Thursday, June 1, 2023
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon Patel Center, Room 140
11:00-11:15 a.m.
“Changing Policy Narratives and Practices for Youth Workforce Development in the Caribbean”
Globally, youth workforce development initiatives aim to support youth in developing the technical and soft skills necessary to become employable in locally productive labor markets (EDUCA & MEPyD, 2017; USAID, ChildTrends, FHI360, 2015). In the Caribbean, these initiatives are linked to strategies of crime and violence prevention led by international donors and to national development strategies focused on industry growth (Parra-Torrado, 2014; USAID, n.d.). These initiatives intersect with high levels of unemployment and widespread informality in the labor market (Maurizio, 2021) as well as lower levels of school completion rates at the secondary level (CEPAL, 2021), typically targeting “out of school, out of work” youth (de Hoyos et al., 2016). While project design is often focused on skill-building, these programs rarely include pedagogies of social transformation and may reproduce social inequalities by funneling marginalized youth into precarious labor. In this policy advocacy presentation, I draw on 12 years of experience working with youth development programs in the Dominican Republic to explore the affordances of shifting the focus of youth workforce development programs to address experiences of exploitation and harm that youth frequently experience on the job. Using frameworks from Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and Community-Based Research (CBR), I share how education policymakers and program designers as well as classroom educators can more adequately fulfill the role of adult allies by working with institutional actors and youth themselves to combat structural issues that prevent youth from securing jobs or succeeding in their employment experiences.
Molly Hamm-Rodriguez
11:20-11:35 a.m.
“Highlighting Hidden Stories Leads to Cultivating Collective Healing: Supporting Children and Families in the United States and the Caribbean Impacted by Incarceration Through Multicultural Children’s Literature“
This presentation showcases our research on literature in classrooms and libraries focused on supporting children with a family member who is incarcerated or in the criminal justice system. United States’ prisons maintain mass incarceration rates, where people of color are incarcerated at higher rates (Gramlich, 2021; Warren, et al., 2019); Caribbean nations face their own unique issues with mass incarceration (Limoncelli et. al., 2020). This global phenomenon impacts families and communities’ collective well-being and educational opportunities (Kjellstrand & Eddy, 2011; Martin, 2017; Reimer, 2019; Warren, et al., 2019), thus focusing on this topic is essential for achieving equity and justice for those who are often marginalized (Martin, 2017). Whether seen or invisible, children with experiences surrounding incarceration are not a niche population within our classrooms. Through increased support for the unique needs of the population experiencing incarceration most closely, teachers can cultivate spaces where all students can feel supported to thrive.
Our research highlights the universal importance for teachers to develop an understanding and awareness of this population, focusing on the effect and importance of teaching children with parents who are incarcerated using culturally responsive books and multimedia. Moving the conversation to include focus on Caribbean cultures necessitates further consideration for diversifying materials selections, considering nuances of language and culture. Details of collection development processes are explained in depth to inspire those who may wish to do similar work.
11:40-11:55 a.m.
“Collaborative education innovation in Saint Lucia and Haiti”
For the last two years, researchers from the State University of Haiti (Limonade), Wilfrid Laurier University, and the non-profit group, Raise Your Voice Saint Lucia, have been implementing and studying a model for education innovation in Saint Lucia and Haiti. The model combines core elements of the human-centred design approach to social innovation (IDEO, 2015) and emerging theories of innovation management (OECD Observatory for Public Sector Innovation, 2022) to position teachers as innovation leaders within a supportive innovation ecosystem. Teachers, principals and education administrators each play significant but connected roles within this system. Teachers are empowered to be key agents of change by empathizing with and learning from stakeholders, identifying opportunities and needs at the school level, and collaborating with teacher peers to prototype (test) new solutions. Principals foster an innovation culture at their schools and communicate findings from innovation projects to their peers and ministry leaders. Administrators within ministries of education are learning how to nurture and support teacher innovation teams and monitor a ‘portfolio’ of teacher-led innovations for strategic insights and promising solutions that can be further evaluated and scaled for broader impact. This session will describe the model of education innovation being evaluated and provide examples of innovations developed by teacher teams in Haiti and Saint Lucia. It will also highlight the changing perceptions and mindsets of principals and administrators regarding teacher-led innovation.
