Publications on Social Change Led By and With Young People

Freechild Reading List on

Young People & Social Change

INTRODUCTION: These are publications about youth activism, youth-led community organizing, young people leading social change, and more.

POINT TO PONDER: "The real question is how youth activism can be mobilized into an unstoppable force to change society… Through their involvement, they can provide an agitational force to inspire millions to act for progressive change. The images of trade unionists and young radicals in recent mass protests led many to claim an important alliance had begun between youth activists and organized labor." - Joel Harden, here

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Guide to Social Change Led By and With Young People by The Freechild Project. Centering on the "Cycle of Youth Engagement," this publication is a summary of the social change issues and actions addressed by and with young people around the world. A great primer to the Freechild website.

The Nexxt Revolutionaries by Shannon Service. After three decades of dormancy, youth activism is again flowering. But today’s flower children are a hardy new variety. They’re economically, ecologically, and electronically sophisticated. They’re also globally organized, dead serious about democracy, and determined to have more fun than their opponents. In YES! magazine.

Raza Youth Rise Up: Student Mobilizations in the 1990s by Marisol Padilla and Juan R. Taizán. This is an account of the early 1990s mobilization of students throughout California as they fought against neoliberalism and overt political, social, educational, and economic oppression. The story is told by two young people who "cut their teeth" in activism through these efforts. It is a critical reflection that centers on the effects of youth-led organizing, and offers important lessons for all young people moved to take action.

Making Space - Making Change by the Movement Strategy Center. This is the most important document focusing on young people and social change to come out in the last two years. It is the only available guide for understanding youth-led organizations and their place in the contemporary youth movement. This new publication follows the stories of five youth-led and youth-driven organizations from around the U.S.- how they started, build youth leadership and power, deal with challenges, and make real change in their communities. This report is for all young organizers and their allies who want to put their principles into practice and invest in the next generation!

An Overview: How Young People Reinvent Social Change by Karin Hillhouse. A short article from Changemakers.net that examines several projects around the world for the trends, themes, and foundations of youth-led action.

The Co/Motion Guide to Youth-led Social Change by Alliance for Justice. Engaging youth in action! This user-friendly training manual is designed to engage young people in effective community action by giving them the tools, skills and strategies to solve problems and improve their communities. Out-of-print!

Youth Rising by Mattie Wiese. In the last decade, young people have increasingly been mobilizing around their identity as “youth,” crossing traditional race lines and issue boundaries in the process. This 128-page report offers case studies that illustrate the culture and frustrations, successes and pitfalls of on-the-ground youth organizing today, and provides a larger context for the work and offer some lessons and recommendations.

Annotated Bibliography on Youth Organizing by Social Policy Research Associates. Drawing upon the fields of youth development, community organizing and civic engagement, Social Policy Research Associates compiled this compendium to centralize information about the existing resources from and for the field of youth organizing. This appendix presents a digest of research and reports, reflections from the field, and youth organizing curricula and toolkits.

Global Uprising: Confronting the Tyrannies of the 21st Century by N. Welton and L. Wolf. This visually and emotionally striking book reflects the new global youth movement for peace and justice. Told through compelling personal narratives, poster art, poetry, photographs, and interviews with new and seasoned activists, Global Uprising captures the spirit of youth activism and honors young people's power to effect serious change. It highlights a wide-range of critical international issues and actions.

Bomb the Suburbs by William Upski Wimsatt. This book served as a manifesto and call-to-arms for a generation of urban youth activists. The author is now a renown thinker of this generation, and this, his booming clarion call, sounds the charge with analysis, weaponry, and empowerment for today's youth activists.

Future 500: Youth Organizing and Activism in the United States by J. Kim, M. de Dios, P. Caraballo, et al. Features analysis of the modern youth movement, interviews with 25 young people changing the world, and profiles of 500 of the most important youth-led organizations across the country. It also includes statistics on youth organizations, listings of youth-friendly foundations and national networks, and amazing art from the movement.

Free the Children by C. Kielburger, K. Major. This book is provides insight into one young man's goal of ending children's oppression worldwide by working for children's rights. Today his organization works around the world, building schools, education families, and working for children in places where those children's voices have never been heard before.

ReGeneration: Young People Shaping the Environmental Justice Movement by Julie Quiroz-Martinez, Diana Pei Wu and Kristen Zimmerman. ReGeneration examines the powerful visions and strategies of young people in the U.S. environmental justice movement. Movement Strategy Center interviewed groups across the country, and found that youth organizers in the environmental justice movement are creating new ways to expand leadership, build intergenerational alliances, work sustainably and bridge issue areas and communities. The groups profiled in this report offer models and strategies to reinvigorate every sector of the national progressive movement.

Youth Activism: A Web Forum by the Social Science Research Council. A previous issue highlighted Transnational Activism -- young people’s involvement in global justice movements that seek to influence and change the policies and practices of powerful institutions on a global level. The current issue focuses on African American Youth Activism and calls attention to young people directly facing the kinds of inequalities that global justice activism addresses – only they address them locally, in their own schools and communities.

From the Frontlines: Youth Organizers Speak by LISTEN, Inc. Based on interviews of 52 youth organizers to understand, from their perspective, the importance and distinctiveness of the work of youth organizing.