Building youth power and the infrastructure that supports it is an investment in a more equitable and just future. Drawing from both research and lived experience, we discuss what makes youth organizing groups successful in building the power to influence policy making and brighten the futures of young people of color.

Research shows that members of youth organizing groups can experience a “transformative political socialization” that gives them the confidence, information, and tools they need to speak out and engage others in grassroots campaigns.

This process of socialization is catalyzed by three overlapping components:

  • Attention to participants’ developmental needs, including providing social and emotional supports that address experiences with poverty and discrimination and give young people coping resources, life skills, and resilience.
  • A critical civics education (often lacking in school) that helps youth engage with diverse community members, understand the root causes of community problems, and navigate public institutions.
  • Guidance on civic action that teaches young people how to strategically participate in efforts to influence their world at local, regional, and societal levels.

Additionally, there are two key themes embedded in the approach of grassroots youth organizations that fully engage youth and facilitate their involvement in policy decision-making, advocacy, and narrative change efforts that are inclusive and facilitate broad impact:

1. Use of intersectional frameworks. Multiple systems of oppression based on race, class, gender, and more, affect the lives of vulnerable populations in California, and elsewhere. The concept of intersectional frameworks asserts that these systems work in concert with each other to enforce inequality. Intersectional frameworks help youth understand their circumstances as the consequences of societal-scale arrangements rather than their own failings, giving them the confidence and the motivation to challenge those arrangements.

2. Support from intermediary organizations. Young people primarily learn how to become leaders within their local youth organizing groups. However, state-wide intermediary organizations, such as YO Cali!, Power California, Brown Issues, and PolicyLink played an important role in supporting those local groups and thereby building youth power in the 2010s.

Read the full article about youth power by Veronica Terriquez and Kahlila Williams at Stanford Social Innovation Review.