Teens are leapfrogging over old modes of civic participation which translates into an opportunity for organizations to collaborate with this rising generation.
With the start of a new school year, it’s the norm for students to advocate for change in the real world – outside of school. This snapshot of the past two decades reveals this trend away from the classroom. These trends are relevant for community-based groups and coalitions, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies to collaborate with this rising generation of problem solvers.
Estimates of youth civic engagement – which is challenging to describe and define – hover around 25 percent, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. The figure is lower for young people of color and those living in rural areas, which may be closer to the level of participation by many other age groups.
Twenty-Year Trends and Where They Lead
TRADITIONAL VOLUNTEERISM – Established activities such as clothing drives and “Make A Difference” campaigns remain popular, reflected by the movement popularized by Thousand Points of Light.
COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECTS – Propelled by passage of the federal law establishing the Corporation for National Service, high schools began to integrate community service into the K-12 curriculum in the late 1990s.
“SERVICE LEARNING” – Some states require students to perform a certain number of hours in order to graduate. In many school districts, a student’s project monitoring stream pollution or volunteering at a shelter may lead to sustained community involvement.
“ACTION CIVICS”– Massachusetts and Rhode Island are the first two states to enact legislation mandating civics for graduation that ask school districts to encourage student-initiated real world projects.
YOUTH JOURNALISTS – Before cell phones, cheap disposable cameras proved to be a powerful tool. Organizations like Critical Exposure introduced “photovoice” where students document the good, the bad and the ugly in their schools and neighborhoods.
SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS – When cell phones with cameras arrived, the digital revolution crowded out many traditional volunteer activities and accelerated the movement towards “teen power” and “agents of change.” Social media platforms enabled young people to operate outside school-sanctioned activities.
EXTRACURRICULAR CLUBS – The growth in volunteerism and activism has led to dozens of clubs at large high schools, many of which experiment with non-hierarchical structures unlike traditional organizations such as student government. To increase their autonomy, some students move off campus to pursue their projects and campaigns.
YOUTH-LED, ADULT-SUPPORTED ACTIVITIES – Steady growth continues among local community-based organizations to promote positive youth development and provide many opportunities for aspiring change makers.
AUTONOMOUS YOUTH-DRIVEN CAMPAIGNS – Another path is those teens, who regard their school culture or a community-based organization as too confining or hierarchical, strike out on their own. Real world action is overtaking mock leadership programs that have been around for many decades. With the constant development of new digital tools, many teens are leapfrogging over old modes of participation and inventing new ways to exercise their civic muscle.
Gen Z will lead a resurgence of civic participation. If there is a single difference between millennials and the next generation, it is this: zoomers are not waiting on anything or anyone; they are going to force the issue. They will make the change happen – by themselves, if necessary… In a world of competing priorities, engaging the youth of the developing nations today on common values and issues – like justice, climate, and liberty – is paramount, so that the world in 2050 remains safe and prosperous for the US and its allies.
John Della Volpe, FIGHT: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America (St. Martin’s Press, 2022)
Another clue of this trend 0f teen civic leadership beyond the school walls is20 Years of Youth Power: The 2020 National Field Scan. This report shows that 70 percent of organizations surveyed identify as “intergenerational.” One explanation for this trend is an increasing number of adult-run organizations that serve children are heeding the call of “Nothing About Us Without Us” and engaging with their beneficiaries and youngest constituents.
Other reasons for thIS SURGE . . .
Teens who have participated in “entirely youth-led campaigns,” often for 4-6 years, decide to see if they can achieve more impact by teaming up with adult-run organizations and coalitions.
Camaraderie can blossom naturally because frontline and mid-level staff, who became civically active as teens and remember being ignored, tokenized or controlled by older folks, want to stop this cycle and know the value of including teens into the heart of an organization.
Nonprofits and government agencies operate youth advisory councils, internships and one-off projects which serve as a pipeline for these teens to continue to advance in different capacities within these organizations.
Students are working side-by-side with adults to identify and address issues, empowering other underserved students in the process. At this point students co-designing and co-creating. Equity and justice are prioritized and intergenerational partnerships are at the core of the work being done.
These trends represent an opportunity for organizations and agencies to expand their outreach to the entire community by collaborating “with” teens as peers. Having grown up prioritizing diversity and inclusion, many Gen Zers possess unique skills to recruit marginalized and underrepresented youth. This paradigm shift requires radical anti-ageist mindsets by all age groups but the onus is on senior staff to adapt necessary policies and practices to make the organizational culture that respects teen know-how and perspectives.
This survey and analytical process provide a stellar example why young people are needed to help evaluate existing programs as well as shape policy deliberations and decisions.
Post-millennials, who never have operated in a world without the internet, are pros at using an array of social media platforms. Less recognized is that many are adept with various online options that promote collaboration. It is second nature for many Gen Zers to use Google Docs, Slack, Zoom, etc.
One skill-set boosted by these digital tools is Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). It is no longer rare to see sophisticated data collection, analysis, and recommendations generated by this youth-led process. One driver of this trend is young people – especially minors –who know this advocacy strategy improves the odds that they will be taken seriously by the powers-that-be.
Organizations, coalitions, and think tanks could benefit enormously by incorporating a YPAR strategy. Here are just a few reasons and the first one is the most valuable.
10 Reasons for YPAR
To produce data that reveal potentially more honest responses from the most diverse generation ever;
To augment the expertise of professional researchers;
To rethink typical survey questions and refine the language;
To deepen the qualitative and quantitative research skills of everyone involved;
To use innovative dissemination strategies to reach target constituencies;
To gather pertinent data to evaluate the effectiveness of programs, reassess priorities, and develop new initiatives;
To use data to strengthen the overall work and impact of your organization;
To garner attention from the news media and policymakers;
To save money since most employees and many consultants cost more than part-time young researchers; and
To infuse young people – often the primary stakeholders – into the heart of your organization for the benefit of everyone!
Formidable Skills Produce Pertinent Data
A first class example is Race to Learn by the Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT) based on 10,725 responses from 114 of Kentucky’s 120 counties. It was released during debate on state legislation to curb what is taught about race and ethnicity in the classrooms.
Two excerpts reveal the integrity of their methodology, including an intentional strategy to include the most underrepresented students.
We designed our methods in consultation with our “Research Advisory Dream Team,” a group of adult allies with expertise in youth participatory action research (YPAR). We generated and refined our survey tool over the course of both asynchronous and synchronous sessions soon after the start of the 2021- 22 school year, and we did so in consultation with young people outside of our membership and with school and community-based educators throughout the state.
The qualitative team analyzed the 23,094 responses to the six open-ended questions…the quantitative team analyzed 21 scaled questions. Our analysis included the identification of patterns in the data as we disaggregated it in order to compare the experiences of students of color and those of white students and make connections to what students were expressing in their open responses. From there, we were able to come to group consensus and prioritize some key data points and themes.
Race to Learn: Findings, Recommendations and Reflections from the Kentucky Student Voice Team’s Race, Ethnicity and School Climate Student Survey (March 2022)
Interspersed with the presentation of data are quotes by students that reflect a wide range of views but reinforce one finding that “46% of students report that their school needs to do more to confront racism.” Each of the recommendations drawn from the analysis deserves to be read in full (see page 13).
There’s no doubt that the careful creation and wording of questions plus the dissemination through both formal and informal networks were what resulted in over 10K responses during only a two-week time frame.
Model and Motive
The Kentucky Student Voice Team outlines its overarching goal on the first page of the report:
By operating as a transparent, inclusive, and collaborative team, and by documenting our process, we hope to provide a model for how young people and other stakeholders can act as citizen researchers to ensure more just and democratic schools and communities.
This research is a labor intensive undertaking, but young people like these Kentucky citizen researchers prove that the effort is worth it.
As you read about this impressive work, please share with us how your organization might infuse young people as interpreters of the grievances facing their generation and pragmatic solutions.
Youth Infusion 