In this chapter, the authors consider Paulo Freire's construct of critical consciousness (CC) and why it deserves more attention in research and discourse on youth political and civic development. His approach to education and similar ideas by other scholars of liberation aims to foster a critical analysis of society--and one's status within it--using egalitarian, empowering, and interactive methods. The aim is social change as well as learning, which makes these ideas especially relevant to the structural injustice faced by marginalized youth. From their review of these ideas, the authors derive three core CC components: critical reflection, political efficacy, and critical action. They highlight promising research related to these constructs and innovative applied work including youth action-research methodology. Their conclusion offers ideas for closing some of the critical gaps in CC theory and research.

Grounded in the theory and pedagogy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, critical consciousness (CC) comprises components of critical reflection, critical motivation, and critical action. CC represents marginalized or oppressed people's analysis of societal inequities and their motivation and actions to redress such inequities. In this article, we introduce the theoretical underpinnings of CC, then look at the conceptualization and measurement of CC, and outline traditional and contemporary approaches to fostering CC. We also summarize individual and collective outcomes associated with CC and offer suggestions for researchers and practitioners. Collectively, these insights suggest that CC is an important developmental asset for marginalized youth and communities. KEYWORDS-critical consciousness; marginalization; oppression; sociopolitical development Thank you to Aixa Marchand for her helpful and insightful comments on this article. Drs. Matthew A. Diemer and Adam M. Voight were supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation ("Critical social analysis among marginalized youth"). Note that Diemer and Rapa share first authorship of this paper, yet are listed alphabetically here.

This study used student and teacher survey data from over 400 middle schools in California to examine within-school racial disparities in students' experiences of school climate. It further examined the relationship between a school's racial climate gaps and achievement gaps and other school structures and norms that may help explain why some schools have larger or smaller racial disparities in student reports of climate than others. Multilevel regression results problematized the concept of a "school climate" by showing that, in an average middle school, Black and Hispanic students have less favorable experiences of safety, connectedness, relationships with adults, and opportunities for participation compared to White students. The results also show that certain racial school climate gaps vary in magnitude across middle schools, and in middle schools where these gaps are larger, the racial achievement gap is also larger. Finally, the socioeconomic status of students, student-teacher ratio, and geographic location help explain some cross-school variation in racial climate gaps. These findings have implications for how school climate in conceptualized, measured, and improved.

Structural barriers constrain marginalized youths' development of work salience and vocational expectations. Sociopolitical development (SPD), the consciousness of, and motivation to reduce, sociopolitical inequality, may facilitate the negotiation of structural constraints. A structural model of SPD's impact on work salience and vocational expectations was proposed and its generalizability tested among samples of low-socioeconomic-status African American, Latin American, and Asian American youth, with Educational Longitudinal Study data. Measurement and temporal invariance of these constructs was first established before testing the proposed model across the samples. Across the three samples, 10th-grade SPD had significant effects on 10th-grade work salience and vocational expectations; 12th-grade SPD had a significant effect on 12th-grade work salience. Tenth-grade SPD had significant indirect effects on 12th-grade work salience and on 12th-grade vocational expectations for all three samples. These results suggest that SPD facilitates the agentic negotiation of constraints on the development of work salience and vocational expectations. Given the impact of adolescent career development on adult occupational attainment, SPD may also foster social mobility among youth constrained by an inequitable opportunity structure.

School climate has been lauded for its relationship to a host of desirable academic, behavioral, and social-emotional outcomes for youth. The present study tested the hypothesis that school climate counteracts youths' home-school risk by examining the moderating effects of students' school climate perceptions on the relationship between family structure (i.e., two-parent, one-parent, foster-care, and homeless households), and academic performance (i.e., self-reported [grade point average] GPA). The present sample consisted of 902 California public high schools, including responses from over 490,000 students in Grades 9 and 11. Results indicated that, regardless of family structure, students with more positive school climate perceptions self-reported higher GPAs. Youths with two-parent, one-parent, and homeless family structures displayed stepwise, linear improvements in self-reported GPA as perceptions of climate improved. Foster-care students' positive school climate perceptions had a weaker effect on their self-reported GPA compared with students living in other family structures. A unique curvilinear trend was found for homeless students, as the relationship between their school climate perceptions and self-reported GPA was stronger at lower levels. Overall, the moderation effect of positive school climate perceptions on self-reported GPA was strongest for homeless youth and youth from one-parent homes, suggesting that school climate has a protective effect for students living in these family structures. A protective effect was not found for youth in foster-care. Implications for research and practice are discussed.