Taking stock of youth organizing: an interdisciplinary perspective

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 into a more widely recognized model for practice among nonprofit organizations and foundations. Along the way, it has garnered attention from researchers interested in civic engagement, social movements, and resiliency. A growing body of published work evidences the increasing interest of researchers, who have applied an assortment of theoretical perspectives to their observations of youth organizing processes. Through an appraisal of the current state of this still-emerging area of practice and research, including case examples, the authors identify common elements of the practice of youth organizing--relationship development, popular education, social action, and participatory research and evaluation--and conclude with a discussion of promising future directions for research and practice.