Ideology

My ideology is critical (and more specifically social justice). I knew this going in, and was trying to avoid picking my answers to make them line up with a certain result. I do have quite a bit of overlap with positive, mostly because I don’t fully agree with the critical description of childhood as a test run for adult problem-solving and justice work. In that regard, I align more closely with the positive focus of young people as they are rather than as they might be in the future. However, that seems to support the critical belief that “teens are legitimate actors and collaborators who have important ideas and ways of contributing to the world.” I definitely feel like adults should be allies to young people, and that both adults and young people have plenty to offer. Lately, I’ve been really interested in multigenerational work, which treats people of all ages as equally valid contributors. I feel like this ideology is closely tied to my ideas about care and about what I want my youth work to look like. For example, I am feeling like the more I learn about schooling, the more I don’t think I could work in a school. The parts of me that pull on PYD recognize the need for spaces that value young people for their inherent worth and not their ability to meet messed-up standards. The parts of me that are rooted in SJYD know that I can’t just create that space in a bubble and pretend the young people there aren’t spending the majority of their time in/serving school, and that space is given meaning by also making room for discussions about and resistance to oppression and injustice.