2003 Campus-Community Partnerships

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Research Experience for Gang Impacted Youth

Abstract:

In conjunction with Father Greg Boyle's Jobs For a Future program, we are developing a program of educational and mentoring intervention with gang impacted youth from East Los Angeles. In partnership with Father Boyle and his staff we will select groups of six gang-impacted youth to participate in an ongoing series of writing workshops. Trainees will work closely with the Principal Investigator Jack Katz and his graduate research assistant, Shawna Miller, to learn how to write ethnographic fieldnotes about their everyday lives. Trainees will write detailed descriptions of events including work, tattoo removal, job searching, dating, family life, shopping, and negotiating the legal system. Writing workshops will provide participants with practical training that they can apply to educational and work settings: trainees will learn to use personal computers for writing and editing their work, and will improve their command of written language. These skills will be immediately applicable to their jobs as "office clerks" at Homeboy Industries and will assist in their eventual transitions into work settings in the larger community. Trainees will be encouraged to include this training in their resumes and to make use of their new skills in applying for work and higher education.