Abstract
The current study examines 16 Latina/o fifth grade children’s desires for a decision-making structure within a youth participatory action research (yPAR) program. When given the choices of consensus, majority rule, authoritarian rule, delegation, and random choice models, children chose random choice. Procedural, distributive and emotional justice were heavily weighted in their reasoning around fairness and decision making. Many thought random choice offered the best alternative because it flattened power hierarchies so that each child would, at some point, have the power to make a decision. Additionally, children argued that the neutrality of random choice allowed them to sidestep interpersonal tensions. Implications include how social identities inform definitions of fairness and how yPAR programs should work with youth around how they will make decisions.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was supported, in part, by grants to the first author from University Community Links, the UC Santa Cruz Social Science Junior Faculty Research Grant program, and the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community. The third author was supported by a Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. The authors wish to thank Mylene Acosta, Samuel Jain, Mariah Kornbluth, Jessenia Meza, Jeremy Rosen-Prinz, Edith Gurrola, Carmen Roman, and Brenda Garibay for their assistance with this research. The authors also thank the UCSC Community Psychology Research & Action Team for their suggestions regarding this manuscript.
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Langhout, R.D., Kohfeldt, D.M. & Ellison, E.R. How we Became the Schmams: Conceptualizations of Fairness in the Decision-Making Process for Latina/O Children. Am J Community Psychol 48, 296–308 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9381-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9381-2