Let's let go of some of our power to empower youth, and get more out of our research!

Power dynamics, in our example are being an adult who is imediately both outsider to youth culture and the adult is seen as an “authority” figure  and the resulting power struggles pervade almost everywhere in modern life especially between teens and adults. Best’s 2000 article on about how adults create media that manifest into social constructions of “proms” and often dictate the lasting cultural significance of a prom.  The counter argument that I support is that young adults and youth need to, can and will identify themselves through their own personal experiences of certain rites of passage (like prom). This somewhat unpopular idea needs to be taught, reinforced and spread so that youth will know that their personal growth experiences will certainly shape them more than any adult label or adult construct.

The problems arise when adults assert their agendas and perspectives on teens who see things their own way, and clearly need to identify and define themselves on their own terms. Consequences can of the lack of self discovery can be devastating to a younger person and he or she’s future. Our current ageist power hierarchy (in Bes’s case) of those of who controls the meaning of and responsibility for youth behaviors and experiences needs to be questioned and flipped.

To bring this idea into what I can do as a future librarian or researcher, I will make sure I include youth through out the research process, and continually examine what they think, how they experience and how they describe their lives and make a free and safe spaces so they can discuss all f this and more entirely on their own terms.

Power dynamics such as those presented in Best (2000) Dimitidis (2008) and Taft (2007) also speak of the predominant racism inherent of our understanding of the construct of the legacy of the conventional American young adult experiences. The American young adult experience is often portrayed in literature, and through out all media as almost always white, upper middle class, heterosexual, traditional nuclear family. The dominance of this portrayal in media and literature is unsettling and to me is quite disturbing despite the changes over recent years progress has been slow, and has not even come close to equally representing the shifts in our demographics on any scale. It is goal of mine to focus on the minorities in our midst” those youth who are outcast and marginalized and try to empower them throughout the research and program evaluation process that I am doing this term.    

I also hope to do more research on the lack of diversity in youth literature (particularly up to YA).

The idea of being open and reflexive to mental gymnastics that Susan talked about are essential to growth and development as a researcher. We must all strive to avoid our own biases and to keep ourselves out of the way of our own research.