Childhood, Youth and Learning (CYL)

This page is about the CYL Student Group.

For the Critical Studies of Childhood, Youth, and Learning Program at Hampshire College, please visit Childhood, Youth, and Learning at Hampshire College.

We are the Childhood, Youth and Learning student group! We utilize our meeting times to understand the education we've experienced ourselves and the education we hope to share with others. We encourage critical dialogue on education and welcome people of all interests! We promote critical thinking about how children and youth grow, change, create, and learn in the context of larger social structures and cultural practices.

We respect young people as participants in artistic, educational, cultural, and social communities. We dispute traditional paradigms of knowledge production that view children solely as objects of adult values and practices. Rather, we consider the multifaceted identities of children and youth and affirm young people as narrators of their own experiences.

We believe that learning occurs in many spaces. For this reason, we conceive of education broadly and consider children's lives over their days and through the years. We believe that efforts to address the education and wellbeing of children and youth must be grounded in the complexity that exists across individuals, families, classrooms, schools, and communities.

We believe that sharing diverse ideas, practices, and knowledge strengthens our capacity to act thoughtfully and passionately in the world. We support collaborations that enhance our educational activities, explore and advance research, theory, and practice, and respect the goals of our community partners.

These efforts challenge our assumptions and compel us to innovate and develop habits of critical inquiry that inform our understanding and interactions with young people and the significant adults in their lives.