ESTABLISHING PARTICIPATION FRAMEWORK

Establishing Participation Framework

Establishing Participation Framework

On an exceeding hot summer day Tamika, a high school junior, and Bill, her new boss at an urban youth organization, were rehearsing a presentation for a large technology conference. Tamika1 sat at her computer reading her PowerPoint slides out loud, glancing at Bill as she spoke. Although by far his junior, she had been at their technology-oriented organization for two and a half years and was in charge of several younger youth. Bill, on the other hand, had been the Mapping Program Director for only 10 days, and he had less experience with some of the technology than did Tamika. As the two of them worked on her presentation their rehearsal went far beyond repetition of a script. Instead, it became an opportunity for them both to examine Tamika's role and to construct a fluid expert/novice relation through the very adult practices of mapmaking and conference preparation.

That they were engaged in a rehearsal for a public presentation was characteristic of Hopeworks, the Camden, New Jersey, organization at which both worked. In the after-school program youth ages 14-18 were learning the digital technologies of web design and Geographical Information Systems mapping. (GIS, widely used by a wide variety of government and community organizations, is a sophisticated tool for producing maps with nearly infinite layers of data.) Hopeworks hires the youth who complete their training to produce and present maps to community and national clients. Their jobs also frequently include presentations at adult conferences, community events, and on the radio. During the time I observed them, rehearsals for all of such events went beyond “learning lines,” instead becoming opportunities for both the youth and the adults to analyze their roles. As McLaughlin and Heath (1994), Cole (1996), and others have noted, such opportunities for youth to try on adult roles can have a powerful impact on youth learning. Youth learning is also enhanced when adult communities include youth perspectives, avoiding reliance on one-way learning in which newcomers adopt new roles unquestioningly ( [Lave and Wenger, 1991] , [Rogoff, 1990] and [Rogoff, 1995] ). Rehearsals for events in adult worlds can thus become important sites for the higher-order thinking that is a lever into new frameworks of participation in adult communities.

1. Theoretical framework

1.1. The contexts of youth development

Urban youth organizations are frequently formed as ad hoc responses to local concerns; their missions are both multifarious and well documented ( [Cole, 1996] , [Heath and McLaughlin, 1993] , [Heath, 1998] , [Hull and Katz, 2006] , [Hull and Greeno, 2006] , [Hull and Schulz, 2001] , [Larson et al., 2005] , [McLaughlin and Heath, 1994] , [McLaughlin, 1994] , [McLaughlin, 1999] , [McLaughlin, 2001] , [Pedersen and Seideman, 2005] , [65] and [64] ). Among their missions are leadership, community connection, safety, literacy improvement, technology, arts, and sports. Many organizations have singular focuses such as recreation, literacy, or technology in which youth remain in their student roles. Other organizations with a more developmental bent encourage youth to ...