Youth Organizing: Capacity Building and Organizational Learning

Community change approaches have increasingly involved participatory practices in which community members directly impacted by an issue participate in implementing change efforts. However, community participation as a practice and approach does not always include youth participation. Within the field of youth organizing, young people are envisioned as community assets capable of contributing to solving youth-identified community issues. In youth organizing campaigns, young people identify a community need or issue that they face, research the factors contributing to the identified issue and follow through with action projects that address this issue to benefit their communities. Employing a qualitative research approach, this article examines six organizing groups and discusses capacity building and organizational learning to support youth organizing and youth-led social change work. This article further discusses the impacts of youth organizing and political education trainings on extending the systemic analysis of emerging organizers. Finally, this article discusses implications for the field.