This volume brings together design thinking, critical social theory, and learning sciences to describe promising learning innovations that foster rights, dignity, and social justice for youth. Each of the chapters provides a case study of a project and discusses underlying theories and behind-the-scenes accounts of implementation and lessons learned. The group of contributors represent emerging scholars who are leading voices working at the intersections of theory and practice for educational equity. Chapters in this volume take up themes of power and equity in the design and redesign of learning opportunities for young people. The chapters show variation in the kinds of learning--from complex ecologies spanning multiple institutions and age groups to specific classroom or after-school spaces. Chapters also vary in the focal ages of participants. Although most discuss experiences of young people between the ages of 12-25, some also explore the learning of elementary age youth. All of the chapters make the authors--who were researchers, designers, teachers, and facilitators--part of the narrative and process of learning. We are especially thankful that the authors of these chapters invite the reader into their thinking process and the tensions and contradictions that emerged as they sought to catalyze transformative learning spaces.

Social media and digital tools permeate the everyday lives of young people. In the early stages of commentary about the impact of the digital age on civic life, debates revolved around whether the Internet enhanced or discouraged civic and political action. Since then we have seen new media move to center stage in politics and activism--from the 2008 US election to the 2011 Arab Spring to the Occupy movement. We have also seen new patterns in how different sub-groups make use of digital media. These developments have pushed people to move beyond questions about whether new media are good or bad for civic life, to ask instead: how, under what conditions, and for whom, do new digital tools become resources for political critique and action by the young? This book will provide a platform for a new wave of scholarship about young people's political participation in the digital age. We define "youth" or "young people" as roughly between the ages of 12 and 25. We include perspectives from political science, education, cultural studies, learning sciences, and youth development. We draw on the framework developed by the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (Cohen, Kahne, Bowyer, Middaugh, & Rogowski, 2012), which defines participatory politics as, "interactive, peer-based acts through which individuals and groups seek to exert both voice and influence on issues of public concern."

The purpose of this book is to compile and publicize the best current thinking about training and professional development for youth workers. School age youth spend far more of their time outside of school than inside of school. The United States boasts a rich and vibrant ecosystem of Out?of?School Time programs and funders, ranging from grassroots neighborhood centers to national Boys and Girls Clubs. The research community, too, has produced some scientific consensus about defining features of high quality youth development settings and the importance of after?school and informal programs for youth. But we know far less about the people who provide support, guidance, and mentoring to youth in these settings. What do youth workers do? What kinds of training, certification, and job security do they have? Unlike K?12 classroom teaching, a profession with longstanding - if contested - legitimacy and recognition, "youth work" does not call forth familiar imagery or cultural narratives. Ask someone what a youth worker does and they are just as likely to think you are talking about a young person working at her first job as they are to think you mean a young adult who works with youth. This absence of shared archetypes or mental models is matched by a shortage of policies or professional associations that clearly define youth work and assume responsibility for training and preparation. This is a problem because the functions performed by youth workers outside of school are critical for positive youth development, especially in ourcurrent context governed by widening income inequality. The US has seen a decline in social mobility and an increase in income inequality and racial segregation. This places a greater premium on the role of OST programs in supporting access and equity to learning opportunities for children, particularly for those growing up in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Fortunately, in the past decade there has been an emergence of research and policy arguments about the importance of naming, defining, and attending to the profession of youth work. A report released in 2013 by the DC Children and Youth Investment Corporation suggests employment opportunities for youth workers are growing faster than the national average; and as the workforce increases, so will efforts to professionalize it through specialized training and credentials. Our purpose in this volume is to build on that momentum by bringing together the best scholarship and policy ideas - coming from in and outside of higher education - about conceptions of youth work and optimal types of preparation and professional development.

Exploring how formal and informal education initiatives and training systems in the US, UK and Australia seek to achieve a socially diverse workforce, this insightful book offers a series of detailed case studies to reveal the initiative and ingenuity shown by today's young people as they navigate entry into creative fields of work. Young People's Journeys into Creative Work acknowledges the new and diverse challenges faced by today's youth as they look to enter employment. Chapters trace the rise of indie work, aspirational labour, economic precarity, and the disruptive effects of digital technologies, to illustrate the oinventive ways in which youth from varied socio-economic and cultural backgrounds enter into work in film, games production, music, and the visual arts. From hip-hop to new media arts, the text explores how opportunities for creative work have multiplied in recent years as digital technologies open new markets, new scenes, and new opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovation. This book will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of youth studies, careers guidance, media studies, vocational education and sociology of education.

Winner, 2016 Best Authored Book presented by the Society for Research on Adolescence Diverse case studies on how youth build political power during an era of racial and educational inequality in America This is what democracy looks like: Youth organizers in Colorado negotiate new school discipline policies to end the school to jail track. Latino and African American students march to district headquarters to protest high school closure. Young immigration rights activists persuade state legislators to pass a bill to make in-state tuition available to undocumented state residents. Students in an ESL class collect survey data revealing the prevalence of racism and xenophobia. These examples, based on ten years of research by youth development scholar Ben Kirshner, show young people building political power during an era of racial inequality, diminished educational opportunity, and an atrophied public square. The book's case studies analyze what these experiences mean for young people and why they are good for democracy. What is youth activism and how does it contribute to youth development? How might collective movements of young people expand educational opportunity and participatory democracy? The interdependent relationship between youths' political engagement, their personal development, and democratic renewal is the central focus of this book. Kirshner argues that youth and societal institutions are strengthened when young people, particularly those most disadvantaged by educational inequity, turn their critical gaze to education systems and participate in efforts to improve them.

Winner, 2016 Best Authored Book presented by the Society for Research on Adolescence Diverse case studies on how youth build political power during an era of racial and educational inequality in America This is what democracy looks like: Youth organizers in Colorado negotiate new school discipline policies to end the school to jail track. Latino and African American students march to district headquarters to protest high school closure. Young immigration rights activists persuade state legislators to pass a bill to make in-state tuition available to undocumented state residents. Students in an ESL class collect survey data revealing the prevalence of racism and xenophobia. These examples, based on ten years of research by youth development scholar Ben Kirshner, show young people building political power during an era of racial inequality, diminished educational opportunity, and an atrophied public square. The book's case studies analyze what these experiences mean for young people and why they are good for democracy. What is youth activism and how does it contribute to youth development? How might collective movements of young people expand educational opportunity and participatory democracy? The interdependent relationship between youths' political engagement, their personal development, and democratic renewal is the central focus of this book. Kirshner argues that youth and societal institutions are strengthened when young people, particularly those most disadvantaged by educational inequity, turn their critical gaze to education systems and participate in efforts to improve them.

Exploring how formal and informal education initiatives and training systems in the US, UK and Australia seek to achieve a socially diverse workforce, this insightful book offers a series of detailed case studies to reveal the initiative and ingenuity shown by today's young people as they navigate entry into creative fields of work. Young People's Journeys into Creative Work acknowledges the new and diverse challenges faced by today's youth as they look to enter employment. Chapters trace the rise of indie work, aspirational labour, economic precarity, and the disruptive effects of digital technologies, to illustrate the oinventive ways in which youth from varied socio-economic and cultural backgrounds enter into work in film, games production, music, and the visual arts. From hip-hop to new media arts, the text explores how opportunities for creative work have multiplied in recent years as digital technologies open new markets, new scenes, and new opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovation. This book will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of youth studies, careers guidance, media studies, vocational education and sociology of education.

The purpose of this book is to compile and publicize the best current thinking about training and professional development for youth workers. School age youth spend far more of their time outside of school than inside of school. The United States boasts a rich and vibrant ecosystem of Out?of?School Time programs and funders, ranging from grassroots neighborhood centers to national Boys and Girls Clubs. The research community, too, has produced some scientific consensus about defining features of high quality youth development settings and the importance of after?school and informal programs for youth. But we know far less about the people who provide support, guidance, and mentoring to youth in these settings. What do youth workers do? What kinds of training, certification, and job security do they have? Unlike K?12 classroom teaching, a profession with longstanding - if contested - legitimacy and recognition, "youth work" does not call forth familiar imagery or cultural narratives. Ask someone what a youth worker does and they are just as likely to think you are talking about a young person working at her first job as they are to think you mean a young adult who works with youth. This absence of shared archetypes or mental models is matched by a shortage of policies or professional associations that clearly define youth work and assume responsibility for training and preparation. This is a problem because the functions performed by youth workers outside of school are critical for positive youth development, especially in ourcurrent context governed by widening income inequality. The US has seen a decline in social mobility and an increase in income inequality and racial segregation. This places a greater premium on the role of OST programs in supporting access and equity to learning opportunities for children, particularly for those growing up in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Fortunately, in the past decade there has been an emergence of research and policy arguments about the importance of naming, defining, and attending to the profession of youth work. A report released in 2013 by the DC Children and Youth Investment Corporation suggests employment opportunities for youth workers are growing faster than the national average; and as the workforce increases, so will efforts to professionalize it through specialized training and credentials. Our purpose in this volume is to build on that momentum by bringing together the best scholarship and policy ideas - coming from in and outside of higher education - about conceptions of youth work and optimal types of preparation and professional development.

Social media and digital tools permeate the everyday lives of young people. In the early stages of commentary about the impact of the digital age on civic life, debates revolved around whether the Internet enhanced or discouraged civic and political action. Since then we have seen new media move to center stage in politics and activism--from the 2008 US election to the 2011 Arab Spring to the Occupy movement. We have also seen new patterns in how different sub-groups make use of digital media. These developments have pushed people to move beyond questions about whether new media are good or bad for civic life, to ask instead: how, under what conditions, and for whom, do new digital tools become resources for political critique and action by the young? This book will provide a platform for a new wave of scholarship about young people's political participation in the digital age. We define "youth" or "young people" as roughly between the ages of 12 and 25. We include perspectives from political science, education, cultural studies, learning sciences, and youth development. We draw on the framework developed by the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (Cohen, Kahne, Bowyer, Middaugh, & Rogowski, 2012), which defines participatory politics as, "interactive, peer-based acts through which individuals and groups seek to exert both voice and influence on issues of public concern."

This volume brings together design thinking, critical social theory, and learning sciences to describe promising learning innovations that foster rights, dignity, and social justice for youth. Each of the chapters provides a case study of a project and discusses underlying theories and behind-the-scenes accounts of implementation and lessons learned. The group of contributors represent emerging scholars who are leading voices working at the intersections of theory and practice for educational equity. Chapters in this volume take up themes of power and equity in the design and redesign of learning opportunities for young people. The chapters show variation in the kinds of learning--from complex ecologies spanning multiple institutions and age groups to specific classroom or after-school spaces. Chapters also vary in the focal ages of participants. Although most discuss experiences of young people between the ages of 12-25, some also explore the learning of elementary age youth. All of the chapters make the authors--who were researchers, designers, teachers, and facilitators--part of the narrative and process of learning. We are especially thankful that the authors of these chapters invite the reader into their thinking process and the tensions and contradictions that emerged as they sought to catalyze transformative learning spaces.