Jessica K Taft
Biographic Data
| ID | 3674420 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jessica K Taft |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jessica K |
| FAMILY NAME | Taft |
| SIGNATURE | TAFT J K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Cruz |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5267-8089 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 109 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Questioning children's activism
This article explores the multiple and shifting meanings of children's activism and addresses some of the potential benefits and disadvantages of framing a given set of practices as children's activism. After recognizing the potential dangers of overuse of the term, we offer our own conceptual understanding of children's activism, focusing on collectivity , challenging expectations and transforming power. Further, in questioning what is new and o…
Social movements, Ingos, and the meaning of children’s political participation
Research ethics in childhood research
Hopeful, Harmless, and Heroic
There has been a notable increase in the public visibility of girl activists in the past ten years. In this article, I analyze media narratives about several individual girl activists to highlight key components of the newly desirable figure of the girl activist. After tracing the expansion of girl power discourses from an emphasis on individual empowerment to the invocation of girls as global saviors, I argue that girls are particularly desirabl…
The Kids Are in Charge
Details the possibilities and challenges of intergenerational activism and social movements Since 1976, the Peruvian movement of working children has fought to redefine age-based roles in society, including defending children’s right to work. In The Kids Are in Charge, Jessica K. Taft gives us an inside look at this groundbreaking, intergenerational social movement, showing that kids can—and should be—respected as equal partners in economic, soci…
Continually Redefining Protagonismo
Activists in the Peruvian working children's movement have been theorizing about "children's protagonismo" for nearly 40 years. Changing political contexts and the infusion of discourses from other social movements have produced three major sets of meanings for this concept, each reflecting different dynamics in Peruvian social movement history. First, the concept, infused with ideas from liberation theology and Latin American engagements with Ma…
Teenage girls’ narratives of becoming activists
Stories about individuals’ entry into activism are an important part of collective identity formation within social movements. This article, based on in-depth interviews and participant observation with teenage girl activists in five cities in North and South America, looks at narratives of the process of becoming an activist in order to understand how these narratives function for teenagers. Drawing on the conventions of coming of age narratives…
Adults talk too much
Recent work on children's participatory rights has suggested the need to pay attention to adult-child relationships and foster intergenerational dialogue. Drawing on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with the Peruvian movement of working children, this article explores the ambiguous and complex status of adult voice in organizations that have taken up children's participation. The ideal of egalitarian intergenerational collaboratio…
The Political Lives of Girls
Girls are increasingly being publically celebrated as community leaders, models for ideal citizenship, and central to economic development. Contemporary girlhood is rich with political implications and significance. In this essay, I outline some of the scholarship on the public discourses that idealize girls as model neoliberal citizens and address important findings and contributions from empirical research on the political lives of girls: girls…
Youth activists, youth councils, and constrained democracy
This article provides a critical examination of a common form of adult attempts to promote civic engagement among young people, namely, youth advisory councils. While youth councils have been widely celebrated as an effective way to integrate young people into political processes, little research has explored why some politically active youth choose to leave, or refuse to join, youth councils. Based on two qualitative studies of politically activ…
Rethinking Youth Political Socialization
This article draws from the experiences and narratives of teenage activists throughout the Americas in order to add a needed dimension, that of peer political socialization, to the larger political and civic socialization literature. The authors argue that although the existing literature emphasizes the roles and responsibilities of adults in shaping young people's civic capacities, the roles that young people play in socializing each other for p…
Girlhood in Action
This article addresses the growing concern with youth civic engagement by asking how contemporary U.S. girls' organizations envision girls' civic identities. Recent years have seen the growth of girls' organizations that aim to involve girls in their communities. Based on extensive document research and two ethnographic case studies, my analysis distinguishes between this emergent transformative approach and a more widespread, normative model. Tr…
I'm Not a Politics Person
This article explores U.S. teenage girls' rejections of "politics," arguing that for some girls, the refusal to identify with politics is a discursive strategy informed by their consciousness of inequality and their commitments to social justice. Drawing upon interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, I show how two different groups of girls reflect on their varied experiences of political marginalization as aged, gendered, racialized…
Choosing A Self
Rethinking Youth Political Socialization
This article draws from the experiences and narratives of teenage activists throughout the Americas in order to add a needed dimension, that of peer political socialization, to the larger political and civic socialization literature. The authors argue that although the existing literature emphasizes the roles and responsibilities of adults in shaping young people's civic capacities, the roles that young people play in socializing each other for p…
I'm Not a Politics Person
This article explores U.S. teenage girls' rejections of "politics," arguing that for some girls, the refusal to identify with politics is a discursive strategy informed by their consciousness of inequality and their commitments to social justice. Drawing upon interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, I show how two different groups of girls reflect on their varied experiences of political marginalization as aged, gendered, racialized…
Hopeful, Harmless, and Heroic
There has been a notable increase in the public visibility of girl activists in the past ten years. In this article, I analyze media narratives about several individual girl activists to highlight key components of the newly desirable figure of the girl activist. After tracing the expansion of girl power discourses from an emphasis on individual empowerment to the invocation of girls as global saviors, I argue that girls are particularly desirabl…
Adults talk too much
Recent work on children's participatory rights has suggested the need to pay attention to adult-child relationships and foster intergenerational dialogue. Drawing on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with the Peruvian movement of working children, this article explores the ambiguous and complex status of adult voice in organizations that have taken up children's participation. The ideal of egalitarian intergenerational collaboratio…
The Political Lives of Girls
Girls are increasingly being publically celebrated as community leaders, models for ideal citizenship, and central to economic development. Contemporary girlhood is rich with political implications and significance. In this essay, I outline some of the scholarship on the public discourses that idealize girls as model neoliberal citizens and address important findings and contributions from empirical research on the political lives of girls: girls…
Teenage girls’ narratives of becoming activists
Stories about individuals’ entry into activism are an important part of collective identity formation within social movements. This article, based on in-depth interviews and participant observation with teenage girl activists in five cities in North and South America, looks at narratives of the process of becoming an activist in order to understand how these narratives function for teenagers. Drawing on the conventions of coming of age narratives…
Girlhood in Action
This article addresses the growing concern with youth civic engagement by asking how contemporary U.S. girls' organizations envision girls' civic identities. Recent years have seen the growth of girls' organizations that aim to involve girls in their communities. Based on extensive document research and two ethnographic case studies, my analysis distinguishes between this emergent transformative approach and a more widespread, normative model. Tr…
Social movements, Ingos, and the meaning of children’s political participation
Continually Redefining Protagonismo
Activists in the Peruvian working children's movement have been theorizing about "children's protagonismo" for nearly 40 years. Changing political contexts and the infusion of discourses from other social movements have produced three major sets of meanings for this concept, each reflecting different dynamics in Peruvian social movement history. First, the concept, infused with ideas from liberation theology and Latin American engagements with Ma…
Choosing A Self
I'm Not a Politics Person
This article explores U.S. teenage girls' rejections of "politics," arguing that for some girls, the refusal to identify with politics is a discursive strategy informed by their consciousness of inequality and their commitments to social justice. Drawing upon interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, I show how two different groups of girls reflect on their varied experiences of political marginalization as aged, gendered, racialized…
Girlhood in Action
This article addresses the growing concern with youth civic engagement by asking how contemporary U.S. girls' organizations envision girls' civic identities. Recent years have seen the growth of girls' organizations that aim to involve girls in their communities. Based on extensive document research and two ethnographic case studies, my analysis distinguishes between this emergent transformative approach and a more widespread, normative model. Tr…
Rethinking Youth Political Socialization
This article draws from the experiences and narratives of teenage activists throughout the Americas in order to add a needed dimension, that of peer political socialization, to the larger political and civic socialization literature. The authors argue that although the existing literature emphasizes the roles and responsibilities of adults in shaping young people's civic capacities, the roles that young people play in socializing each other for p…
Youth activists, youth councils, and constrained democracy
This article provides a critical examination of a common form of adult attempts to promote civic engagement among young people, namely, youth advisory councils. While youth councils have been widely celebrated as an effective way to integrate young people into political processes, little research has explored why some politically active youth choose to leave, or refuse to join, youth councils. Based on two qualitative studies of politically activ…
The Political Lives of Girls
Girls are increasingly being publically celebrated as community leaders, models for ideal citizenship, and central to economic development. Contemporary girlhood is rich with political implications and significance. In this essay, I outline some of the scholarship on the public discourses that idealize girls as model neoliberal citizens and address important findings and contributions from empirical research on the political lives of girls: girls…
Adults talk too much
Recent work on children's participatory rights has suggested the need to pay attention to adult-child relationships and foster intergenerational dialogue. Drawing on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with the Peruvian movement of working children, this article explores the ambiguous and complex status of adult voice in organizations that have taken up children's participation. The ideal of egalitarian intergenerational collaboratio…
Teenage girls’ narratives of becoming activists
Stories about individuals’ entry into activism are an important part of collective identity formation within social movements. This article, based on in-depth interviews and participant observation with teenage girl activists in five cities in North and South America, looks at narratives of the process of becoming an activist in order to understand how these narratives function for teenagers. Drawing on the conventions of coming of age narratives…
The Kids Are in Charge
Details the possibilities and challenges of intergenerational activism and social movements Since 1976, the Peruvian movement of working children has fought to redefine age-based roles in society, including defending children’s right to work. In The Kids Are in Charge, Jessica K. Taft gives us an inside look at this groundbreaking, intergenerational social movement, showing that kids can—and should be—respected as equal partners in economic, soci…
Continually Redefining Protagonismo
Activists in the Peruvian working children's movement have been theorizing about "children's protagonismo" for nearly 40 years. Changing political contexts and the infusion of discourses from other social movements have produced three major sets of meanings for this concept, each reflecting different dynamics in Peruvian social movement history. First, the concept, infused with ideas from liberation theology and Latin American engagements with Ma…
Hopeful, Harmless, and Heroic
There has been a notable increase in the public visibility of girl activists in the past ten years. In this article, I analyze media narratives about several individual girl activists to highlight key components of the newly desirable figure of the girl activist. After tracing the expansion of girl power discourses from an emphasis on individual empowerment to the invocation of girls as global saviors, I argue that girls are particularly desirabl…
Research ethics in childhood research
Questioning children's activism
This article explores the multiple and shifting meanings of children's activism and addresses some of the potential benefits and disadvantages of framing a given set of practices as children's activism. After recognizing the potential dangers of overuse of the term, we offer our own conceptual understanding of children's activism, focusing on collectivity , challenging expectations and transforming power. Further, in questioning what is new and o…
Social movements, Ingos, and the meaning of children’s political participation
Sociology (12 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Politics (10 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Children's Rights and Participation (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (7 works) · Law (7 works)