YOST3032: Adolescent and Youth Development for Youth workers

In this course, we will explore the multitude of theories that have been proposed to describe, understand, and even explain young people in the second decade of life and beyond. Indeed, we will be studying development theories that have been used to explain your own life and experience. This gives us a unique perspective in the class. You have first-hand experience that can be used to interrogate the theories and often illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of each. Over the course of the semester, we describe, discuss, and critique six theories of adolescent and youth development, including: Social Justice Youth Development, Participatory Youth Development, Community Youth Development, Positive Youth Development, Adolescent Development, and Recapitulation. We begin with the most recent theory and then using academic archeology, dig back through time to understand not only the individual theories but also how they connect and join to each other. Along the way, we also discuss the social and cultural events and situations that influenced each theory’s development and often demise. A major goal of this class is to better understand where these theories come from, what they are connected to, and often how they are used to both support and marginalize young people. Class will be interactive, using both small and large group discussion, experiential learning activities, and guest lecturers. The major assignment for the class is a grant writing project, where students will collaborate with a youth-serving organizing to develop a grant proposal that addresses the organization’s needs. This project will be used to deepen understanding of how to apply the theories we learn in class, as well as to develop skills around writing strong grant proposals for youth-serving organizations. Prior completion of YOST 1001 is highly recommended.

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