Graduation Semester and Year
2022
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Department
Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
First Advisor
Ericka Roland
Abstract
Through an arts-based autoethnography, I explored the influences and experiences that informed my approach to leading Black youth empowerment programming. Although there is a significant amount of scholarship on Black youth empowerment programming and its importance to Black children, there is limited literature on how one becomes a Black youth empowerment facilitator in the community. I sought to answer the following questions: (1) How did external forces and people inform my approach to leading Black youth empowerment programming? (2) How did my inner drive and consciousness inform my approach to leading Black youth empowerment programming? (3) How does a critique of power, privileges, and oppressions of my experiences inform my approach to leading Black youth empowerment programming? Through critical reflection journals, photos, and interviews data collection, three findings were identified. The first finding is that external forces and people from my childhood community helped me understand communal Black resilience to care for each other despite the conditions of the Black community. The second finding is that my inner drive and consciousness caused me to have an epiphany while serving in the Iraqi Desert War about helping Black youth have choices in their life beyond military enlistment. The final finding centered on my understanding of how social injustices make Black youth empowerment a must in my community and the privileges that allowed me to answer such a call of service.
Keywords
Adolescent, African-centered, Afrocentric, Black, Black communities, Black youth empowerment, Black youth workers, Culturally relevant, Euro-centric, Kinship networks, Positive youth development, Social capital
Disciplines
Education | Educational Leadership
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Lockett, Junichi Uehara, "PIPELINE TO POWER: A CREATIVE EXPLORATION OF MY JOURNEY TO BLACK YOUTH EMPOWERMENT" (2022). Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Dissertations. 149.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/edleadershippolicy_dissertations/149
Comments
Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington