This study examines the perceptions of citizenship of youth involved in a community civic engagement program. The UP-BEAT Youth Health Leadership program trained youth participants in public speaking, technology, youth mapping, leadership and government. The study gathered qualitative and quantitative information from the 18 youth participants. Data gathered examined youth perceptions of the characteristics of good citizens as well as how the program influenced youth understandings of justice. Overall, youth in the program demonstrated a desire to facilitate community change through action, expressing ideas and engaging others. Minority participants demonstrated huge commitment to the program, engagement and social capital within their communities and a desire to participate in civic activities. Youth perceptions of the roles and responsibilities of citizenship were not highly influenced by justice. However, youth were able to recognize issues of injustice based on the new environments and new experiences they were exposed to during the program. Youth also found adultism which existed within the program and the environments youth interacted with a deterrent for civic participation.

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies

This dissertation utilizes a Foucauldian perspective to explore the relationship between at-risk youth and the acceptance and integration of long-term conventional goals and values held by the general population. I posit that orthodox theories, which argue that youth who engage in delinquent behaviors do so because they either reject the goals and values of society, or they realize they have no legitimate means of goal attainment, fail to adequately explain why some youth appear to integrate and strive for these goals. I argue that Foucault's work on power and knowledge, more specifically the use of bio-power and the technologies of normalization, can be used as an explanation for how at-risk youth come to integrate and accept these conventional goals and fully participate in the creation of themselves as "docile bodies". </p> <p>This issue is explored through an analysis of two sets of data collected through the development and implementation of two separate surveys; one given to the general population of youth and the other to at-risk youth. As well, I explore the findings of personal interviews collected with youth incarcerated in Kilburn Hall, a remand centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. </p> <p>What these data show is that, far from rejecting the conventional goals and values of society, at-risk youth appear to integrate both the goals and a strong ideology of personal responsibility for the attainment, or failure to achieve these goals.