Supporting Interests and Sharing Power: Insights from a Scottish Youth Program

Daniela Kruel Digiacomo

doi:10.5195/jyd.2020.869

Daniela Kruel Digiacomo

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2020.869

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Abstract

Light Up Learning (LUL) is a youth program in Scotland that supports young people in pursuing their curiosities and exploring their interests in a school-based informal learning setting. This article draws on interview and participant observation data to examine the social organization of teaching and learning activity within LUL. As a school-based program focused on supporting youth in pursuing their interests through the cultivation of a caring adult–youth relationship, LUL offers an empirical case that brings together insights from youth development and interest-driven learning research. Examination into the verbal and material interactions that shape adult–youth interactions yields insight into how to challenge normatively hierarchical power dynamics between teachers and learners toward the instantiation of a more relational pedagogy. By employing the pedagogic moves of continually foregrounding youths’ interests, honoring youth expertise, and making space for youth’s ideas, LUL youth workers created an environment within a school setting where youth felt both free and supported to learn through deeply and widely pursuing their interests.

Highlights

Research on learning and development has, for decades, demonstrated the importance of learning within “informal” settings that are supportive of the diverse developmental needs of children and youth (Ito et al, 2020; Rogoff, 1990; Sefton-Green, 2012)
Analysis of the social organization of activity revealed that Light Up Learning (LUL) sessions supported youth development by creating an environment in which young people felt encouraged to engage in interest-related learning pursuits that mattered to them through a supportive relationship with consistent adult guidance
The empirical case of LUL serves as an instance of a youth program whose pedagogical approach was guided, at the broadest level, by a purposeful attempt on the part of the adult youth workers to encourage learning within the four walls of a traditional schoolhouse and during school hours that wasn’t explicitly tied to exam performance or character correction

Summary

Introduction

Research on learning and development has, for decades, demonstrated the importance of learning within “informal” settings that are supportive of the diverse developmental needs of children and youth (Ito et al, 2020; Rogoff, 1990; Sefton-Green, 2012). Despite what is known about the benefits of these spaces and programs for youth learning and development, they remain the exception, rather than the expectation, for how school is designed. As a school-based program focused on supporting youth in pursuing their interests through the cultivation of a caring adult–youth relationship, Light Up Learning offers an empirical case that brings together insights from youth development and interest-driven learning research. Light Up Learning is focused on supporting young people in a setting outside of academic or curricular constraints, as such it can be understood broadly as a program trying to promote youth development.

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