Few clichés promise to do more damage to libraries than claiming to be “safe spaces.” Libraries are not safe spaces. At the very least, such a claim perpetuates an immodest and ill-defined boast and, as with most boasts, this one can’t be delivered. Recently, within the space of only one month, two west coast libraries
How much more time must pass before libraries realize that young adults don’t need any “youth development” agenda to recognize them as active participants and contributors to the culture? While libraries wring hands in moral panics and exaggerations over “youth crime,” “peer pressure” (it’s always peer pressure), and developmental needs (and it’s always needs) –
Beyond the Celebrations The disturbing things LIS students find out about real YA programming and professionals’ ethical obligation to improve YA experience It becomes more difficult each year to convince LIS students that they need to demonstrate service impact on YAs. It is especially difficult when they see so little professional commitment to it
“Members” Now: Citizens Later? America does not appear in the mood to broaden its notion of “citizenship” for the next while. This fight doesn’t end here, of course, but the current environment is a minefield of political kryptonite and recrimination. For several years, however, I have been urging librarians to define YA users (within the
Are U.S. schools dangerous places for gun violence? By Mike A. Males, YouthFacts April 24, 2023 A number of mass shootings have made the United States’ K-12 schools the focus of the gun safety debate and often extreme “solutions” to prevent them. However, a straightforward risk analysis shows the chances of being shot or suffering any kind
“Listen to us:” Youth Are More Resilient Than We Deserve Wynter, 14, demands “listen to us.” Hunter, 14, answers the question “The best thing about being young my age is… ‘Having friends and learning more and more stuff in school.’ “Your childhood is something you’ll never get back,” says 12-year-old Trinity, “And I feel like you’re an adult
Los Angeles’s Astounding Youth Trends Terrifying Everyone Amid the dire commentaries about youth currently dominating public forums, the real question we should be asking is: how are supposedly reckless, impulsive, risk-taking teenagers achieving such strikingly low rates of drug overdose, suicide, and violent crime that afflict grownups? In fact, increasingly racially diverse younger Millennials and
Unlocking Knowledge of Those Impacted by Juvenile Justice System “The real crime lies in how society views us.” This indictment by a young individual cited in a report by the Shelby County Youth Council in Memphis stings because it is true. Activists of all ages in Shelby County have no illusions about dislodging deep systemic racism but
What both the left and right get wrong about youth labor As happens so often with youth issues, both the political left and right are wrong about the issue of youth labor. Right wing Arkansas governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has signed the Youth Hiring Act making it easier to hire youth under the age of 16,
The terrifying plunge in youth crime By Mike Males | February 2023 Why aren’t mammoth revolutions in youth behavior that make today’s teenagers a uniquely low-crime population that reduced gun deaths dramatically headlined in the news and studied excitedly in institutional forums? Crime, gun killings, and arrest rates by youths have fallen faster in California than in
