Youth Oppression as a Technology of Colonialism: Conceptual Frameworks and Possibilities for Social Justice Education Praxis

In this article, we conceptualize youth oppression as a social justice issue using SJE frameworks including Adams’ levels of oppression, Bell's defining features of oppression, Hardiman et. al.'s matrix of oppression, Young's Five Faces, and Love's internalized oppression. We examine youth as a social identity group, and youth oppression as a mechanism through which the roles of dominant and subordinate are installed on all humans, and through which we are socialized to participate in the maintenance and perpetuation of other forms of oppression.

This conceptualization of youth oppression is rooted in examination of discourses that create childhood as a subordinate social status in relation to adults, and parallels with certain discourses of colonialism. Examination of parallels between discourses that create childhood and some of the discourses of colonialism illuminate youth oppression as a technology of colonialism. Colonialism, a complex oppressive system operating on multiple levels, maintains unequal, hierarchical relationships. Examining colonialism provides a lens through which to view the broader systemic and global connections that formulate oppression. The relationships within which youth oppression occurs often obscures these systemic, multi-level global connections.

We propose youth oppression as a generative theme in social justice praxis. Implications include transforming how we conceptualize, contextualize, and strategize SJE praxis, and changing how we think about the oppression of humans and possibilities for liberation.