Monday, June 1, 2015 at 12:30 p.m.
Room 200, Graduate Student Centre (6371 Crescent Road), UBC Point Grey Campus
Title: Re/Narrating Youth: A Critical Qualitative Study of Learning in an Activist Organization
Supervisor: Dr. Jennifer Vadeboncoeur (HDLC)
Supervisory Committee: Dr. Deirdre Kelly (EDST) and Dr. Donal O’Donoghue (EDCP)
University Examiners: Dr. Theresa Rogers (LLED) and Dr. Steven Talmy (LLED)
External Examiner: Dr. Jrene Rahm (Universite de Montreal)
ABSTRACT
This critical qualitative inquiry investigated the meaning making practices of a group of 10 young people in a youth-driven social justice organization, called Think Again, located in Vancouver, BC. An overarching goal of this study was to contribute to scholarship concerned with how youths, as cultural producers, re/narrate what it means to be a young person in a neoliberal society. To this end, I explored the ways in which contemporary youth narratives, such as the “millennial youth,” afford and constrain learning opportunities for specific groups of young people. The research questions were as follows: (1) In what ways does Think Again function as a community of practice?; (2) How does Think Again support learning as participation?; (3) How does youths’ participation at Think Again support and/or challenge the broader social narratives of youth? and; (4) What possible social futures do youths construct through their participation at Think Again? These questions grounded an exploration of the potential disconnect between contemporary youth narratives and youths’ activist narratives and an investigation of how youths perceive of themselves and their lives within an evolving community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Analysis of the qualitative data was conducted at three levels in order to identify and examine: (1) narratives across the data, (2) traces of participation across youths’ constructions of knowing, being, and valuing, and (3) participation as future-making. Four key findings were identified. First, the division of “youth” narratives into dominant and counternarratives is itself problematic. Second, thinking about learning as participation, a holistic endeavor, entails attention to changes in how and what participants come to know through participation, as well as who they are becoming and the values associated with their roles in relationships. Third, local opportunities for youth participation that generate the conditions for a “politics of possibility” are essential to personal and social transformation (Holland me , 3). Fourth, engaging in activism and becoming youth activists in the contemporary neoliberal context takes on a specific and limited form. This study advances the fields of youth civic engagement, learning as participation, and qualitative methodologies by deploying narrative accounts of young people’s lived experiences.