CUNY Academic Commons

Children and Youth in Groups

This seminar offers a critical review of theory and research on how children and youth, through 18 years of age, participate with one another and with adults in groups. It addresses the different ways that adults organize children and children self-organize, paying attention to the structure of groups, the balance of power between adults and children and patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Weekly readings cover a wide range of different types of setting, including pre-school playgroups, schools and classrooms, neighborhood play settings, clubs, sports teams, membership organizations and digital social networks of peers. Attention will also be given to accounts of the group organization of children with special needs and of children living in exceptional circumstances such as youth in detention or living on the street. The seminar will address the emergence of rights-based children’s groups through the global movement for children’s rights and the growth of youth justice groups in the USA. The seminar will close with a discussion of children as political actors and the current growth in the USA and elsewhere of child and youth engagements in major issues such as racial discrimination and climate change. Students will select a distinct setting or group for the focus of their work throughout the course and produce a paper describing what they have learned from a review of research, personal reflection and observation.