The Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools

Center for Policy, Research, and Evaluation

About the Youth Organizing Trajectories Study

This brief is part of a larger study, funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, on how participating in YO influences young people’s developmental and academic trajectories. Previous research has suggested that participation in YO may be associated with higher rates of college enrollment and persistence. For example, Rogers and Terriquez [1] found higher rates of four-year degree attainment among YO alumni than a demographically similar sample. In qualitative studies, YO participants and alumni attribute increased postsecondary persistence and ongoing civic engagement in part to their YO experiences and believed that YO helped cement their commitment to higher education. [2]

Our study builds from this previous research to try to understand why and how YO participation might facilitate postsecondary success. That is, what specific skills, competencies, and dispositions do young people develop through YO that can support their academic trajectories? We hypothesize that participating in YO, with its emphasis on critical consciousness, helps young people build transformative SEL competencies that facilitate their engagement in high school and their transition to higher education. We trace socio-emotional skills and critical consciousness development over time through observations of YO meetings, trainings and actions; repeated interviews and focus groups with participants; and repeated surveys. Participants in the larger study were 49% Latinx, 18% Black, 9% Asian/Pacific Islander, 5% multi-racial, and 5% White, with 14% not specifying a race or ethnicity. The median age upon joining our study was 17.

We partnered with six established YO groups, with a track record of successful policy campaigns, to study how their YO practices and the opportunities for critical reflection and action support transformational SEL.

Our partner organizations:

All organize primarily BIPOC youth in large cities and organize around education and other systems directly impacting young people. During the course of the study, our partner organizations were engaged in campaigns to limit or end police presence in schools, change discipline practices, increase funding for counselors and mental health supports, expand college access supports, include teen workers in minimum wage increases, and campaigns to block the expansion of a freeway in their predominantly BIPOC community already struggling with high air pollution rates.

Recommended Citation: Perez, W. Y. & McAlister, S. (2021). Youth organizing: Building critical skills for thriving in college. PRE Research Brief: Student and Families Voices #1. NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity

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Executive Summary

This brief shares findings from a longitudinal study of six established youth organizing (YO) groups (among approximately 300 nationwide).
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Youth Organizing and Transformative SEL

Youth organizing (YO) is a community-based practice that engages young people to collectively identify and analyze issues impacting them and use public action to advocate for solutions.
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Methods

In this brief, we share themes from 36 interviews with 25 youth organizing participants who completed high school during the study.
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Findings

We discuss four key findings in this section.
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Summary of Findings

This research brief illuminates how youth organizing can be a powerful strategy for transformative SEL and college success for BIPOC students.
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Conclusion

YO offers a supportive and affirming context for SEL while also explicitly building young people’s critical social analysis and their efficacy around critical action for social justice.

Footnotes

[1] J. Rogers & V. Terriquez, Learning to lead: The impact of youth organizing on the educational and civic trajectories of low-income youth (Los Angeles: Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, 2011).

[2] (Conner, 2011; Mediratta et al., 2009; Rogers & Terriquez, 2013; C. Taines, “Intervening in alienation: The outcomes for urban youth of participating in school activism,” American Educational Research Journal, 49, no. 1 (2012): 53-86).

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