Background: Research about learning in youth activism has generated important findings about how young people learn to critique inequality and exercise collective agency. This emerging line of research, however, has been limited by its geographic focus in North America, a tendency to assume single bounded groups as sites of learning, and limited…

Youth organizing combines elements of community organizing, with its emphasis on ordinary people working collectively to advance shared interests, and positive youth development, with its emphasis on asset-based approaches to working with young people. It is expanding from an innovative, but marginal approach to youth and community development…

Multiracial youth activism groups, based in working class and poor neighborhoods, seek to improve social conditions by organizing grassroots campaigns. Campaigns such as these, which require sophisticated planning, organizing, and advocacy skills, are noteworthy not just for their political impact, but also because of the insights they provide…

Interviewed and observed 8th graders involved in the Community Youth Research after school project (which taught youth how to investigate community needs and effect systemic change), examining how they described and interpreted their surroundings and directed their concerns toward social action. Participants identified many problems, making sense…

Youth activism represents a promising synthesis of two broad goals in moral education: the development of moral judgments about the social and political world and the ability to implement one's principles in action. Among working-class and poor youth, such commitments often take place in a context where inequities in resources, opportunities, and…