Youth activism
A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of “Alter-Activism” resulting in an emphasis on lived experiences and connectivity amongst young activists.
[2] The young activists have taken lead roles in public protest and advocacy around many issues like climate change, abortion rights and gun violence.
[7] Youth is an elastic category, the age at which it begins and ends varies within cultural contexts, but it is often a very distinct stage in a person's life to which particular issues or policies are highly relevant.
[8] Sociopolitical development is a "psychological process that covers the range of cognitions, skills, attitudes, worldviews, and emotions that support social and political action" (Watts, Griffith, & Abdul-Adil, 1999).
[9] The process of SPD was further defined by Watts & Flannagan to impact young people’s social analysis, worldview and sense of agency and to provide them opportunity structures and support towards their societal involvement behavior (2007).
[16] By capitalizing on the power and popularity of a hashtag, these young activists have been able to have an even larger conversation about police brutality and the inherent racism in American systems.
Video blogging has become an essential part of how people communicate online especially on applications like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and even TikTok.
[23] Video blogging may be used by youth activists as a tool to reach out to their peers and audience, gather support, establish a discourse, and mobilize others.
Independent Media Center, also known as Indymedia, is a recent development that has helped involve youth into social movement activism.
[29] People under the age of 18 comprise 46% of the global population, and these youth played a crucial role around the world during the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
[7] In India, youth born in the 1980s and 1990s comprise part of a middle class increasingly vocal against impunity for rapists and against government corruption.
[31] Youth activism in Indonesia takes many different forms and include a number of mass protests to overthrow governments and remove colonial powers in the past.
Popular motivations of youth activism in Indonesia are indigenous rights and national unity, pro-communism, anticommunism, pro-democracy and militant Islam.
The clashes that occurred had a significant historical impact, as they forced the monarchy to concede to holding a referendum on the possibility of a multiparty system in the country.
Young adults in Iran defy the official regime's cultural and political policies through engaging in prohibited activities in places like taxi rides, coffee shops, and basements.
[32] Youth activism increased in the United Kingdom, especially England, in 2010 when David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party became prime minister at the head of the Coalition government.
[36] Austerity measures affected young people in particular, in all aspects of their lives, including education, housing, employment, Youth Service, and leisure resulting in precarity.
See: 2010 United Kingdom student protests Since then, the worsening situation for many young people and their despondency about politicians, in combination with the rise of social media and globalization have led to more youth activism.
Young environmental activists in the United Kingdom have been particularly active using a vast repertoire of contention as non-violent direct action and civil disobedience.
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones organized the first youth activism in the U.S. in 1908, marching 100,000 child miners from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
These actions led the popular media of the times to separate youths' interests from their contemporary adult labor counterparts.
The 1950s saw the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee bring young people into the larger civil rights movement; in 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. engaged youth activists in protesting against Bull Connor's racist law enforcement practices in Birmingham, Alabama.
[40][41][42][43] Youth activism has transformed political participation through technology and created a form of engaged citizenship unique to today's young people .
[48] While Malala Yousafzai has been an activist for female education, initially in Pakistan, since 2009, support for her cause reached international levels after she was shot by a Taliban gunman in 2012 because of her activism.
[citation needed] While the Black Lives Matter movement is not entirely a youth activist group, its founders were three young women who established it in response to the acquittal of the man who killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old African American.
[54] In April 2018, Governor Rick Snyder announced that water quality is "within the standards" and the lead level doesn't exceed federal limits.
[63] At age 7, Bana al-Abed started using Twitter with her mother's assistance to share her experiences living in Aleppo, Syria.
Swedish then-15-year-old student Greta Thunberg began an initially individual school strike, avoiding classes every Friday to protest in front of Riksdag against political inaction on global climate crisis.
[69] Through the following months, her activism sparked a worldwide youth movement, which intends to pressure governments and companies to adopt urgent policies on mitigating climate change.
Youth activists were also included in global decision-making structures, such as Jerome Foster's participation in the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council in the Biden administration,[74] and H.D.
