In much of the youth empowerment literature, researchers focus on the relationship between youth and adults involved in empowerment programs while neglecting the broader social framework in which these relationships and the program itself functions. Utilizing an ecological model, the current research examines the tensions that surfaced in attempts to create an empowering setting in an after-school PAR program with fifth-graders. Challenging assumptions about youth, structural challenges, and conflicting theories of change are highlighted. Results examine the role of sociocultural context as PAR researchers attempt to create a setting in which students gain skills to become change agents within their school. The study suggests that youth empowerment is a context dependent process that requires attention to a multiplicity of factors that influence possibilities for empowerment via second order change.

Sexual education plays an essential role in preventing unplanned pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). School-based sexual education programs, in particular, may be well positioned to address social factors that are empirically linked to negative sexual health outcomes, such as traditional social norms surrounding gender and sexuality. However, youth are seldom granted access to sexual education programs that explicitly address these issues. This study presents findings from a pretest-posttest survey of a sexual education program that did. It was designed for eighth graders (N=95) in the context of a school-community collaboration. The study assessed the links between several components of sexual empowerment, including gender ideology, sexual knowledge, and contraceptive beliefs. Findings link participation in the sexual education program to more progressive attitudes toward girls and women, less agreement with hegemonic masculinity ideology, and increases in sexual health and resource knowledge. Structural equation models suggest that traditional attitudes toward women were significantly related to hegemonic masculinity ideology among both boys and girls, which was in turn negatively related to safer contraceptive beliefs.

Participatory action research with young people (yPAR) involves youth and adults in a collaborative process of research, reflection, analysis and action. An important part of the research cycle is the identification of a problem definition. Yet, there is relatively little research addressing the process of how young people develop a problem definition on which to focus their analysis and intervention and what methods might exist to facilitate this process. This article draws upon a yPAR project with fifth‐grade working‐class young people, primarily young people of colour, to demonstrate how the Five Whys method for reflecting on lived experiences facilitated the development of problem definitions in line with second‐order change. The Five Whys method, when used within a participatory framework, offers both a context and a structure for young people to critically examine social problems they identify and to seek out root causes. The article highlights changes in the participant's formulation of problems in the context of using the Five Whys method, from a primarily individual level of analysis to a more structural level of analysis. It also outlines the subsequent changes in proposed actions to address the identified problems. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The academy can provide rich opportunities for the scholar activist through critical discourse within the classroom, consciousness building via community engagement, and leveraging diverse connections. However, the academy often upholds systemic roadblocks, at times enacting policies that further perpetuate inequities. This qualitative study takes a narrative approach to exploring the life course histories of 15 activists occupying diverse yet intersecting dimensions in the spectrum of privilege and oppression. Interviewees are uniquely connected to the academy engaging in a variety of roles and anti‐racist social justice efforts within the northwestern United States. Applying a critical consciousness framework, results highlight key functions of critical reflection and critical action as interviewees engage in critical consciousness raising (i.e., systemic root cause analysis), social justice identity formation (i.e., the politicization of one's identity), and adapting individual theories of social change. Barriers within the institution are also identified concerning the mainstreaming of service learning and university‐required diversity courses, limited structural supports for activists of color, and the institutionalized co‐opting of social change efforts. Lastly, implications for activism, scholarship, and critical pedagogy within the academy are discussed.

The current study examines 16 Latina/o fifth grade children's desires for a decision-making structure within a youth participatory action research (yPAR) program. When given the choices of consensus, majority rule, authoritarian rule, delegation, and random choice models, children chose random choice. Procedural, distributive and emotional justice were heavily weighted in their reasoning around fairness and decision making. Many thought random choice offered the best alternative because it flattened power hierarchies so that each child would, at some point, have the power to make a decision. Additionally, children argued that the neutrality of random choice allowed them to sidestep interpersonal tensions. Implications include how social identities inform definitions of fairness and how yPAR programs should work with youth around how they will make decisions.