Youthtopias refers to both customary and non customary forums such as the leadership excellence and youth radio in Oakland, Youth speaks in San Francisco, and MEJODA in Colombia, South America among others. These forums enable the youths to obtain knowledge from each other and then use that knowledge to develop new innovative ideas that are motivated by youthful ambitions. These new ideas should be artistic inventions that symbolize an assessment of the subjugation, an aspiration for societal impartially, and consequently set the basis for the society’s empowerment and the transformation (Akon, Cammarota, and Ginwright, 2008, p. 109). The role of the youth topic is to bring sanity to the marginalized or minority groups especially the youth from poor urban communities suffering from social disorganization. Indeed, it influences the youth to consciously understand and appreciate their social challenges and establish ways to enhance social equity. Some of the programs used in this research are Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), normally used to help the youth understand their environments so as to come up with means of improving it and in the process create equality; and Critical Race Theory (CRT) which is used to analyze racism in schools
Case study one entitled ‘youth public intellectuals’ (YPI) is a youth organization that fights for the rights of the black and Latino youths that are more likely to live in regions that their health is likely to be influenced by industrial pollution, as well as being mishandled by the police. The role of the YPI, in this case, is to help the black and Latino youth develop critical consciousness through the media justice and youth participatory program. The YIP, through the Critical inquiry groups, developed youth topics through negotiations with the people; youth guided media interventions and youth lobbying on critical issues as well as political reasons behind personal challenges that the youth were facing (Akon, Cammarota and Ginwright, 2008, p. 119). In doing so, the YPI focused on establishing the magnitude of youth and community oppression through abuse of political power; enhancing youth’s participation in community health initiatives and freedom of personal choice on the most viable options to eradicate the social vices and issues affecting them and the community at large; and influencing the use of media to address the social and economic issues affecting the youth’s achievements, behavior and perception. Basically, the youthtopia aimed at enhancing political, social and economic justice not only for the youth but also for the people of color through media activism.
The other group studied was the Social Justice Education (SJEP) which enabled the youth to discern the correlation between political awareness and concerns in the family and this awareness is developed through media exposure. Its objectives is to assess how youth driven researches can help in promoting the learners academic ambitions because the procedure involved an extensive research and also employed a number of scholarly ideas (Akon, Cammarota and Ginwright, 2008, p. 121). Some of the issues researched on include the immigration and border killings; and discrimination against Latinos from employment, education and governance especially for women. The study by the SJEP highlighted how political discrimination affected the lifestyle of the people of color especially in education where it concluded that there exists the southern and northern ends dominated by the minority and the whites respectively. Their results were influenced by the level of racial segregation in scholarships. Basically, the main aim of SJEP is to create consciousness to the youth especially from the minority groups about the impact of social institutions to their life experiences, and through counteractive curricula, they are made to critically understand the world challenges in general and their school inequality in particular. Moreover, through the use of methodological and pedagogical process, as well as videos, the youth are in a better position to identify or establish strategies to not only influence social justice but also to enhance community education and political reorganization to bring about social change (Akon, Cammarota and Ginwright, 2008, p.123).
Positivism deals with those issues that have positive impact and are observable; it uses scientific procedures to calculate and provide justification for the results of the research done. The issue being studied is grouped and then studied, while the rules for providing a description will be based on the stability in prototypes and characteristics of the phenomena under study. It also uses measurable data while Participatory action research (PAR) involves using a recurring technique of preparation, making observation, making a decision and carrying out a vital analysis before making plans for the next stage.
This type of research is disadvantageous because it puts more demand on the educational board to come up with new programs for the research. It is also very costly since it requires a lot of materials to be conducted. PAR has also been associated with politics because it normally demands the participation of people in the research, and as they do so, they become knowledgeable and this makes them more discerning. It has also been criticized for not being extensive enough and for lacking a practical validity.
PAR allows the participants a lot of authority in the research process and this has in fact been one of the reasons why the method has been discredited. However, some people argue that as a result of this it contributes to power imbalance in the communities in which the research is being carried out.
Reference
Akon, A., Cammarota, J. and Ginwright, S. (2008). Youthtopias: Towards a new paradigm of critical youth studies. Youth Media Reporter – Academic Issue.