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During the COVID-19 pandemic, youth experienced abrupt closures of in-person spaces that were vital for their civic development, like schools and community organizations. Social media became the primary context for youth to make their voices heard and mobilize around important sociopolitical issues like anti-Asian racism, police violence, and elections. However, youth experienced civic development in different ways during the pandemic. Some youth gained a critical awareness of societal inequities, while others were radicalized into far-right ideologies. Racially minoritized youth experienced vicarious trauma and racism while civically engaging in 2020, and their civic development must be viewed in the context of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism.

This multi-method qualitative study explores how immigrant-origin (I-O) youth express civic engagement on social media, and how youths' immigrant identities shape their online civic engagement. We analyzed 2,203 Twitter posts collected over a 6-month period from 32 racially and ethnically diverse I-O youth (an average of 69 posts per participant). Interviews with 11 participants supplemented Twitter analysis. Using a critical consciousness framework as a guiding lens, we identified three broad themes: Using Critical Reflection to Shift Culture and Minds, Navigating and Drawing on Multiple Identities, and Building Collective Political Efficacy. Findings contribute to a growing body of literature on how I-O youth are harnessing social media as agents of their own, and their peers', critical consciousness development.

This qualitative study utilized semi-structured interviews with 22 Indian youth climate activists (mean age = 19) from 13 cities across India to explore factors that sustain or detract from climate activism. Data were analyzed using reflexive Thematic Analysis. In addition to two gatekeeping factors (lack of family support and financial and job pressures) that may prevent youth from joining or cause youth to quit their climate activism entirely, this study identified factors that affected youth's sustained climate activism: two detracting factors (negative interactions with government, and online and in-person bullying and harassment); four supporting factors (sense of community, internal motivations, seeing tangible achievements, and personal growth); and one factor (climate anxiety) with mixed effects on sustaining youth activism. Further, we describe ways in which youth holding minoritized identities, including lower-income, Muslim, and rural youth, had distinct experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes forms of online youth civic engagement that center the experiences of youth with historically marginalized identities and documents ways that youth are civically engaged. Twenty U.S.-based, digitally active youth ages 16 to 21 years old were interviewed. Seven participants (35%) identified as female, nine (45%) as male, and four (20%) as gender nonbinary. Twelve (60%) identified as a first or second generation immigrant. Youth were recruited through youth-led movement accounts on Twitter and contacted via Direct Messaging. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with youth between March and September 2020, a period spanning the outbreak of COVID-19 and rise in participation in the Black Lives Matter movement. Inductive Constant Comparative Analysis was used to document forms of youth civic engagement on social media and understand how youth ascribed meaning to their civic engagement. Framed by literature on critical consciousness and psychopolitical resistance to oppression, findings highlight three forms of online youth civic engagement: Restorying, Building Community, and Taking Collective Action. These findings indicate that, for youth with identities that have historically been marginalized, social media is an important context to be civically engaged in ways that resist oppression and injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored Black and Latinx youth organizers' experiences of racism within national gun violence prevention organizing spaces. Interview data were analyzed from 17 Black and/or Latinx youth (Mage = 20.17, 47% women) across the United States who organized against gun violence. The findings identified three forms of racism that Black and Latinx organizers experienced in national organizations: (1) being tokenized for their racial identities and experiences without having real decision making power; (2) feeling a burden to educate their white peers about the structural causes of gun violence and how to improve organizing spaces for other youth of color; and (3) being silenced in their racially conscious organizing efforts to address the structural causes of gun violence in their communities. This research highlights how Black and Latinx youth gun violence prevention organizers contend both with structural racism in their everyday lives and racism in organizing spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multi-method qualitative study explores how immigrant-origin (I-O) youth express civic engagement on social media, and how youths' immigrant identities shape their online civic engagement. We analyzed 2,203 Twitter posts collected over a 6-month period from 32 racially and ethnically diverse I-O youth (an average of 69 posts per participant). Interviews with 11 participants supplemented Twitter analysis. Using a critical consciousness framework as a guiding lens, we identified three broad themes: Using Critical Reflection to Shift Culture and Minds, Navigating and Drawing on Multiple Identities, and Building Collective Political Efficacy. Findings contribute to a growing body of literature on how I-O youth are harnessing social media as agents of their own, and their peers', critical consciousness development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]