Proposal Title

Developing Young Leaders and Allies for Youth: A Model for The Girlhood Project’s Feminist Group Process

Abstract

  • Purpose: This paper outlines an emerging model in development for both training facilitators and holding girls’ groups in Lesley University’s The Girlhood Project (TGP). The TGP method engages a unique androgogy to develop college students as allies to youth by using feminist group process and pedagogy to develop girls as leaders, critical consumers, and activists in their communities.

  • Problem: There is a major need (as demonstrated by Belmont Highschool’s request for a program from TGP) for our model in academic, service, and social justice spaces. Youth, specifically girls, need programs that center, support and develop them as leaders, rather than problematize them or force external expectations on them. Adults in girl-serving roles need a feminist skill set, which includes personal identity work, so as to engage youth work ethically.

  • Method: Senior TGP scholar/ facilitators Emily Welden and Kathryn Van Demark develop a model (for replication in high school settings) based in feminist group process and identity development theory and co-constructed with the participants from the Belmont High School pilot group and TGP junior facilitators. They serve as participant observer/ facilitators in the girls’ group while supplementing their research with literature review, TGP data analysis, and interviews.

  • Results: The product of this research project and paper will be a replicable model for both training facilitators and holding girls’ groups in the TGP method, and making a case for this program’s necessity in youth-serving spaces.

Start Date

28-3-2018 9:10 AM

End Date

28-3-2018 10:00 AM

Presentation Type

Paper

Disciplines

Civic and Community Engagement | Gender and Sexuality | Inequality and Stratification | Leadership Studies | Service Learning | Sociology of Culture

This document is currently not available here.

Share

Import Event to Google Calendar

COinS
 
Mar 28th, 9:10 AM Mar 28th, 10:00 AM

Developing Young Leaders and Allies for Youth: A Model for The Girlhood Project’s Feminist Group Process

U-Hall 3-094

  • Purpose: This paper outlines an emerging model in development for both training facilitators and holding girls’ groups in Lesley University’s The Girlhood Project (TGP). The TGP method engages a unique androgogy to develop college students as allies to youth by using feminist group process and pedagogy to develop girls as leaders, critical consumers, and activists in their communities.

  • Problem: There is a major need (as demonstrated by Belmont Highschool’s request for a program from TGP) for our model in academic, service, and social justice spaces. Youth, specifically girls, need programs that center, support and develop them as leaders, rather than problematize them or force external expectations on them. Adults in girl-serving roles need a feminist skill set, which includes personal identity work, so as to engage youth work ethically.

  • Method: Senior TGP scholar/ facilitators Emily Welden and Kathryn Van Demark develop a model (for replication in high school settings) based in feminist group process and identity development theory and co-constructed with the participants from the Belmont High School pilot group and TGP junior facilitators. They serve as participant observer/ facilitators in the girls’ group while supplementing their research with literature review, TGP data analysis, and interviews.

  • Results: The product of this research project and paper will be a replicable model for both training facilitators and holding girls’ groups in the TGP method, and making a case for this program’s necessity in youth-serving spaces.