Youth-Nex hosting annual conference on dialogue, democracy

Youth-Nex will host its seventh annual conference, “Dialoging for Democracy: Youth Moral Reasoning and Social Justice,” Nov. 12-13.

The conference is designed to provide an opportunity for youth, practitioners, researchers, and policy makers across the country to discuss how we engage with issues of human welfare and justice with young people, taking into account their developmental capacities and social identities. The conference is co-chaired by Nancy Deutsch, professor and director of Youth-Nex, and Johari Harris, research associate.

During this conference, participants will discuss the developmental underpinnings of moral reasoning, best practices for engaging adolescents in generative discourse that promotes the development of one’s moral reasoning, and examples of how this is applied in classroom and out-of-school settings to further democratic engagement. There will also be performances by youth participating in the two-day event.

Conference participants will hear from a variety of speakers, including:

• Derrick P. Alridge, Curry School professor of education and director of the Center for Race and Public Education in the South
• Melody Barnes, co-director of the UVA Democracy Initiative and former assistant to President Barack Obama and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council
• Shawn Brown, Program Coordinator for Teen Empowerment
• Daniel Fairley, Youth Opportunity Coordinator from the City of Charlottesville
• Steve Whitaker, Teacher, Jack Jouett Middle School, Albemarle County

The event will be held at Alumni Hall on the University of Virginia Grounds. Details about the event and registration can be found on the event website https://curry.virginia.edu/youth-nex-conference-2019.

For more information, contact [email protected].

Youth-Nex, The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development, is a trans-disciplinary center that aims to expand and apply the science of positive youth development to address fundamental challenges facing societies around the world. It is home of the Remaking Middle School initiative.