"So What I Got a Mouth!;" Reclaiming Attachment and Active Citizenship Through Adult-Youth Partnerships
Item
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Title
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"So What I Got a Mouth!;" Reclaiming Attachment and Active Citizenship Through Adult-Youth Partnerships
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:e508aa7935d4:10844
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identifier
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11066
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Creator
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Zeller-Berkman, Sarah,
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Contributor
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Michelle Fine
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology | Developmental psychology | Adult-youth partnerships | Attachment | Critical Youth Development | Life history | Youth activism
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Abstract
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This dissertation uses life history methodology with adults and young people in two youth activism organizations in New York City to study how to engage in productive youth-adult partnerships in a larger context that is repressive for young people. The findings reveal a dialectic of attachment writ large (beyond individuals) that is pushed towards one pole by the presence of "participation" and "alignment" and towards the other pole when young people and adults are in "contradiction" and barred from active participation. The findings also reveal two paradoxes involved in adult-youth partnerships: 1) desire and disappointment and 2) persistent public exclusion. The first paradox, desire and disappointment, implies that although young people want to participate in changing communities, programs, and/or institutions, they are generally barred from participation and placed in contradiction, not alignment with adults. The second paradox, persistent public exclusion, implies that even once young people are working in programs that enable them to partner with adults to create change, when out of the safe space of the youth programs, they are once again barred from participation. Even with all these barriers to participation and alignment, findings reveal an impact of adult-youth partnerships on multiple levels beyond the attachment of individual adults and young people. Results indicate impact for programs, communities, and institutions. Lastly, findings reveal the qualities and conditions that support adult-youth partnerships. A theory of change model constructed from the findings challenges one to consider using adult-youth partnerships to change the larger repressive context instead of working within it.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
