1. Youth organizing strengthens academic self-efficacy and academic engagement.

First-generation students and BIPOC students can experience setbacks in adjusting to the academic and social expectations of college. [23] They often have lower academic self-concept and less tacit knowledge about how to navigate college environments than their peers with college-graduate parents, contributing to lower persistence rates. [24]

In contrast, YO alumni saw their organizing work as a source of important knowledge and skills for handling the demands of college. Several described feeling “advanced” when their courses addressed social movements, colonialism, capitalism, gentrification, local governance, and other topics on which they had direct knowledge through organizing. One junior majoring in sociology described the coursework for his major as “putting an official definition to things I already know.” This sense of expertise empowered students to participate in class discussions and engage more actively in classwork.

Beyond specific content knowledge, alumni also acknowledged how organizing helped them hone analytic and academic skills in college coursework. One young woman explained how preparing Freedom of Information Law requests around police databases taught her the value of painstaking research. Another described learning to carefully support arguments with evidence when presenting demands to public officials, and how she employed those skills in college writing assignments. Others noted that they learned how to employ an intersectional lens or to conduct a power analysis before starting college:

Many alumni noted that college required them to take responsibility for structuring their own time, workload, and extracurricular commitments in ways they hadn’t experienced during high school. Several noted that through organizing, they had experienced reshuffling priorities and responding to last-minute requests to attend important public meetings or take advantage of an opportunity to meet with decision-makers, while still attending to schoolwork. They suggested that the autonomy and responsibility they exercised in their YO group and the flexibility required by organizing served them well as they adjusted to college expectations.

Communication and collaboration were among the skills alumni invoked most often and most consistently in describing how organizing prepared them for college. Youth organizing provides abundant opportunities for “public speaking,” for example, speaking up in small peer groups, meeting directly with elected officials, and speaking in front of hundreds or thousands during public hearings and protests. These experiences helped alumni feel comfortable taking leadership roles in group projects, speaking up in class, and reaching out to professors for help.

Alumni connected the community norms and discussion practices of YO groups with their confident participation in class discussions. YO group staff work hard to establish inclusive, respectful spaces through community agreements and consensus-based decision-making. Community agreements were broadly consistent across the groups in our study. They included norms around assuming good intentions, listening to understand, challenging ideas rather than people, monitoring one’s airtime, and ensuring everyone in the group is ready before closing discussions. Many alumni also had experience door-knocking or canvassing to garner support for YO campaigns, and some had negotiated with school administrators or elected officials. Several described those experiences as helping them hone their skills in understanding perspectives that conflicted with their own and remaining calm in the face of pushback to their ideas. In their college classes, they saw themselves using these skills, and YO norms they had internalized, to contribute meaningfully to discussions, ensure that group projects reflected everyone’s contributions, and approach professors for guidance.

2. YO alumni developed relationship and networking skills that facilitated their adjustment to college life.

Alumni found the relational and communication skills developed through YO to be useful in adjusting to the social aspects of campus life. Some were worried about finding a community at higher education spaces that could look very different from their home communities. Yet they connected with their professors, developed relationships with mentors, and made friends, consistent with research on schooling models that emphasize critical consciousness. [25]

Several alumni reflected that the public speaking and communication skills developed through campaign work gave them confidence in interactions with professors, college staff, and other adults such as internship advisors and potential employers. They pointed to practice with strategic code-switching when engaging with adult decision-makers, and with “professional” written and in-person communication as part of organizing.

Alumni found themselves to be quite capable of building friendships with peers. They connected the central role of community-building in YO with their ability to build new relationships. Ice-breaker games, canvassing and door-knocking experiences, and the responsibility of older YO leaders to help new members feel welcomed and included, prepared them to strike up conversations with, as one put it, “people who I have nothing in common with, but I still know how to make conversation and I know how to make those connections.” One commuter student, who’d played a leadership role in recruitment for her YO group, noted that she constantly used those skills to meet people on campus, since she didn’t have dorm-mates as built-in friends.

The YO groups in our study made a practice of including pronouns in introductions, appreciating multilingualism, incorporating cultural practices into meetings and activities, and establishing community agreements. Alumni spoke at length about how their organizing experiences had taught them to listen to and value perspectives at odds with their own, appreciate the ways that lived experiences shape values and perspectives, and disagree respectfully and productively. In college, they translated these skills into open- mindedness and curiosity towards their peers. One alumna shared that she had learned to “respect people’s boundaries and different situations... understand each other’s points of view and why we had them,” which she put into practice living with roommates for the first time. Survey responses from YO participants in our study supported the inclusivity and perspective-taking found in organizing:

3. YO alumni developed self-management and “critical resistant navigational skills” that helped them persevere in culturally incongruent spaces.

Alumni attended a range of postsecondary institution types—community colleges, local commuter universities, large state universities far from home, a historically Black university, and small liberal arts colleges in largely White rural and suburban communities. While some attended schools with similar demographics to their home communities or felt at home on highly diverse campuses, others struggled to adjust in predominantly White spaces. Some alumni at majority-BIPOC or highly diverse campuses also felt incongruity between their immersion in activism and the political narratives on campus and in their classes.

For BIPOC youth, cultural congruence is central to their thriving in college. [26] Maintaining connections to their own culture through mentors, cultural enclaves, classes that value their cultural assets, and maintaining a strong sense of collective purpose can buffer BIPOC students from racially hostile campus climates and stereotype threat. [27] Yosso et al. [28] describe how Latinx students, in the face of microaggressions, deploy “critical resistant navigational skills” [29] to cope with racial and cultural stress and build social and academic counterspaces that value their cultural identities and knowledge as a source of resilience and expertise. These navigational skills help students develop a critical analysis of their college experiences, set high aspirations, and connect their own education to community justice and transformation.

YO alumni developed critical analyses of the ways in which their institutions failed to meet their needs. They critiqued the ways their schools’ responses to the COVID pandemic ignored the realities of low-income and first-generation students. Institutions assumed that students could easily borrow more to cover the cost of improved internet service for remote learning, or that students quarantined at home, sharing devices and providing childcare for younger siblings, would have unlimited time for group projects. One alumnus pointed out that the absence of faculty of color at his large public university limited the depth of classroom discussions of race. Another shared a nuanced reflection on the ways that the uncritical emphasis on objectivity in her journalism classes conflicted with her vision of investigative reporting as lifting up voices that have been neglected and advancing justice for her community.

While research illustrates how hostile racial climates can lead BIPOC students to experience racial stress, [30] alumni brought with them strategies for actively managing these stresses. They used self-regulation skills developed through organizing to prioritize resilience, self-care and mental health, and sought counterspaces through ongoing relationships with their YO group, culturally congruent courses, and extracurricular organizations.

Resilience, self-care, and mental health

Organizing as a strategy to change policy requires immense patience and perseverance. Campaigns often extend beyond the high school careers of individual participants. The leaders who do the most to advance education justice campaigns often graduate before they can reap the benefits of their success. Success is often piecemeal and partial, with frequent setbacks and disappointments. YO participants credited their organizing experiences with helping them learn to anticipate and persevere through challenges, and to expect progress to be slow and halting. They explained that they were motivated to persist in organizing because the work was meaningful to them and their communities.

YO groups emphasize the importance of celebrating even small victories and practicing self-care to sustain energy. During our study, several of our partner organizations were engaged in campaigns to improve access to mental health care in public schools. YO staff worked to normalize talking about and seeking support for mental health, and connected members with culturally responsive mental health services as needed. Alumni remained conscious of their stress levels and prioritized self-care, social activities, and time away from schoolwork. One shared that remembering conversations about mental health during his YO work inspired him to take a break from college and, upon his return, to seek therapy. One alumna reflected that she had set goals for herself in her second semester of college to strike a better balance with her schoolwork, noting the inspiration she drew from her YO experiences:

Finding and building counterspaces

YO participants nearly universally described their YO groups as a source of belonging, acceptance, and emotional support. Alumni described their YO groups as counterspaces that affirmed their racial, gender, and other identities, connected them to their communities, and fostered mutual support. They experienced high levels of support and trust from peers and adults. They often referenced how their group “had their back” and viewed the community and collective identity built through organizing as an important source of resilience. Jagers et al. note the central role of belonging and connectedness in development and propose that transformative belonging goes beyond recognition and affirmation to “full involvement in meaning-making and the building of relationships and institutions.” [31] As described above, YO participants felt real ownership of their YO groups and collective responsibility for maintaining norms and relationships. In surveys, more than 90% reported that they often or always felt part of a community and felt supported by other youth in the organization.

In surveys, YO participants reported experiencing high levels of support, affirmation, and expectation from adults and peers in their organizations—higher than rates reported by participants in more traditional youth development programs. [32]

YO alumni continued to draw on their connections to their YO groups as they transitioned to college. Nearly all alumni stayed in some form of contact with staff or members of their YO groups. Most connected with alumni and current members over social media, and some checked in periodically with staff or visited when they were home for school breaks. A few took paid internships or jobs during the summer, training younger students or leading special projects. Alumni often reached out to YO staff for moral support and advice, knowing that many staff themselves were recent college graduates. They turned to fellow YO participants to help them process stressful experiences. One reflected,

Many alumni sought out similarly affirming counterspaces on campus, in particular ethnic organizations, which provide cultural validation and support campus adjustment and belonging for BIPOC students. [33] Alumni named Latinx student organizations, a campus chapter of the NAACP, an organization advocating for Dreamers, and a womanist collective groups as organizations with which they were active. (Other alumni, who were in their first year, had planned to join similar organizations in their spring semester but were stymied by the Covid pandemic). A student who was in the process of rushing a Black sorority shared:

Similarly, the alumna who switched her major from computer science to Latin/Caribbean studies reflected on how an ethnic students organization helped her build a community:

A number of alumni sought out student organizations to continue their activist work and find peers who shared their critical analysis and politics, including student government, debate club, a Progressive Student Union, an anti-militarist group, and an environmental justice group.

Alumni also sought out academic counterspaces by carefully selecting courses that were more likely to be culturally congruent, or where their critical social analysis would be more welcome. Several planned to major in ethnic studies, women’s studies, or political science. Many took at least some ethnic studies courses, women’s studies, queer studies courses, and courses related to politics and civic engagement. They built relationships with faculty who appreciated their organizing work and kept abreast of key campaigns. One alumna enrolled in an honors program focused on designing social action projects, where many of her peers had similar organizing and activism backgrounds.

Another alumna had planned to major in computer science like her brother, until she found herself much more willing to forge her own path and put in the work to excel in her Latino studies course rather than her math courses: