The Relationship between Community Action and Queer Youth Empowerment

RM 215

Queer youth daily navigate through a maze of challenges, risks, and rewards coming from all aspects of their lives. In result these youth develop many strengths and form resilience in time of great strain. The purpose of this study was to examine which factors of empowerment in Queer youth are most salient and can be positively impacted through participation in youth-led community based action initiatives. In conjunction with both Queer youth and allies from a local San Bernardino High school (n = 6) we facilitated the design of a mural by the youth as part of an ongoing community-based participatory research process. We conducted the Psychological Empowerment Survey (PES) at the beginning of the mural design process, and at three-week intervals thereafter. Based on previous work demonstrating the empowering nature of youth-led community action projects, our team hypothesized that upon completion of the mural, we would see significant positive changes in the factors of empowerment measured by the PES. The mural project is still underway, but preliminary analysis of PES outcomes suggest that the hypothesis is supported. Queer youth-led community action seems an effective means to enhance psychological empowerment.