When did your organization launch and why?
The Institute for Youth in Policy (YIP) launched in July 2020 as an entirely student-led organization. The core goal of YIP’s founding was to engage students in policy issues through a nonpartisan, discourse-focused approach in response to the rapid rise of political polarization in recent years. YIP’s earliest team members believed that the best way to tackle this issue was not to avoid controversial topics but to spark well-informed, productive dialogues among students, ultimately forming a more open-minded and civically engaged next generation.
What does your organization do? What are its main goals? Main initiatives?
A major branch of YIP’s impact lies in the YIP Education Department, which seeks to depolarize politics by promoting discourse in civics education. The Education Department’s main initiative is its nonpartisan, discussion-based civics curriculum written entirely by high school and college students. The curriculum covers a wide range of policy areas with an emphasis on the most polarizing yet vital issues in society today, such as climate change, the extent of civil liberties, and social services. Further, we are continually expanding our content to respond to current events as they evolve, such as the 2024 election, immigration policy, and the Israel-Hamas War. Finally, one of YIP Education’s main initiatives is its research component, which aims to demonstrate the need for discourse in civics education through substantive research and examine the extent to which discourse is currently lacking in the civics classroom.
What makes your organization stand out? What would you say is the most unique thing about your organization?
As high and college students ourselves, our 50+ member team at YIP Education leverages a unique point of view in our work in civics education. We have brought our wide-ranging experiences in civics education to collaborate in introducing a discourse-based, student-inspired approach to civic learning. Our discourse-based activities are backed by research showing quantifiable positive effects on students’ topic comprehension, understanding of other political perspectives, and motivation to be civically engaged, and our impact has already reached over 450 student participants internationally through virtual workshops. Our by-students, for-students approach sets us apart and motivates us to create more civically engaged future generations.
What are recent projects or new resources that your organization would like to share with other NAMLE members?
Through our entirely student-made curriculum, we are working to resolve today’s ever-prevalent political polarization crisis by having students explore diverse perspectives through discourse, a mission that we have had opportunities to share with large audiences along the way. In November, two of our team members will present a session, “Applying Discourse-Based Activities to Polarizing Topics in Civics Education”, at the 2024 National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Boston, and we would love to connect during ahead of the conference with any educators who will be in attendance.
Our discourse-based activities and curriculum guides have successfully bridged gaps between students on polarizing contemporary issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, immigration policy, AI and the First Amendment, and affirmative action policies. We are launching a curriculum hub with our 8-unit core curriculum, classroom-ready resources on discussing the 2024 election and other polarizing topics, and state-specific implementation guides and research on our website, all of which will be available and free to access ahead of the 2024-25 school year this September.
Further, we have taken significant steps toward our goal of classroom implementation by launching our 2024-25 Curriculum Pilot Program. With the support of a grant from the Riley’s Way Foundation, we will be providing teachers with $500 stipends and professional development to integrate our activities and discourse-based approach in their classrooms. We have accepted several teachers to our pilot cohort thus far and are still accepting applications, so we encourage any interested educators to apply.
What are the connections between the work of your organization and media literacy?
Our non-partisan, discourse based curriculum uses media as a way to understand polarizing topics, policy, and current events. We cover topics ranging from immigration to environmental policy. Our collaborative, research based activities require that students use media to support their arguments; media can take the form of legislation, news articles, essays or other sources. For instance, in our ideological overlap lessons, students analyze legislation to see how the viewpoints of different political parties are similar and explore possibilities for compromise. Furthermore, Democratic Simulations allow students to fulfill the role of Congress members as they draft policy to solve problems presented to them. In these activities, students must be able to understand bias – allowing them to build critical thinking skills that enable them to process media constructively.
Why is media literacy important to your organization?
We’re a student-led organization; therefore, we understand that students are consuming so many types of media on a daily basis, especially through social media platforms. Media can be used as a way to increase political polarization or decrease it, so our goal is to foster an environment where students use media to reduce tensions in our political climate. We accomplish this through a combination of public policy and current events activities – spanning from topics such as equity in our government to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Especially with the 2024 election less than three months away, we want students to use media in a way that would help them become more civically engaged. Thus, we’re creating 2024 election resources that not only provide a comprehensive overview of key policy issues, but also guide students in seeing the similarities in party platforms and politician viewpoints.
The views and opinions expressed in the Organizational Spotlight blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NAMLE or its members. The purpose of the Organizational Spotlight blog is to highlight our Organizational Partners and give them a place to share their reflections, opinions, and ideas.