Youth Challenging Community: between hope and stigmatizationI

Abstract

This paper presents findings from two research studies: Assets Coming Together for Youth (ACT for Youth); and, Engaging Girls Changing Communities (EGCC). ACT for Youth was a collaborative university-community research study designed to understand youth perspectives on well-being and encourage positive youth development in the historically stigmatized Jane-Finch community, located in North-Western Toronto, Canada. EGCC investigated how young women engage in leadership and civic activities in new urban environments; further, it specifically sought to identify enhancers and barriers to community participation that girls face in their everyday lives. Both ACT for Youth and EGCC legitimize the framework in which youth are presented as assets with possibilities, as sources of knowledge and power, as well as agents of social change with competencies to critically examine the world around them and their participation in it. Further, these projects illustrate that innovative youth participatory methods can provide an opportunity to gain insight into the lives of young people that is grounded in their perspectives and their capabilities. This paper draws on data collected by and from youth and it explores how narratives of violence and well-being produce, trouble, and disrupt the notion of youth criminality and hopelessness. Data also illustrates how youth can engage in initiatives that help address community issues. Additionally, the paper offers methodological insights on the value of engaging youth through research as well as ideas on how such undertakings can foster or hinder the production of bridging social capital.