Demystifying conscientization: (re)discovering political orientations in youth action researchers

In social justice work, marginalized youth are often positioned as change agents: people whose critical awareness can be harnessed in the service of political transformation. However, such work commonly portrays youth as naturally insightful about structural inequality and inclined toward activism, neglecting the true complexity of young people’s political orientations. The purpose of this study is to paint a more nuanced picture of Black and Latinx youths’ political identities that takes account of individual youths’ development in relation to the political socialization project of YPAR. I draw on research conducted over the course of a year and four months spent with a group of high school youth as I facilitated youth participatory action research (Y/PAR). I pay particular attention to their politics in relation to questions of race, inequality, and social change, as we interrogated local challenges through a curriculum that explicitly framed inequality as structurally rooted. This study finds that young peoples' responses to learning about structural inequality are complex. Political education can resonate with youth in ways that challenge common sense neoliberal frameworks and expose the class structure as functional and reproductive. However, sociopolitical development does not occur on a linear path; sometimes consciousness develops and sometimes it is submerged by pre-existing beliefs rooted in the same system that is being critiqued. This study demonstrates the complexity of reconciling political orientation to civic orientation as YPAR offered young people the opportunity to pursue civic engagement on their terms in ways that they found personally and politically significant. Opportunities for meaningful engagement illuminate fissures between the civic and the political as the scope and character of civic opportunities may misalign with youths’ political values in ways that may lead to compromise or retrenchment. For progressive civically-engaged youth, critical consciousness development can expose the nuances of the neoliberal state and civil society that have emerged in the modern era under the banner of “progressivism.”Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Kevin Lowell Cla