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It discusses prior research on unequal outcomes and the methodological challenges in studying movement-driven institutional change across race, ethnicity, immigrant origin, economic standing, and sexual or gender minority status.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/conducting-research-on-social-movements-to-challenge-and-change-youth-serving-systems-essay/587982/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/conducting-research-on-social-movements-to-challenge-and-change-youth-serving-systems-essay/587982.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Bintang","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",6,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What is the central goal of studying social movements in this essay?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"To understand whether and how social movements can shift institutions and reduce youth inequalities by changing underlying power and structural arrangements.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"Which youth-serving systems are highlighted as key contexts for unequal outcomes?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"The essay points to justice, housing, child welfare, mental health, education, and the labor market, noting how policies and practices can produce unequal opportunity.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What methodological challenges does the essay emphasize for research on movement outcomes?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It calls for researchers to tackle challenges involved in examining movement impacts rigorously, especially when outcomes involve institutional transformation.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},587982,1792171191,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,101,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":97,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},962085564381,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_6f874abed73319feea01a86fa6f0fab8","Conducting Research on Social Movements to Challenge and Change Youth-Serving Systems  \nJenny Irons  \nWilliam T. Grant Foundation  \nConducting Research on Social Movements to Challenge and Change Youth-Serving Systems  \nSuggested Citation:  \nIrons, J. (2025) . Conducting research on social movements to challenge and change youth-serving systems. William T. Grant Foundation. [https://](https://)[ ](https://)[wtgrantfoundation.org/digest/conducting-research](wtgrantfoundation.org/digest/conducting-research)on-social-movements-to-challenge-and-change-youthserving-systems  \nIRONS • 2025  \nS ocial movements are powerful levers for  \ndisrupting and transforming the macro-level  \nstructures and institutions that create, maintain, and exacerbate inequalities. The civil rights movement led to legal protections for Black voters and dismantled segregated schools and public spaces, transforming political, educational, and social systems across the United States. The gay and lesbian movement secured the right to marriage equality, transforming the institution of the family.  \nResearch about these kinds of changes—changes that uproot the structural and institutional foundations of inequality and shift power hierarchies—are of particular interest to the William T. Grant Foundation (Gamoran, 2021). Our funding supports studies of policies, programs, and practices that reduce inequalities for young people ages 5-25 in the United States. As part of this interest, the Foundation encourages research on larger social forces, like social movements, that can transform the macro-level systems and institutions that shape youth lives.  \nSocial science research has produced a rich body of literature on how the practices, programs, and policies of youth-serving systems—including justice, housing, child welfare, mental health, education, and the labor market—yield unequal opportunity and outcomes. The over-policing of low-income communities of  \ncolor leads to disproportionate rates of incarceration for Black youth and young adults. Exclusionary and harsh anti-immigration laws engender and exacerbate negative mental health outcomes among Latinx youth, undocumented or not. Racial and economic residential segregation and disinvestment in low-income communities of color perpetuate a history of unequal educational opportunities and outcomes in schools. Banson discussing sexual identity in the classroom and the dismantling of legal protections for LGBTQ+ individuals negatively impacts the mental health and well-being of sexual and gender minority youth. Yet, as always,  \npeople resist—rising up to collectively push back against forces that seek to repress, destroy, and divide. Drawing from and building on the research on institutionalized inequalities, social movement scholarship can help us understand how collective action can change systems to improve the lives of young people.  \nThis essay seeks to encourage applications that propose to examine whether and how social movements can shift institutions in ways that reduce youth inequalities by race, ethnicity, immigrant origin, economic standing, or sexual and gender minority status. It asks researchers to creatively and rigorously tackle the methodological challenges central to research on movement outcomes. It puts social movement scholarship in conversation with Foundation-funded studies on reducing inequality in youth outcomes to offer potential pathways for developing proposals aligned with our funding interests. Finally, this essay offers guidance for what a strong proposal that seeks to take on these challenges might look like.  \nWhat are social movements, and how do they bring about change?  \nSocial movements are the sustained mobilization of organized groups with shared goals that seek to bring about or resist social, political, economic, or cultural change (Amenta & Polletta, 2019; Snow, Soule, & Kriesi, 2004; Tarrow, 2012). Social movements are, at least to some degree, extra-institutional in that t","cbCaihfolOzdNTwF","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihfolOzdNTwF","pdf",407877,15,"English","# Social movements and system change\n## Defining social movements and mechanisms of change\n## Research focus on macro-level outcomes\n# Foundations for movement-outcome research\n## Youth-serving systems and structural inequality\n## Challenges in studying movement impacts\n# Guidance for strong proposals\n## Aligning research questions with foundation interests","[{\"question\":\"What is the central goal of studying social movements in this essay?\",\"answer\":\"To understand whether and how social movements can shift institutions and reduce youth inequalities by changing underlying power and structural arrangements.\"},{\"question\":\"Which youth-serving systems are highlighted as key contexts for unequal outcomes?\",\"answer\":\"The essay points to justice, housing, child welfare, mental health, education, and the labor market, noting how policies and practices can produce unequal opportunity.\"},{\"question\":\"What methodological challenges does the essay emphasize for research on movement outcomes?\",\"answer\":\"It calls for researchers to tackle challenges involved in examining movement impacts rigorously, especially when outcomes involve institutional transformation.\"}]","Conducting Research on Social Movements to Challenge and Change Youth-Serving Systems - Essay | PDF",1792063972,38]