Adolescent Literacy Policy

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 55(8)May 2012doi:10.1002/JAAL.00090© 2012 International Reading Association(pp. 748–750)

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Occupying Youth Development:

The Pitfalls and Potential of

Literacy Policies and Youth

DevelopmentSarah Zeller-Berkman

In 2008, Lisa Patel Stevens suggested that the analysis of adolescent literary policies should include attention to how they have been “enacted, taken-up, modified, ignored, rejected, and/or co-opted...” (p. 71) in various societal spaces. Heeding Stevens’s advice, this column explores how strides in adolescent policy within a framework of “crisis” has occupied the neighboring field of youth development in an all hands on deck approach to remediate young people who have fallen “behind.”

At the same time, there are spaces where literacy and youth development are melding beautifully. My role as a program director at a Youth Development Institute (YDI) allows me to both rage and marvel at the pitfalls and the potential that occur when literacy policy and youth development intersect.

Justifications for youth development initiatives have emerged over the past few years that echo the crisis framing of young people, specifically in relation to time. As Stevens (2008) pointed out in reference to literacy policy, the invocation of crisis in policy documents is fundamentally one of time.

There is a call within the field to use after-school hours to get young people “up to speed” and support high school completion and entrance into college. Models with names like expanded learning time have launched around the country.

The benefit of these programs is that they use the hours from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. to increase learning through hands-on activities in science, literacy, and the arts for many young people who may not otherwise have access. Yet there are unintended consequences as youth development programs move in this direction.

As noted in a brief from the Afterschool Corporation (2010), the benchmarks for progress of this initiative are proficiency in math and English as measured by standardized test scores and grades. As teachers and students in schools struggle with the stress of education in a high-stakes testing environment (Amrein & Berliner, 2003; Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000), the field of youth development has now followed suit.

There has been a radical shift in the objectives that guide the youth development field’s work. In the 1970s, the field had deep roots in movements for youth participation to change institutions and programs serving young people (Zeller-Berkman, 2011). There are many reasons for the field’s current focus on using youth development to “fix” young people, as opposed to supporting young people to fix programs, institutions, and communities (Zeller-Berkman, 2011) that do not relate to literacy policy.

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However, the zeitgeist that pervades the current “climate of crisis” is that those working with youth should contribute to academic success in literacy and numeracy as measured by standardized tests. It is not just an abstract atmosphere of dire remediation for young people that moved out-of-school-time (OST) programs in this direction. Funding for OST programs is increasingly attached to academic enrichment and literacy aimed at helping schools meet the states’ Core Curriculum Content Standards (i.e., 21st Century Learning Centers).

So is the intersection between youth development and literacy policies necessarily problematic? No. At the program level, the principles of youth development often form the perfect complement to literacy initiatives.

There are many examples of exemplary literacy focused youth development program I can draw upon (e.g., Digital Youth Network, Youth Communication, Youth Speaks, Urban Word, Girls Write Now), but I will focus on a literacy initiative supported by the YDI in a community-based organization that offers education programs and other services to young people involved in the juvenile justice system. In these classrooms, that are for many an alternative to prison cells, students, teachers, and intermediary staff are demonstrating what is possible.

For six months, staff from YDI worked with staff at the aforementioned organization to create more continuity for students as they maneuvered through pre-GED classrooms with the support of their case managers and counselors. YDI was brought in to conduct trainings in a balanced literacy approach with youth development, not only to classroom instructors but also to support staff, case managers, counselors, and work readiness staff. A balanced literacy methodology requires that the majority of instructional time be organized around students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing practice.

A counselor who was trained in youth development in the context of this literacy initiative made these comments about her experience:

It is important for us to think about how a lot of the work is us talking to them (young people). It is important to actually hear their voice. Our program is mandated, so I got into the habit of having it be more of what I wanted and needed from them (the kids)...

I need to keep a combination of listening to them and integrating the mandated stuff.

Similarly to the way in which this counselor talked about integrating youth voice into her work, a GED instructor talked about being supported by YDI to “come up with topics of study, of interest to students, that could be presented in a four-week time frame.” For both of these staff, the inter-section of youth development and literacy meant a holistic approach to supporting young people, while assuring that youth, even in the context of a mandated program, had a measure of power and input.

Jessica Lipshultz, a staff member working at the YDI, had this to say about the integration of youth development and literacy as it concerns her role as a capacity builder:

I try to help staff in and out of the classroom see that “good” pedagogy equals putting principles of youth development into practice. When we talk about the importance of “continuity of supports” or “opportunities” for student voice, that must be true for young people, regardless of who they’re working with at the organization. Once staff begin to see those connections, it’s easy to develop literacy content and curriculum within the structure of balanced literacy because they are one and the same.

Staff at the YDI used rubrics to assess the collaboration that included items such as “frequent use of literacy terms from students and instructors,” but also included indicators such as “integration of student voice” and “positive student/instructor relationships.” The issue of pushing for greater student/youth power within the programs and institutions that serve them is part of the transformation that happens when youth development enters educational settings in this way.

The attention to power relationships between young people and adults is key, as young people are a low power group in the United States (Males, 2006; Zeller-Berkman, 2010). This context of injustice and power differentials must impact both practice and the framing of policy—not reproduce it.

While there is language in the new Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) about shared responsibility, young people are not included in the call for

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participation in “creating a world-class education” by President Barack Obama:

Reforming our schools to deliver a world-class education is a shared responsibility—the task cannot be shouldered by our nation’s teachers and principals alone. We must foster school environments where teachers have the time to collaborate, the opportunities to lead, and the respect that all professionals deserve. We must recognize the importance of communities and families in supporting their children’s education, because a parent is a child’s first teacher. We must support families, communities, and schools working in partnership to deliver services and supports that address the full range of student needs. (U.S. Department of Education, 2010)

Young people are referred to in this policy document only in relation to their needs, not their strengths as potential partners or assets to a collaborative process to improve education in this country.

If we can collectively imagine changing not just test scores, but the status quo for and with young people in this country, we must link literacy to liberation (Freire, 1970) and youth development to youth participation in changing policies and institutions that have an impact on their lives. In this way, the current “occupation” of the field of youth development by education policies could begin to resemble other occupy movements that are sprouting up around the country: intergenerational and concerned with democratic engagement.

References

The Afterschool Corporation. (2010). Unlocking the power of expanded learning time: Year two report on TASC expanded schools. Retrieved December 12, 2011, from www.tascorp.org/content/document/detail/3237

Amrein, A.T., & Berliner, D.C. (2003). The effects of high-stakes testing on student motivation and learning. Educational Leadership, 60(5), 32–38.

Barksdale-Ladd, M.A., & Thomas, K.F. (2000). What’s at stake in high-stakes testing: Teachers and parents speak out. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(5), 384–397. doi:10.1177/0022487100051005006

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.Males, M. (2006). Youth policy and institutional change. In

S. Ginwright, P. Noguera, & J. Cammarota (Eds.), Beyond resistance! Youth activism and community change (pp. 301–218). New York: Routledge.

Stevens, L. (2008). (Re)framing policy analysis. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(1), 70–73. doi:10.1598/JAAL.52.1.8

U.S. Department of Education. (2010). Office of planning, evaluation and policy development. Washington, DC: ESEA Blueprint for Reform.

Zeller-Berkman, S. (2010). Critical development? Using a critical theory lens to examine the current role of evaluation in the youth development field. New Directions for Evaluation. [Special issue]. Critical Social Theory and Evaluation Practice. 2010(127), 35–44.

Zeller-Berkman, S. (2011). “So what I got a mouth!” Reclaiming attachment and active citizenship through adult–youth partnerships. Unpublished doctoral thesis. The CUNY Graduate Center, New York.

Zeller-Berkman is the director of community-youth development at the Youth Development Institute, New York, NY; e-mail zellerberkmans@gmail.com.

The department editor welcomes reader comments. Lisa Patel Stevens teaches at Boston College, Massachusetts, USA; e-mail lps@bc.edu.

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