AFTER WORKING THROUGH THIS MODULE, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO:

• Define “youth voice” and “youth agency.”
• Explain the connection between voice, agency, and youth development.
• Act in your library to provide opportunities for BIYOC to develop and express their voices.

INTRODUCTION

When students are allowed to speak and to write their truth, they begin the process of introspection, inquiry, and critical thinking.– Jyothi Bathina, PhD

The concepts of voice and agency are critical to developing inclusive library programs and services where BIYOC can develop and thrive. Providing opportunities for BIYOC to share their personal narratives, to express their ideas and their opinions, and to speak and write their truths legitimizes their lived experiences,  celebrates their culture, and encourages them to use their voices for personal, civic, and political reasons.  As we’ll discuss below, when adults work with BIYOC to develop their voices and agency, BIYOC strengthen their academic skills and competencies, develop their leadership abilities, build strong relationships with adults, and feel empowered to use their voices to effect change.

DEFINING VOICE & AGENCY

What do we mean by “voice”?  The best way to understand it is to see it in action. Here are four examples of youth using their voices to speak out and to effect change in their communities.

As an 11-year old, Marley Dias was frustrated at the lack of books that showed characters like her. She decided to start a campaign that collected books with Black girls as the main characters. Not only has she collected over 9000 books which she has donated to communities, but she has also developed the 1000 Black Girl Books Resource Guide¹ to help youth, educators, and librarians find those books. After the creation of the resource, she toured the country to speak to educators, legislators and others about how to increase the pipeline of diverse books. She is currently a student at Harvard University.

To watch the next video, follow this link to the original Project READY site and find the second video under the Defining Voice & Agency section. In the video, fourth-grade students in Ms. Nwoye’s class at Stedwick Elementary School in Montgomery County, Maryland speak out against racism and the harmful impact it has on youth.

As these examples demonstrate, youth voice has two dimensions. One dimension recognizes that BIYOC have stories to tell, that their stories are important, and that by telling their stories they enrich the narrative about what it means to be a BIYOC in the United States today. The second dimension includes a social action component – one that recognizes that youth can provide a unique insight into the issues facing BIYOC and their communities. This dimension supports youth agency and positions youth as agents of change in their schools and communities.

For BIYOC, agency can include:

1. Participating in collection development, policy, and programming decisions.
2. Influencing class topics, activities, and final products.
3. Sharing their ideas about problems that exist in their schools, libraries, and communities and offering potential solutions.
4. Collaborating with other youth and with adults to engage in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR).

REFLECT

What are some ways you can get input from the youth you work with to learn about the issues that are important to BIYOC in your library or community? Possible ideas include surveys or questionnaires, focus groups or forums, graffiti boards³, or direct conversation (if you have a trusting relationship).

IMAGES OF PRACTICE

In this Image of Practice, learn how school librarian Julie Stivers worked with three of her eighth-grade students at Mount Vernon Middle School in Raleigh, North Carolina to develop student-led professional development for librarians on how to create equitable and inclusive libraries.  Over the course of several months students Jaida Morris, Cesar Falcon, and Jose Gomez engaged in YPAR. They began by reading academic research that directly related to the topic and then embarked on their own action-based research.  Based on their research, they developed The #LibFive: Five Key Foundations for Building Inclusive Libraries. Watch this video to hear from Jaida, Cesar, and Jose about the process and the #LibFive concepts.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO CULTIVATE VOICE AND AGENCY?

The soul of a people lives in that people’s voices and is streamed in the continuous sounds that run deep like rivers through their lineage.– David Kirkland

As this quote from David Kirkland captures, voice matters!  Libraries must be spaces where BIYOC are encouraged to develop their voices, to tell their stories, and to share their perspectives on how we can work together to create a just and equitable society.

WHAT DOES CULTIVATING VOICE AND AGENCY LOOK LIKE?

Often it’s difficult for librarians and educators to imagine what cultivating voice and agency might look like. In Module 18, we talked about “leveling up” with Dr. Bank’s Framework. Level 3 and Level 4 of the framework provide natural opportunities for educators and library staff to amplify youth voice and to create units or programs that allow youth to act in their communities, whether the community is the classroom, school, library, or beyond.

1. Gain healing by understanding the historic oppression and persecution their community has faced,
2. Realize that other members of their community have similar feelings and experiences and that they are not alone,
3. No longer blame themselves or their community for being marginalized, and
4. Construct additional narratives to challenge the dominant narrative (Delgado, 1989, p. 2437).

Members of the dominant culture also benefit from hearing counterstories. Delgado (1989) argues that counterstories can help them overcome their “ethnocentrism and the unthinking conviction that [their] way of seeing the world is the only one – that the way things are is inevitable, natural, just, and best” (p. 2439).

For BIYOC, counterstories provide the mirrors that Rudine Sims Bishop refers to in her seminal work “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors.” For youth who belong to the dominant culture, they serve as windows. For both, they can act as sliding glass doors. Bishop (1990) writes:

Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange.

These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author.

When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror.

Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.

In later modules we will discuss #OwnVoices children’s and young adult literature – a form of counterstorytelling – but we can also engage BIYOC in telling their own counterstories as a way of cultivating voice and agency. The videos you watched at the beginning of this module, including the Lib Five image of practice, are examples of counterstorytelling.  In these videos, youth are speaking their truths and sharing their experiences.

RESPOND

Reflect on what you’ve learned so far in this module about youth voice and agency.  Revisit the list of issues that you think youth in your school, library, or community care about. Now brainstorm a list of ways that library staff can work with youth to cultivate their voices and express their agency. Remember to think collaboratively and focus on youth leadership. Think creatively and boldly. You can use the Continuum of Voice graphic below to help guide your brainstorming.

EXPLORE

Learning for Justice’s Framework for an Anti-Bias Curriculum includes social justice standards. Read through the summary of the standards on the landing page. If you’d like to learn more, the full standards are available for optional download. In addition to helping youth develop knowledge and skills related to prejudice reduction, many of the standards support voice and agency.

BUT WAIT!

In this section, we address common questions and concerns related to the material presented in each module. You may have these questions yourself, or someone you’re sharing this information with might raise them. We recommend that for each question below, you spend a few minutes thinking about your own response before clicking “Show more” to see our response.