Building Democracy, Promoting Tolerance: Adolescent Responsiveness to Social Movement Messages

Abstract

Social movement scholars conventionally neglect high school students and settings. This elision stems in part from the fallacious assumption that high schools constitute a segment of society traditionally immune to conflict and in equal part from a failure to appreciate the political agency of high school-aged youth. When scholars do concern themselves with youth social movements, they tend to privilege large-scale, epochal protests on college campuses. In this study, however, we document a significant level of “social movement behavior” among actors who rarely see the light of scholarly print: suburban high school students.

Citation

Scott, G. and Artis, J.E. (2005), "Building Democracy, Promoting Tolerance: Adolescent Responsiveness to Social Movement Messages", Kinney, D.A. and Brown Rosier, K. (Ed.) Sociological Studies of Children and Youth (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 11), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 53-79. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1537-4661(05)11003-4