ABSTRACT
Not long ago, I explained to one of my colleagues that I was feeling somewhat restricted by the confi nes of social science frameworks to describe, explain, and really capture a more nuanced understanding of youth’s engagement with civil society. I explained to my colleague that I wanted the freedom to describe young people’s experiences without romanticizing their capacity for social change, but also I wanted to avoid the static deterministic frames which ultimately leave us with a view of youth as victims of the “big bad” systems of oppression.
