Ogbu and Mihyo 2000; Wilhelm 2000).

The importance of technology in a technological age is evident, and not just for adults. Katz (2004, 1) effectively ties together youth, the use of technology, and social activism when noting the increased access of young people to information that previously was available only to the privileged:

Children are at the epicenter of the information revolution, ground zero of the digital world. They helped build it, and they understand it as well or better than anyone. Not only is the digital world making the young more sophisticated, altering their ideas of what culture and literacy are, it is connecting them to one another, providing them with a new sense of po-litical self. Children in the digital age are neither unseen nor unheard; in fact, they are seen and heard more than ever. They occupy a new kind of cultural space. They’re citizens of a new order, founders of the Digital Nation.

Norris and Curtice (2004), in a study of the Internet as a vehicle for strengthening democratic participation, social capital, and civic engagement in Britain, but with implications for the United States, found that the po-tential impact of the Internet on democratic participation is influenced by the type of activism under comparison. New technologies such as the Internet are expected to benefit new social movements, transnational policy net-works, and single-issue causes. Another recent study found that most youth working with public health nurses in a school-based community develop-ment project ‘‘perceived that using computers and the Internet reduced their anxiety concerning communication with adults, increased their control when dealing with adults, raised their perception of their social status, increased participation within the community, supported reflective thought, increased efficiency, and improved their access to resources’’ (Valaitis 2005, 2).

Bass’s (1997) concept of new citizenship, first addressed in chapter 5, identifies information and communication technology as vehicles for con-necting individuals and organizations and for facilitating the exchange of in-formation for achieving positive community change. Carpini (2003) advo-cates use of the Internet as a vehicle for increasing civic engagement among the young, helping them to find their place in public life in the process. The creation of an ethos that politics matters is one direct manifestation of youth engagement. This also has served to connect young people to intra-, inter-, and transnational political movements, thereby giving them a broad view of political matters that transcends a focus on purely local issues.

On the other hand, concerns also have been expressed that electronic technology is not sufficient to remedy the structural inequality that con-tributes to the lack of participation by large numbers of disempowered citizens (van Dijk and Hacker 2000, 210): ‘‘No technology is able to ‘fix’ a

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lack of political motivation, lack of time, effort and skills required for full participation in democratic activities. No technology can dissolve the social and material inequalities that appear to be so strongly related to differences in participation. ’’

Technology never should be viewed as a replacement for the labor-intensive work of community organizing (Roberts-DeGennaro 2004). How-ever, technology can make organizers more productive and able to reach a wider constituency in less time, even though organizing remains an inter-vention founded on face-to-face, interpersonal relations (McNutt 2000). Toward this end, McNutt (2000) identifies six ways that technology can help initiate and sustain an organizing campaign:

1. Coordinating activity and community with stakeholders

2. Use of online databases and discussion groups to gather tactical and strategic information

3. Using mapping/GIS programs, community databases, and statis-tical packages to analyze data

4. Advocacy Web pages

5. Online fund-raising and volunteer/member recruitment

6. Automating office and administrative tasks

The above uses of technology require a range of resources, hardware, soft-ware, and skills. Again, one size does not fit all circumstances.

In a review of the Internet and community organizing, Stoecker (2002) found that the Internet has had a ‘‘crucial and positive’’ impact on the scale of community organizing projects. Historically, organizing typically has been conducted on a small scale, such as at the neighborhood level. However, the Internet has facilitated multi-locational organizing by exploiting the po-tential of the Information Highway. Nevertheless, there are concerns about using this informational source for creating social change. Stoecker (2002), like Spector (1994), raises questions about how ‘‘e-democracy’’ can be sub-verted by corporations. Limited content in languages other than English also severely restricts this technology’s reach to communities that historically have been marginalized and not enjoyed access to language-specific infor-mation attentive to their social conditions and local circumstances.

Information technology comes in a variety of forms that lend themselves to particular uses during different facets of an organizing campaign: cell phones, conference calls, transmittance of images, text messaging, organi-zation Web pages, video equipment, word processing, financial spread-sheets, e-mail, list serves, chat rooms, Internet information and resources, storage of data sets, computer programs, especially software for produc-ing flyers, letters, and presentations. Flexibility with access to and use of these technologies can be quite appealing when launching an organizing campaign involving youth. Lomardo, Zakus, and Skinner (2002) argue that informational and communication technologies can and do provide op-

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portunities for dialogue between diverse communities, and this offers young people valuable opportunities to engage in collective action across ethnic and racial communities.

The present generation of youth grew up with these technologies, and this is particularly the case for youth from privileged backgrounds. Never-theless, youth from lower income backgrounds also are familiar with in-formation technology. Flanagan and Galley (2001) comment that technol-ogy has placed many young people in the position of helping their parents and other adults navigate this new terrain.

It certainly should come as no surprise that information technology is an important component in youth-led community organizing. The attractiveness of technology to the young and their familiarity with it make it a natural for inclusion in community organizing. Youth can learn about growth opportu-nities within and outside of their immediate community. Further, technology knows no geographical boundaries, facilitating young people to interact and learn from their counterparts around the world (Golombek 2002).

Golombek’s (2002) observations about the pervasiveness of technology in youth organizing offer an intriguing glimpse into a world with unlimited potential. The appeal of information technology in youth organizing is strong, indeed. Technology facilitates the process whereby young people transcend the geographical boundaries of their communities and expose themselves to a world normally not within their reach. Engaging in ex-changes of information with peers at a transcommunity level promotes and inspires both learning and service. In essence, young people go from being global consumers to global citizens, increasing the likelihood of their en-gagement in global activism, with a shared vision of social and economic justice (Taylor 2000; Youniss et al. 2002).

The term cyber-participation has been coined to capture both the practice and potential of electronic communication to increase community engage-ment (Golombek 2002, 71):

If used appropriately, communications technology lifts geographic and cultural boundaries, makes time zones irrelevant, and can be used as a vast educational resource. With these qualities in mind, how can technology make youth participation efforts more effective? It can offer young people the possibility of sharing effective practices, exchanging contacts and re-sources, and most importantly creating an awareness about a global com-munity of youth seeking social change.

Potential use of communication and information technology in social-action interventions cannot be ignored, and in fact, these technologies can be important tools for recruitment, as well as capacity enhancement. Tech-nologies such as cell phones (instant contact), e-mail (informal use and quick spreading of messages), and computers (offering acquisition of valuable marketable skills) hold special appeal for young people.

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Although the potential for these technologies is yet to be fully realized, it is important to note that youth-led community organizing, or even adult-led organizing, is not without its limitations, with access being one of the most prominent ones. There seems to be broad agreement that electronic technol-ogy is a supplement to rather than a substitute for face-to-face, grassroots community organizing (Roberts-DeGennaro 2004; McNutt and Hick 2002). This sentiment has been captured by Smith (2004, 190), who observes: ‘‘while the new interactivists may have opened the public sphere to new voices, without additional offline grassroots initiatives, we may unintentionally ex-clude the very voices that have always had the most difficulty being heard. ’’

Access to information technology is not a universal phenomenon, par-ticularly when examined from a social-class perspective: many marginal-ized young people do not enjoy these benefits (Beamish 1999; Sanyal and Schon 1999). Much attention has been directed to what is referred to as the ‘‘digital divide, ’’ a line of demarcation that marks differential access to a computer and the Internet (Kitlan 2004; Tardieu 1999). The higher the socioeconomic level of the family, the greater the likelihood of access to computers and the Internet at home, school, and other community settings. However, Hargittai (2002) has explored this digital divide and focused on online skills (the ability to find necessary content online and the time needed to complete these tasks). Findings suggest that age is negatively associated with competence level, that experience with the technology is positively related to skill, and that differences in gender do not explain variance in abilities. As a result, youth are in an advantageous position regarding tech-nology when compared to adults.

Golombek (2002, 15) notes that as the digital divide has diminished, the potential of the Internet for youth-led community organizing has grown considerably:

The websites are often the virtual arm of organizations, which find in technology a vehicle to scale up their youth participation efforts. A com-mon objection to the reliance on technology to increase youth involvement is that lack of access to that technology. . . is an impediment to young people’s participation. This cannot be denied. However, there are indi-cations that technological innovations are emerging to narrow the digital divide (such as setting up a computer with Internet access in a rural com-munity center or the increasing number of distance learning programs). Even language barriers are beginning to blur due to translation soft-ware packages. These resources are still in their preliminary development stages, but given the pace of technological change it can be expected that their quality will improve.

Thus, once access is provided, and young people are trained in how best to obtain needed information, the Internet’s potential is quite promising for use in youth-led community organizing. However, Golombek (2002, 14) goes on to provide a good illustration of how information technology in

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service to social action gets operationalized differently, depending on the socioeconomic class of youth:

Two massive non-violent demonstrations in 2001 in the Philippines, known as EDSA II and EDSA III, reflect the high level of youth’s aware-ness regarding their right to participate. However, these two phenomena are also a manifestation of how youth participation greatly differs be-tween social classes. A clear example of this difference is the communi-cation channels available for each group. While upper class and middle class youth exchanged text messages to recruit participants and arrange where to meet to express their sentiments on EDSA II, poor urban youth relied on ‘‘word of mouth’’ and even alleged financial motivation.

Technical skills are intrinsically associated with media skills, and these abilities can be transfered to other arenas, such as leadership and commu-nication capacity development (McGillicuddy 2003, 3):

The details, responsibilities, and opportunities are enormous: organizing community forums and school assemblies, educating residents door-to-door, writing one’s own stories and creating one’s own media (such as newsletters, CDs and videos), educating and cooperating with journal-ists, organizing meetings with city officials, testifying at public hearings, integrating cultural expressions into outreach (open mics, spoken word, graf, and slap tags, etc. ).

Information technology is here to stay, so it only becomes a question of how this tool will influence youth-led community organizing and other forms of social intervention. As a result of technology, youth-led commu-nity organizing has connected across the globe and become a worldwide movement. How this technology can be made available to marginalized youth in this country will become the subject of greater and greater atten-tion in the coming decade.

Group Structure

11. Autonomous, Locally Based, Unaffiliated, Streamlined Structures

Many youth-led organizing programs are connected to adult-led organi-zations that provide fiscal sponsorship, administrative support, technical assistance, or physical space (Young Wisdom Project 2004). However, as the term youth-led organizing implies, and crosscutting themes 2 and 4 show, a high degree of autonomy is the hallmark of this approach. In essence, there are structural implications.

Regardless of whether they are located in school settings or neighbor-hoods, youth-led organizing initiatives tend to be locally based. Consciousness

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raising about overarching forms of oppression frequently is linked to agendas of large-scale social and economic justice issues, and communica-tion and information technologies enable young activists to reach out to those in similar programs around the country or even internationally; nevertheless, the organizational structures within which these bodies func-tion typically are relatively small and restricted to a limited geographic area. This is largely a function of modest operating budgets (see theme 8 above) and the scarcity of statewide, regional, national, and international youth-led organizations or support networks. While electronic technology has facilitated informal communications between youth-led organizing initia-tives, this contact usually is idiosyncratic and sporadic, not systematic. Most youth-led programs do not have structural linkages to one another and they remain unaffiliated with larger entities.

Fluidity of membership, meager budgets, and the quick pace of organiz-ing all serve to promote streamlined operational structures. Youth-led orga-nizing projects are nothing if not dynamic in methodology and style. They customarily are disposed toward short-term ad hoc committees, rather than permanent or standing organizational bodies. These temporary committees ‘‘provide structural access points through which newcomers can become active’’ and thereby help to keep ‘‘a steady flow of fresh ‘new blood’ flowing into the organization’’ (Staples 2004a). New leadership emerges to take on roles of responsibility within these work groups, thereby helping prevent the concentration of power by entrenched veteran leaders. These committees also require less staffing and readily can be dissolved once an issue has been resolved or a campaign loses momentum, thus helping prevent a do-nothing or fossilized organizational structure from becoming locked into place.

12. Age-Related Issues Shape Target Systems

It should come as no surprise that the agenda for youth-led organizing is driven by age-related issues. Both internal and external target systems are shaped accordingly. For example, potential youth participants are internal targets of strategies and tactics for recruitment and engagement. Typically, re-cruitment is done around issues that are deeply felt, and this activity usually is carried out where young people can be found in community and school settings. In chapter 2, we listed the sixteen key issues identified by Wikipedia (2006), each directly related to age. These issues currently have the greatest self-interest draw for young people across the country, providing the most favorable odds for an organization’s securing buy in and involvement.

Youth-led organizing campaigns attempt to persuade or pressure exter-nal targets to agree to act in a certain manner or to alter or halt their current activities. Most often, the issues flow from perceived injustices related to institutions dominated by adults. Common targets include public or private

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schools, local police departments, the criminal and juvenile justice systems, municipal governments, and businesses. As discussed in the previous chap-ter, youth-led organizing programs tend to incorporate social justice issues that impact sexually marginalized young people. Recently, there has been an increase in youth organizing around environmental justice issues and also for immigrant rights.

13. Youth Culture Shapes the Organizing Process

All community organizing draws on the unique assets and strengths of the constituency that is being mobilized. The creativity, enthusiasm, and high energy of young people are infused with aspects of youth culture attendant to any community where youth-led organizing takes place. The particulars may vary, and ‘‘youth culture’’ can encompass a broad range of scenes. For example, the hip-hop activism of street-smart kids, the high-tech games of computer geeks, the service learning projects of middle-class suburban stu-dents, the sports competition among high school jocks, the violence of urban gangs, the music of metal heads, and the religious activities of evangelical Christian youth are but a few examples of youth culture. And certainly not all elements of youth culture are actively engaged in youth-led organizing.

However, as discussed in chapter 3, culture profoundly shapes the po-litical content of youth-led organizing, as well as the recruitment methods, leadership styles, structural factors, nature of collective gatherings, media forms used, patterns for conflict resolution, strategic choices, and tactics employed. Regional differences and local circumstances certainly alter the ways in which youth culture influences the organizing models, methods, and modes of projects, but a common pattern of cultural infusion is evident, with typical elements including music, film, fashion, style, art, dance, the-ater, photography, poetry, and prose. While rap, graffiti, murals, and street theater may be central features in one organizing initiative, heavy metal, video production, and newsletter publication may characterize another. Similar to the social work axiom of ‘‘starting where people are at, ’’ youth culture has the power to engage and activate young people through familiar media where they feel valued and validated, as well as most free to express themselves.

Youth and Adult Roles

14. Youth in Decision-Making Roles

It is sad that the young rarely are placed in decision-making roles in the very organizations that society has established to educate and support them

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(Cutler 2002; Huber et al. 2003). Consequently, the youth-led movement has ‘‘front and centered’’ young people in the process of deciding how social interventions are to be conceptualized, implemented, and evaluated. This empowering experience, in turn, has helped create a cadre of youth activ-ists who eventually will assume responsible adult positions in society. And when they do so, they will be predisposed and prepared to create even more opportunities for young people to be decision makers in the pursuit of a progressive agenda that embraces the principles of social and economic justice.

It is important to acknowledge that the field of youth development has played an influential role in encouraging community-based organizations to create decision-making roles for youth (W. K. Kellogg Foundation 2000; Young Wisdom Project 2004). However, from an operational standpoint, the fields of youth development and youth-led community organizing are light years apart in this regard; the latter places much stronger emphasis on putting young people in positions of power. Nevertheless, at this time, significant efforts are underway to help bridge this gap.

Having youth in decision-making roles does not mean that adults cannot or should not help them when requested to do so, or that only young people will make the ‘‘right’’ decisions throughout their involvement. We never would expect that of adults, and we should not demand it of youth, as well! Instead, it is useful to visualize a ‘‘ladder of leadership, ’’ whereby young activists step up to increased authority as they gain experience, develop their knowledge base, learn new skills, and exercise their newfound power. Eventually, they may even be promoted to the top position in an organi-zation or program initiative.

The field of youth services has numerous frameworks that address a course of action placing young people in decision-making roles. Some of these models stop just short of making young people the ultimate arbitra-tors, while others do not hesitate to put them in the highest position of authority (Delgado 2006). Not every youth can and should be expected to assume total leadership. (The same also can be said of adults. ) Nevertheless, every young participant must be given opportunities to exercise decision-making skills and to learn from the successes and failures. Anything less would be simply unacceptable.

15. Adult Roles in Support

Mention of the youth-led movement generally conjures up images of ini-tiatives run totally by and for youth, with no adults in sight. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most successful youth-led initiatives have adults involved in numerous capacities, and organizing is no exception (Yohalem 2003). The majority of the research cited in chapters 4 and 8 note the critical role adult allies and mentors play in encouraging the field of youth organizing, including youth-led efforts. Adult allies bring with them

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access to resources (informational, expressive, and instrumental) needed by young activists in order to carry out their responsibilities in their campaigns (Nygreen, Kwon, and Sanchez 2006; Rhodes and Roffman 2003).

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