How We Stereotype Youth and How To Combat It

In the article called Framing Youth by Dr. Lesley Bogad one stereotype I found in the article is as follows, "All of these headlines suggest that all youth — undifferentiated by gender, race, class and the like — are in crisis in spite of the very white, and very male demographics of the recent school shooter" This stereotype shows that some of the stereotypes involving youth do not matter even if the research points more towards one demographic, the world points more towards youth as a whole. Sometimes teens are seen as one group of people even though they have many different subs sections of teens.  

In the article Redefining the Notion of Youth by Shirley R Steinberg it talks about one story in particular in the beginning that contains one stereotype not about youth, but about people who work with youth. In this story one youth's father did not want his son to be a specific character or in the play in general because of the nature of the child's character. In the end of the conversation the father asks Steinberg, "What is wrong with you... No one likes teenagers. Only someone with something wrong inside wants to be around them that much." I think that that is a stereotype that people make about youth workers, that something is wrong with us for wanting to work with children all the time because children can be difficult at times, and working with children is a gift that you need to have to be able to handle the job. Bu those of us who work with kids cannot image not working with them at all. 

Adults Think Black Girls Are Older Than They Are started off with a story about a young African American girl that was arrested for using a student Metro Pass because the police though she was too old to be using one, she was 15 years old. In relation to this teens gender, and race people think she is older than she is and take action on it.

A memory I have from experiencing prejudice as a child had to be when I was in the sixth grade. We were learning about 9/11 and my class had just made the connection I was Arab American and connected it to the fact that the war on terror was started by radical people who so happened to be from the same geographic location as my family was from. I was called a "Muslim terrorist" for the rest of the school year, and had to leave the school I was at due to the fact the administration staff did not step in to help with the bullying. It was horrifying really. I was also told many times by adults in public places to not speak my natural language in public because it was considered "offensive". I started speaking Arabic in public again when I was in the tenth grade and I just smile and wave to people giving me weird looks. Basically my message to my younger self would be, do not worry about what others tell you, you cannot change where you were born and your natural language.