In: Peace and conflict: journal of peace psychology ; the journal of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence, Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, Volume 22, Issue 3, p. 236-245
In Canada, the resettlement of thousands of war‐affected children every year poses new challenges to child and family services. Since young people arrive from multiple contexts either alone or accompanied by family or caregiver(s), after having endured significant trauma, stress, and adversity, conventional approaches to service delivery are seldom adequate. Drawing on anthropology of childhood literature, this paper calls for increased inclusion of young people's experiences and perspectives in reconfiguring psychosocial services. Interactive focus groups and in‐depth interviews with youth from war‐affected countries and service providers in Québec uncovered the ways that war alters family and how young people rely on both formal and informal support systems during resettlement. Young people and service providers reflected on inadequacies of current services in meeting the complex needs of youth while service professionals reported being ill‐equipped to support war‐affected youth. This paper posits that perspectives from the anthropology of childhood are critical in liaising between youth and professionals to provide services that build on a socioecological view of development, provide healing, and recognize the diversity of children and families' kinship ties.
This study, based on research into a youth empowerment initiative inCanada, examines the transformational power of youth grants for marginalised youth and their communities. The positive changes on individual youth included increased confidence and skills, as well as strengthened social interactions between youth, and involved adults and organisations. To leverage grant impact, we identify the critical role of creating accountability at multiple levels, promoting sharing among grantees, and fostering allies and system thinkers. The evaluation points to the potential of grants for changing community's perception that youth are incapable of fostering community youth development.
This article considers environmental projects as means for engaging elementary school-aged immigrant children in their community. Based on an environmental research project with children aged 9–12 involved in their school's Green Committee (GC), we identify multiple components for enabling meaningful children's participation. Space was essential in creating a context for children to discover and express their voice. The combination of capacity-building and research activities as well as rapport-building between children, adults and the environment fostered care and ownership. Reaching out to a variety of audiences including peers and parents helped orient and strengthen the GC's actions. The children were listened to but also actively sought and responded to audiences. Influence involved receiving external funding, completing landscaping of the school's front courtyard as well as engagement with adults considering (or not) members' views. The project showed that if supported by committed and facilitating adult educators these children remained motivated and that their process had the power to lead others into action and change. Children valued the socio-physical and aesthetic aspects of the environment, and furthermore, their engagement provided them with a sense of belonging. The GC experience itself illustrates how an action research project that involves a small group of children can serve as a model to create meaningful participation of children and broader partnerships in schools on collective interests.
The heightened visibility of racial discrimination coupled with the repression of young people's civil and political rights during the COVID-19 pandemic is surfacing the need for human rights education (HRE) to address anti-racism more intentionally. HRE practitioners reflect on language, the limitations of celebrating diversity, and the need for critical consciousness and deliberative spaces in youth engagement programming to address lived injustices across communities. As children's rights researchers and practitioners, we consider the interdependence of the rights to participation and non-discrimination and the need to recalibrate youth programs to consider age alongside race and other aspects of identity. The shift to a critical and decolonial approach to HRE includes embracing intersectionality and reflexivity, actively bringing BIPOC youth to the centre of defining and cultivating racial justice engagement to catalyze systemic-level change. We identify reflection questions for institutions, programs, and practitioners to support this journey. ; Cet article aborde comment la visibilité accrue de la discrimination raciale et la répression des droits civils et politiques des jeunes pendant la pandémie de COVID-19 a poussé l'éducation aux droits humains (EDR) à lutter contre le racisme plus intentionnellement. Stimulés par la conscience accrue qu'ont les jeunes du racisme, leur appel au changement et les injustices vécues, les éducateurs en droits humains réfléchissent à leur langage, aux limites de la «célébration de la diversité» et aux différents espaces pour soutenir l'engagement des jeunes et renforcer l'inclusion. Comme chercheurs et éducateurs des droits de l'enfant, nous considérons que l'attention portée à l'âge a négligé l'interdépendance des droits à la participation et la non-discrimination. S'engager dans une EDR plus critique implique d'embrasser l'intersectionnalité et la réflexivité; d'amener activement les jeunes BIPOC au centre du partage d'information; de cultiver leur engagement pour la justice raciale pour catalyser un changement systémique.
La participation authentique des jeunes Autochtones s'inscrit dans le contexte historique plus large des consultations avec les peuples autochtones du Canada, qui reproduisent souvent la dynamique du pouvoir colonial. Cet article décrit une consultation qui, menée par des Autochtones au Québec, offrait des espaces adaptés à la culture où les priorités étaient établies par les jeunes. Les formats des consultations entreprises par quatre organisations autochtones reposaient sur (a) la mobilisation et la représentation des réalités diverses des jeunes, (b) la réappropriation du processus, (c) le soutien des voix et des identités des jeunes, et (d) les effets multiniveaux. Des approches appropriées et inclusives en matière de consultation favorisent la participation significative des jeunes, leur sentiment d'identité et d'appartenance, ainsi que leur autonomie. Ces pratiques novatrices illustrent la manière dont les jeunes autochtones se réapproprient les espaces politiques marginalisés.
This special issue aims to explore Canadian pedagogical and curricular practices in child and youth care and youth work preservice education with an emphasis on empirical and applied studies that centre students' perspectives of learning. The issue includes a theoretical reflection and empirical studies with students, educators, and practitioners from a range of postsecondary programs in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. The empirical articles use various methodologies to explore pedagogical and curricular approaches, including Indigenous land- and water-based pedagogies, ethical settler frontline and teaching practices, the pedagogy of the lightning talk, novel-based pedagogy, situated learning, suicide prevention education, and simulation-based teaching. These advance our understanding of accountability and commitment to Indigenous, decolonial, critical, experiential, and participatory praxis in child and youth care postsecondary education. In expanding the state of knowledge about teaching and learning in child and youth care, we also aspire to validate interdisciplinary ways of learning and knowing, and to spark interest in future research that recognizes the need for education to be ethical, critically engaged, creatively experiential, and deeply culturally and environmentally relevant.
Capstone courses often focus on applied learning, typically practicum experiences such as internships. However, students do not always benefit as much as they could from their internships because teaching and learning resources are not used optimally. This paper explores the use of project-based learning in a capstone course of the Graduate Diploma in Youth Work program at Concordia University that includes an in-class seminar and an internship in a human services agency. Using the principles of context authenticity and cognitive apprenticeship from the Authentic Situated Learning and Teaching (ASLT) framework, we examine the experiences of two cohorts of interns (24 students in all). An analysis of their final papers and participation in a focus group, as well as the results of the university's course evaluation, suggests that the ASLT framework contributes to the transfer of learning in a professional setting. Furthermore, the use of the psychoeducative model to structure active pedagogies in a youth work capstone course provides a means for planning therapeutic activities and organizing intervention programs that help develop competencies to work in diverse settings.
Contents: Lesley Emerson/Laura Lundy: Education Rights in a Society Emerging from Conflict: Curriculum and Student Participation as a Pathway to the Realization of Rights – Martha Baiyee/Celeste Hawkins/Valerie Polakow: Children's Rights and Educational Exclusion: The Impact of Zero-Tolerance in Schools – Natasha Blanchet-Cohen: The Protagonism of Under-18 Youth in the Québec Student Movement: The Right to Political Participation and Education – Panagiota Karagianni/Soula Mitakidou/Evangelia Tressou: What's Right in Children's Rights? The Subtext of Dependency – Kylie Smith: A Rights-Based Approach to Observing and Assessing Children in the Early Childhood Classroom – Lacey Peters/Lisa Lacy: «You're Not Listening to Us»: Explicating Children's School Experiences to Build Opportunity for Increased Participation Within School Communities in the United States – Jenny Ritchie/Cheryl Rau: Renarrativizing Indigenous Rights-Based Provision Within «Mainstream» Early Childhood Services – Nkidi Phatudi/Mokgadi Moletsane: Restoring Indigenous Languages and the Right to Learn in a Familiar Language: A Case of Black South African Children – Bekisizwe Ndimande/Beth Blue Swadener: Pursuing Democracy Through Education Rights: Perspectives from South Africa – Harry Shier/Martha Lidia Padilla/Nohemí Molina Torres/Leonilda Barrera López/Moisés Molina Torres/Zorayda Castillo/Karen Alicia Ortiz Alvarado: Claiming the Right to Quality Education in Nicaragua – Colette Murray: Getting an Education: How Travellers' Knowledge and Experience Shape Their Engagement with the System – Leodinito Y. Cañete: When Boys Are Pushed-Pulled out of School: Rights to Education in the Philippines – Janette Habashi: Intersections of Education and Freedom of Religion Rights in the UNCRC and in Practice.
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This article utilizes duoethnography, a collaborative research methodology, to examine the divergent experiences of students and professors in the 2012 Québec student movement. Ignited by the government's announcement of its intention to increase tuition fees, this youth-led movement caused an unprecedented stirring of ideas, emotions, and actions. Through personal narratives, we identify four aspects of a youth-led movement for social change, and reflect on their meaning in our lives in realizing youth-adult partnerships in the context of emancipatory approaches. They are: (a) the benefit of experiential versus classroom education; (b) the nurturing effect on youth empowerment of providing structures and spaces for youth-led processes; (c) the need to align youth emancipatory theory with practice, especially in systems which regularly resist change; and (d) the unexpectedly powerful impact of youth stereotypes, especially those delivered through mainstream media, and the difficulty of overcoming them. We also identify the value of duoethnography to accentuate youth voices, strengthen adult-youth partnerships, and enrich the transformative learning of both youth and adults.
<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><strong>Acknowledgements: </strong><span style="font-size: small;">The authors would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Centre for Human Relations and Community Studies, the Department of Applied Human Sciences, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Concordia University for their support. We also wish to express our appreciation to Peggy Herring, our copy editor for the special issue.</span></span><strong></strong></p>