The failure of current policy to address important quality of life issues for urban youth remains a substantial barrier to civic participation, educational equity, and healthy adulthood. This volume brings together the work of leading urban youth scholars to highlight the detrimental impact of zero tolerance policies on young people's educational experience and well being. Inspired by the conviction that urban youth have the right to more equitable educational and social resources and political representation, Beyond Resistance! offers new insights into how to increase the effectiveness of youth development and education programs, and how to create responsive youth policies at the local, state, and federal level.

Section 1: Reframing Youth Resistance: Building Theories of Youth Activism 1. Beyond Policy: Ideology, Race and the Re-imagining of Youth 2. Examining Youth Organizing and Identity-Support: Two Civic Activist Approaches for Engaging Youth in Social Justice 3. Teaching and Learning in Youth Activism: A Case for Youth-Centered Apprenticeships 4. Sociopolitical Development: The Missing Link in Research and Policy on Adolescents 5. The Racial Dimensions of Social Capital: Towards a New Understanding of Youth Empowerment & Community Organizing in America's Urban Core Section 2: Learning for Justice: Innovative Pedagogies for Justice in Schools 6. From Hunger Strike to High School: Youth Development, Social Justice and School Formation 7. Youth Initiated Research as a Tool for Advocacy and Change in Urban Schools 8. 'Best of Both Worlds': Youth Poetry as Social Critique and Form of Empowerment 9. Urban Youth, Media Literacy, and Increased Critical Civic Participation Section 3: Street Corner Democracy: Youth, Civil Society and Community Change 10. From Hip Hop to Humanization: Café Teatro Batey Urbano, Latino Youth Culture and Community Action 11. Participation in Social Change: Shifting Adolescents' Developmental Pathways 12. Youth of Color Movement for Juvenile Justice 13. 'Taking Their Own Power': Urban Youth, Community-Based Youth Organizations, and Public Efficacy 14. Taking Charge in Lake Wobegon: Youth, Social Justice, and Anti-Racist Organizing in the Twin Cities Section 4: Perspectives on Youth Civic Engagement and Youth Policies 15. Researching and Resisting: Democratic Policy Research By and For Youth 16. Promoting Citizenship and Activism in Today's Youth, Lonnie Sherrod 17. Youth Policy and Institutional Change18. Youth Participation for Educational Reform in Low-Income Communities of Colors Conclusion: Youth Agency, Resistance, and Civic Activism: the Public Commitment to Social Justice