This day-long event featured presentations by professors, youth organizers, politically active youth, and students. “Civically Engaged Youth in the Americas: A Three City Perspective - Chicago, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro” stems from a larger comparative study researching the role of youth in public spaces in each of their cities. The three themes of the colloquium include Becoming, Engaging, and Envisioning - here academics, youth organizers, and youth themselves speak on becoming civically engaged.

Molly W. Andolina is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at DePaul University. Her current research project focuses on the civic engagement of the post Generation X generation, which has been labeled the DotNet generation. With funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts beginning in January 2001, Cliff Zukin of Rutgers University, Scott Keeter of George Mason and Andolina launched a large scale, multi-method analysis of civic engagement in the United States, with a particular focus on the post Boomer generations. Over the past three years, they have collected a considerable amount of qualitative and quantitative data about the civic and political attitudes and behavior of various age cohorts in America.

Héctor González is a Youth Organizer with the University of Hip Hop.  He first became involved with the University of Hip Hop in 1998, then with the Southwest Youth Collaborative in 1999. He no longer works with SWYC, but still dedicates some of is time to the UHH. He is a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is majoring in Latin American and Latino Studies.

Carneil Griffin is a Member of the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues. 

Jonathan Peck is Co-Director of the Southwest Youth Collaborative.

Recorded Thursday, September 20, 2007 at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.