Youth Civic Development: Work at the Cutting Edge: New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, Number 134

Civic engagement of young people is increasingly understood as an important feature of democratic functioning in communities, organizations, and societies. It has also become clear that the civic domain is indispensable as a context for understanding human development processes. This volume brings together cutting-edge work from leading scholars in the interdisciplinary field of youth civic development. Their work makes the case for greater consideration of justice, social responsibility, critical consciousness, and collective action in our understanding of child and adolescent development.

The volume proposes the following central theses in relation to youth civic development:

It is rooted in the realities of young people s everyday lives.

It is collectively constructed.

It raises questions about the principles, values, and relationships that bind people together in societies.

It raises questions about power and justice.

Youth civic development pushes the broader field of child and adolescent development to focus on the social issues with which younger generations are grappling and the identities they are constructing issues that also are shaped by structural inequalities and by the collective actions of youth. The volume builds on themes of agency and assets from the field of positive youth development and points to ways that the critical analysis and engagement of young people in their society can contribute to social change.

Constance A. Flanagan is the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Human Ecology Vaughan Bascom Professor in Women, Family and Community. Brian D. Christens is Associate Professor of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University. He studies processes that enhance people’s and organizations’ ability to take action to alter power structures and benefit their communities.