Next steps toward an inclusive country? Inviting and amplifying youth voice in public anti-hate messaging
Journal for Multicultural Education
ISSN: 2053-535X
Article publication date: 14 September 2022
Issue publication date: 9 May 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore a national anti-hate messaging project, #USvsHate, and its call to students to create public messages refusing “hate, bias, and injustice.” Participants indicated that #USvsHate’s invitation to publicly express students’ ideas about equal human value functioned as a next step in furthering youth voice and critical consciousness toward societal inclusion and justice.
Design/methodology/approach
Using grounded theory, analysis drew from teacher interviews (n = 45), student focus groups (n = 30), anonymous participant questionnaires and student-created messages and backstories (n = 250) gathered between 2017 and 2020.
Findings
Participants indicated #USvsHate’s call to amplify student voice offered a next step to act upon awareness of social issues by denouncing hate while promoting inclusivity. Four invitations related to the project’s “anti-hate message” call emerged as important to participants: the invitation to comment personally on improving society; the creative invitation to share perspectives in any media form; the invitation to speak to a promised public audience; and the invitation to join a collective “us” improving society.
Originality/value
Youth voice and critical consciousness scholarship show the importance of supporting K12 youth to develop abilities to speak about injustice while pursuing an inclusive democracy. Still, less research highlights youth who might enter a classroom with some level of such awareness. This research extends existing scholarship by examining a potential next step to inviting critical consciousness and youth voice in any classroom. It also explores the potential pitfalls of this open-ended approach.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding to design and study #USvsHate during the period researched came from the Spencer Foundation and Teaching Tolerance of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Citation
Pollock, M., Lopez, D.D.l.A., Yoshisato, M., Kendall, R., Reece, E. and Kennedy, B.C. (2023), "Next steps toward an inclusive country? Inviting and amplifying youth voice in public anti-hate messaging", Journal for Multicultural Education, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 146-167. https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-02-2022-0036
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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