In an adult-dominated society, teenagers are often shut out of participation in politics. We Fight to Win offers a compelling account of young people's attempts to get involved in community politics, and documents the battles waged to form youth movements and create social change in schools and neighborhoods.Hava Rachel Gordon compares the struggles and successes of two very different youth movements: a mostly white, middle-class youth activist network in Portland, Oregon, and a working-class network of minority youth in Oakland, California. She examines how these young activists navigate schools, families, community organizations, and the mainstream media, and employ a variety of strategies to make their voices heard on some of today's most pressing issues--war, school funding, the environmental crisis, the prison industrial complex, standardized testing, corporate accountability, and educational reform. We Fight to Win is one of the first books to focus on adolescence and political action and deftly explore the ways that the politics of youth activism are structured by age inequality as well as race, class, and gender.
Author(s): Hava Rachel Gordon
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 248
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 8
Introduction......Page 14
1: The Development of Urban Teenage Activism: Opportunities and Challenges at the Turn of the Millennium......Page 31
2: Reading, Writing, and Radicalism: The Politics of Youth Activism on School Grounds......Page 73
3: Allies Within and Without: Navigating the Terrain of Adult-Dominated Community Politics......Page 111
4: Toward Youth Political Power in Oakland: The Adult Gaze, Academic Achievement, and the Struggle for Political Legitimacy......Page 146
5: Toward Youth Political Power in Portland: The Adult Gaze, Mainstream Media, and the Problems of Social Visibility......Page 168
6: Gendering Political Power: Gender Politics in Youth Activist Networks......Page 189
Conclusion......Page 212
Appendix: Entering the Worlds of Youth Activism......Page 226
Notes......Page 238
References......Page 248
Index......Page 258
