NEW RESOURCES

Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing's Occasional Paper Series
Urban Transformations: Youth Organizing in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC
By Kohei Ishihara. Occasional Paper No. 9. January 2007.
Author Kohei Ishihara takes a compelling look at youth organizing in the major metropolitan areas of the Northeast —home to the largest concentration of young organizing groups in the nation. Click here to download a tip sheet on using OPS no. 9 Urban Transformations: Youth Organizing in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia & Washington, DC to generate support for youth organizing.

ReGeneration: Young People Shaping the Environmental Justice Movement
By Julie Quiroz-Martinez, Diana Pei Wu and Kristen Zimmerman
Movement Strategy Center, © 2005
ReGeneration examines the powerful visions and strategies of young people in the U.S. environmental justice movement. Movement Strategy Center interviewed groups across the country, and found that youth organizers in the environmental justice movement are creating new ways to expand leadership, build intergenerational alliances, work sustainably and bridge issue areas and communities. The groups profiled in this report offer models and strategies to reinvigorate every sector of the national progressive movement.
http://www.movementstrategy.org/research.html

Youth Activism: A Web Forum
The Social Science Research Council launched “Youth Activism: A Web Forum."
A previous issue highlighted Transnational Activism -- young people’s involvement in global justice movements that seek to influence and change the policies and practices of powerful institutions on a global level. The current issue focuses on African American Youth Activism and calls attention to young people directly facing the kinds of inequalities that global justice activism addresses – only they address them locally, in their own schools and communities.
http://ya.ssrc.org/

Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing's
Third Installment of Occasional Papers

At a Crossroads: Youth Organizing in the Midwest
By Melissa Spatz. Occasional Paper No. 7. September 2005.
Melissa Spatz challenges the notion of a homogenous Midwest, to map the contours of a growing and increasingly varied youth organizing field in and beyond Chicago.

Traditions and Innovations: Youth Organizing in the Southwest
By Daniel HoSang. Occasional Paper No. 8. September 2005.
Daniel HoSang transports readers to a Southwestern landscape—beautiful and culturally rich on one hand, and historically oppressive and contentious on the other—to reveal youth organizing that draws heavily on tradition, yet is boldly innovative in its approaches.

Changing the Rules of the Game: Youth Development and Structural Racism
By Julie Quiroz Martinez, Daniel HoSang and Lori Villarosa
Findings from the Youth and Racial Equity Project, which conducted an 18-month study on the ways community groups engage youth in confronting structural racism. Features 16 organizations integrating youth development and racial equity goals.

Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing's
Second Installment of Occasional Papers

The West Coast Story: The Emergence of Youth Organizing in California
By Ryan Pintado-Vertner. Occasional Paper No. 5. September 2004.
Explores the regional and statewide context of California that has spurred, facilitated and challenged contemporary youth organizing efforts, and how that context has shaped the current priorities and approaches of organizations.

A New Generation of Southerners: Youth Organizing in the South
By Charles Price and Kim Diehl. Occasional Paper No. 6. September 2004.
Describes the sociopolitical and historical backdrop of efforts by youth and their communities to build hope and local power for social change and justice, and how local and regional dynamics have shaped those organizing efforts.

Youth Action for Educational Change:
A Resource Guide, May 2004
A consolidation by Forum for Youth Investment of literature, research, tools and other resources about youth as school reformers.
http://www.forumfyi.org/Files/YAECResourceGuide.pdf

North High School report by Padres Unidos and Jovenes Unidos, April 2004
Analyzes surveys of 700 students about educational opportunity at North High School in Denver, CO. Discusses key components for high achievement and offers proposals for making North a school of excellence.
www.ncscatfordham.org/pages/viewfull.cfm?ElementID=137

Structural Racism and Youth Development: Issues, Challenges and Implications. The Roundtable on Community Change at the
Aspen Institute, February 2004.
Discusses the need for a structural racism analytical framework in the field of youth work. Includes comments on youth organizing's particular success in pushing racial equity outcomes as an explicit part of the mission and values of youth work.
Structural Racism and Youth Development

From the Frontlines: Youth Organizers Speak, LISTEN, Inc. Spring 2004
A report by LISTEN, Inc. based on interviews of 52 youth organizers to understand, from their perspective, the importance and distinctiveness of the work.
www.lisn.org/frontlines_all.pdf

Forthcoming Comparative Analysis
Social Policy Research Associates and Youth Development Strategies, Inc. draw on research from the Youth Leadership Development Initiative evaluation for this comparative analysis of community youth development strategies.