Kelsen y la Paz Perpetua

The organizations in this study took various approaches to engaging young people, developing routines and pathways for youth inclusion that included different levels of youth autonomy. At the RJTC, for instance, organizational operations were primarily run by adult managers and youth had limited roles in decision-making. Youth at the RJTC also expressed that their organization was not a place to engage with issues of racial inequality that arose in the public discourse, despite their interests and observations about connections to the teen court. Youth from the RJTC did not express using many of the tactics learned in their organizational participation, although they did reproduce cordial interactions and indicate a sense of shared identity with their organizational peers. They did not engage in traditional deliberation, rarely challenging each other or debating particular points.

At the YTC, on the other hand, youth retained extensive autonomy over the daily decision making, but it was constrained to the courtroom. Inside the courtroom, the

organizational interactions were under the framework of managed autonomy. Youth at the YTC did bring up issues relating to racial inequality amongst themselves, but there was not an

openness or commitment to engaging the issues within the organizational setting. In the problem- solving group, youth from the YTC did demonstrate organizational tactics, but as a part of a larger repertoire including a long list of tactics they learned and practiced in other settings. They tended to take a highly individualized approach to interaction and displayed very limited

EYC youth were part of a more highly inclusive organization where they were a critical part of many areas of decision making. When the EYC was faced with pressure from the youth to engage more deeply in issues of racial inequality that were expanding in the public discourse, their mode of operation that was highly inclusive of youth went into effect and the organization allowed youth to influence their practices to be more deeply engaged in the issues. Youth at EYC also adopted the practices and interactive styles of the organization reproducing them when they discussed and responded to other civic issues.

Finally, although YRSV youth were part of the organization that offered the most autonomous youth participation in routines and activities, there was a mismatch between the stated extent of youth participation and the experience of youth in the organization. Although the youth were able to push forward the organization to engage with issues of racial inequality, the tension that resulted from the overpromise of autonomy and a deep divide between two adults who had different visions for organizational commitments led the organization to dissolve before I was able to complete a problem-solving group with the youth.

As I argue in chapter 2, what differentiates the routines and practices around youth inclusion in these organizations is a combination of organizational culture, the skills and

capacities of adults, and the heterogeneity of youth in the group. For instance, if Luke, who was dedicated to creating an organization that allowed youth meaningful participation in various elements worked with youth at RJTC, he would have been constrained by the culture of an organization that sees youth roles as subservient to those of adults. By retaining a heterogeneous group of young people in the organization, EYC also introduced a variety of viewpoints,

expectations, and youth expertise, all of which shaped the capacity of youth to challenge and influence EYC.

The youth themselves were impacted to various degrees by their participation in these organizations. Although past scholars have considered the correlations between youth

participation and later civic engagement, there have not been many studies that consider what particular features of organizational participation are transferred to youth or whether and how skills and knowledge might be applied in other settings. I find that the assumption of transfers of organizational tactics and deliberative approaches in past work is not ubiquitous in organizations and that organizations vary greatly in how much they influence youth. When youth have the opportunity to practice civic activities through inclusion in the decision-making process and organizational governance, they retain and can deploy the tactics learned in their organizations in other settings. However, the interactional and peer development elements of organizational participation do influence how youth interact in deliberation more readily. This indicates that youth are deeply influenced by the routines of interaction in organizations and model the interactions from their groups in other civic activities.

Although youth may feel connected to peers and their organizations regardless of the extent of their inclusion in decision-making, “for young people to remain involved, organizing groups must address topics youth care about deeply and must do so in a manner that maintains their interest and attention. Importantly, organizing groups must respond to young people’s experiences in their communities…” (Rogers et al. 2012:52). During the observation period, this meant including youth in shaping organizational responses to the Black Lives Matter movement. These kinds of experiences are transformative for youth, as they aid then in recognizing their power and challenging inequalities (Rogers et al. 2012).

The findings I present from the four organizations I observed provide insights into youth organizations more generally. The small literature on youth-adult partnerships has noted that there is value for young people who are included in decision-making especially when this is done in partnership with adults (Zeldin et al. 2005). Even the United Nations Social Development Commission has recently begun focusing on the importance of youth inclusion in decision- making to create an innovative and responsive youth force for global social change (Anon 2018). Further, youth learn important civic skills like leadership by “engag[ing] in the action of

leadership” (MacNeil 2006:99-100). The same is true of learning how to be active citizens engaged in civic life and politics; in order to be civically engaged, youth must practice civic engagement. Supportive youth-adult partnerships in which young people have autonomy to make decisions, are able to practice civic engagement, and work with adults towards a common or community goal are therefore the most powerful for shaping young people into activists and civic actors (Camino 2005). These experiences and relationships run counter to traditional mentoring or youth development models in organizations that focus on individual youth and lack clear roles for youth and adults in decision-making (Camino 2005).

While this alternative approach to youth organizations involves youth in decision-

making, engages them in community issues they generate, and supports them with adult partners, many organizations have yet to adopt these policies. The strong historical model of youth

organizations as places to mentor youth and keep them away from other possibly challenging outcomes remains a restriction for many organizations that might otherwise pursue these approaches. Ingrained in the culture of many youth organizations is a hierarchical relationship between youth and adults where young people are recipients of service. These approaches are codified in legal limitations to youth participation. For instance, in many states there are laws