Mission Statement

The Center for the Study of Youth and Political Violence (the Center) was established in 2005 with the aim of becoming an authoritative source and training agent for the potential joint role of scholarship, programming, practice, and policy in serving the needs of adolescents involved in political violence around the world.

Hundreds of thousands of adolescents are exposed to and/or participate in political violence across the world. The Center was grounded with the belief that much can be done to both better understand youth experience in political violence and to more fully integrate efforts to assist them in leading constructive lives. Several principles underlie the Center’s approach to this task.

First, the Center recognizes that youth are involved in political violence in a variety of different ways, including being passive witnesses, voluntary fighters, and coerced soldiers. Each of these forms of involvement, as well as others, suggests potential differences in youth conceptions about violence, motivations for involvement in political violence, coping during conflict, and adaptation after conflict.

Second, the Center believes that an understanding of youth experience with political violence should be approached holistically. Specifically, it recognizes that prevailing historical, economic, cultural, ethnic, political, and religious contexts not only inform the origins and outcomes of conflict, but that they also shape individual and collective understanding of conflict, its meaning, relative legitimacy, and resolution. It follows that approaches to understanding and assisting youth must also carefully consider these contexts.

Third, the Center maintains that the effectiveness of programming, intervention and policy initiatives designed for youth in zones of political conflict can be maximized by a comprehensive assessment of youth experience during and after conflict. Specifically, it maintains that the traditional focus on the individual psychological functioning of adolescents in conflict zones, although certainly important, does not permit an adequate assessment of overall functioning or need for assistance. Attention to the breadth of adolescent daily life is critical to this assessment, including the quality of their interpersonal relationships with family and friends, their performance in school and/or occupational endeavors, their adherence to cultural norms, and their access to resources and opportunities.

Fourth, the Center values the basic capacity of adolescents. It recognizes that they can be quite active in searching for the meaning of the political violence they are experiencing - whether that might be to endorse it or refute it - and in identifying a role for themselves in it. Further, the Center values adolescents as competent reporters of their own experiences, particularly in the extent to which they have sought and found such meaning.

Finally, and critically, the Center holds that effective and efficient service to youth who face political violence can best be accomplished through deliberate integration among the several institutions and agencies who are concerned about them. A variety of domestic and international health, civic, government, religious, and academic groups are keenly interested in this important population of children and all such groups can benefit from planned collaboration and integration. A central purpose of the Center is to facilitate such cooperation.

Initial Focus of Center Effort

Much can be learned from past experience about the potential integration of efforts to understand and serve adolescents who face political violence. Accordingly, the Center’s initial focus will be on conducting a series of case studies from past and/or current conflicts in which adolescents have been or are importantly involved.

Specifically, the Center will convene a series of four conferences to be held annually and to be followed in each case one year later with a published monograph of the edited conference proceedings. The first three conferences and subsequent monographs will focus on discrete, regional conflicts, according to the following provisional timetable: (1) Northern Ireland (conference: Fall 2007; monograph publication: 2008); (2) South Africa (conference: Fall 2008; monograph publication: 2009); and, (3) Israel/Palestine (conference Fall 2009; monograph publication: 2010).

For each of these conferences, the Center will convene a carefully selected group of experts from academia, local and national NGOs, government, religious groups, social services, public health, youth development, youth from the conflict, etc. Draft papers from each of the participants will be presented and discussed at the conferences, and, subsequently, revised and edited for publication in the monograph series. Of particular focus will be the degree to which there was cooperation and integration among interested entities during the past conflict, and what sensible recommendations are for current and future instances of political violence that critically involve youth.

For the fourth conference (Fall 2010), the Center will convene a select sub-group of participants from the first three conferences with the goal of synthesizing a model that as best as possible comprehensively maps the effective integration of scholarship, programming, practice, and policy. That model will give critical consideration to the varying roles of culture, ethnicity, the nature of the conflict, the role of any governing authority during and post-conflict, availability of support, etc. The rationale, development, presentation, and suggested implementation of this model will constitute the fourth monograph (publication: 2011).

Additional Areas of Focus

During the course of the development of this conference/monograph series, the Center will pursue other endeavors, that might include: compiling comprehensive reviews of relevant areas of inquiry and effort; translating relevant bodies of information into products that are readily consumable by differing domains of expertise (e.g., policy makers, practitioners, educators, parents, youth, etc.); and developing short-term training modules or institutes, undergraduate and graduate curricula and programs, and a post-doctoral training program.

Acknowledgement

The Center acknowledges with respect and gratitude the commitment and support of the University of Tennessee, particularly the Offices of the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor; the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences; and the Department of Child and Family Studies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Information

Center for the Study of
Youth & Political Violence
2110 Terrace Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37916

Voice: 865–974–2269
Fax: 865–946–0990
youthviolence@tennessee.edu