The failure of current policy to address important quality of life issues for urban youth remains a substantial barrier to civic participation, educational equity, and healthy adulthood. This volume brings together the work of leading urban youth scholars to highlight the detrimental impact of zero tolerance policies on young people’s educational experience and well being. Inspired by the conviction that urban youth have the right to more equitable educational and social resources and political representation, Beyond Resistance! offers new insights into how to increase the effectiveness of youth development and education programs, and how to create responsive youth policies at the local, state, and federal level.

The failure of current policy to address important quality of life issues for urban youth remains a substantial barrier to civic participation, educational equity, and healthy adulthood. This volume brings together the work of leading urban youth scholars to highlight the detrimental impact of zero tolerance policies on young people’s educational experience and well being. Inspired by the conviction that urban youth have the right to more equitable educational and social resources and political representation, Beyond Resistance! offers new insights into how to increase the effectiveness of youth development and education programs, and how to create responsive youth policies at the local, state, and federal level.

“Reading this courageous book feels like the beginning of a social and personal awakening...I can’t stop thinking about it.”—Brené Brown, PhD, author of Atlas of the Heart For readers of Emergent Strategy and Dare to Lead, an activist's roadmap to long-term social justice impact through four simple shifts. We need a fundamental shift in our values--a pivot in how we think, act, work, and connect. Despite what we’ve been told, the most critical mainspring of social change isn’t coalition building or problem analysis. It’s healing: deep, whole, and systemic, inside and out. Here, Shawn Ginwright, PhD, breaks down the common myths of social movements--a set of deeply ingrained beliefs that actually hold us back from healing and achieving sustainable systemic change. He shows us why these frames don’t work, proposing instead four revolutionary pivots for better activism and collective leadership: Awareness: from lens to mirror Connection: from transactional to transformative relationships Vision: from problem-fixing to possibility-creating Presence: from hustle to flow Supplemented with reflections, prompts, cutting-edge research, and the author’s own insights and lived experience as an African American social scientist, professor, and movement builder, The Four Pivots helps us uncover our obstruction points. It shows us how to discover new lenses and boldly assert our need for connection, transformation, trust, wholeness, and healing. It gives us permission to create a better future--to acknowledge that a broken system has been predefining our dreams and limiting what we allow ourselves to imagine, but that it doesn’t have to be that way at all. Are you ready to pivot?

Describes the introduction of an Afrocentric curriculum into an Oakland, California, high school during the 1990s.

The national recession forced many communities to examine new and innovative ways to promote local economic development, resulting in long-term community changes. New techniques and approaches were used to identify available opportunities and programs which could take advantage of development opportunities. A common theme among the contributions to this book is a focus on building leadership capacity, and several chapters discuss the successful practices which are aimed at bringing new leaders into local development efforts. Especially important are ways to identify youth and young adults, and designing programs that bring them into active leadership roles within community development efforts. On a broader scale, several authors present material regarding building local entrepreneurship capacity, and recognizing that entrepreneurs at different stages in their development have different training and support needs. The discussions in this book will help local policymakers and development practitioners better understand the various development techniques, and find ways to build capacity within their community, stimulating development. This information will be especially useful for groups interested in engaging youth and populations who, in the past, have not been especially active in discussions about community and economic development. This book was originally published as a special issue of Community Development.

A cutting-edge study showcases the emergence of contemporary youth activism in the United States, its benefits to young people, its role in strengthening society, and its powerful social justice implications. At a time when youth are too often dismissed as either empowered consumers or disempowered deviants, it is vital to understand how these young people are pushing back, challenging such constructions, and advancing new possibilities for their institutions and themselves. This book examines the latest developments in the field of contemporary youth activism (CYA) and documents the myriad ways in which youth activists are effecting social change, even as they experience personal change. By taking public, political action on a range of intersecting issues, youth activists are shifting their own developmental pathways, shaping public policy, and shaking up traditional paradigms. Section one of the book offers a historical perspective on youth activism in the United States, followed by a discussion of contemporary examples of CYA for social justice. The second and third sections analyze the individual, institutional, and ideological effects of CYA, arguing that youth activism works to promote change at three levels: self, systems, and in the broader society. Readers will come away with a clearer understanding of the many ways in which today's youth activists are working to reimagine and remake American democracy, reawakening the promise of a multi-issue, progressive movement for social justice.

A cutting-edge study showcases the emergence of contemporary youth activism in the United States, its benefits to young people, its role in strengthening society, and its powerful social justice implications. At a time when youth are too often dismissed as either empowered consumers or disempowered deviants, it is vital to understand how these young people are pushing back, challenging such constructions, and advancing new possibilities for their institutions and themselves. This book examines the latest developments in the field of contemporary youth activism (CYA) and documents the myriad ways in which youth activists are effecting social change, even as they experience personal change. By taking public, political action on a range of intersecting issues, youth activists are shifting their own developmental pathways, shaping public policy, and shaking up traditional paradigms. Section one of the book offers a historical perspective on youth activism in the United States, followed by a discussion of contemporary examples of CYA for social justice. The second and third sections analyze the individual, institutional, and ideological effects of CYA, arguing that youth activism works to promote change at three levels: self, systems, and in the broader society. Readers will come away with a clearer understanding of the many ways in which today's youth activists are working to reimagine and remake American democracy, reawakening the promise of a multi-issue, progressive movement for social justice.