Youth Radio and the Pedagogy of Collegiality

In this article, Vivian Chávez and Elisabeth Soep explore the collaboration among youth and adult participants at Youth Radio, a broadcast-training program in the San Francisco Bay Area. At Youth Radio, participants transcend the conventional relationship between adult “teachers” and youth “learners” to coproduce media products. Chávez and Soep introduce the concept of “pedagogy of collegiality” to describe this process. Using two case studies, they demonstrate the four features of this pedagogy: joint framing, youth-led inquiry, mediated intervention, and distributed accountability. Chávez and Soep articulate a framework that recognizes the asymmetrical relationships among adults and disenfranchised youth while presenting a nuanced alternative. Their work contributes to the growing literature illuminating the role of youth media as a tool for expanding democratic participation.

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*Please note that while the names of both authors are listed alphabetically, Elisabeth Soep is the first author on this publication. Correspondence concerning this article can be addressed to either author: Elisabeth Soep, Youth Radio, 15 Wool Street, San Francisco, CA 94110, email: lissa@youthradio.org; Vivian Chávez, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue (HSS 314), San Francisco, CA 94132, email: vchavez@sfsu.edu.