Affiliated Faculty
- Pronouns she, her, her, hers, herself
- Title
- Professor
- Faculty Director of the Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas
- Division Social Sciences Division
- Department
- Latin American & Latino Studies
- Affiliations Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas, Sociology Department, Community Studies Program, Education Department
- Phone 831-502-7695
- Fax 831-459-3125
- Website
- Office Location
- Merrill College Academic Building, 106
- Office Hours S25: Mondays 10-noon and by appointment
- Mail Stop Merrill/Crown Faculty Services
- Mailing Address
- 1156 High St.
- Santa Cruz CA 95064
- Faculty Areas of Expertise Activism, Youth Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Sociology, Democracy
Research Interests
youth activism; childhood and youth studies; social movements; participatory democracy; girls studies; feminist theory; qualitative and participatory research methods.
Biography, Education and Training
Rooted in critical interdisciplinary approaches to child and youth studies, Dr. Taft’s research focuses on young people’s contributions to social change through activism and social movements in North and South America. Building on nearly twenty years of research with young activists, she is increasingly focused on these young people’s encounters with adult-run political institutions and the various programs that seek to include them in policy-making. In this vein, she is currently working on a book project that looks at the history of how children’s political participation has been imagined, produced, and institutionalized within the child rights sphere.
She is the author of Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas (NYU Press, 2011), The Kids Are in Charge: Activism and Power in Peru’s Movement of Working Children (NYU Press, 2019), and numerous journal articles on girls’ activism, children’s participation, youth politics, and critical civic engagement. Dr. Taft is part of a variety of local, national, and international collaborative projects focused on child and youth participation and has worked with funders and non-governmental organizations to deepen their analysis of the challenges and possibilities of meaningful engagement with young people.
Selected Publications
- The Kids Are in Charge: Activism and Power in Peru's Movement of Working Children(2019, NYU Press)
- Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas (2011, NYU Press)
- Social movements, INGOs, and the meaning of children’s political participation: lessons from the 1997 Oslo Working Children’s Forum
- Questioning Children's Activism: What is new or old in theory and practice? (with Claire O'Kane)
- Hopeful, Harmless, and Heroic: Figuring the Girl Activist as Global Savior
- “Adults Talk Too Much”: Intergenerational Dialogue and Power in the Peruvian Movement of Working Children
- Continually Redefining Protagonismo: The Peruvian Movement of Working Children and Political Change, 1976–2015
- Youth Activists, Youth Councils, and Constrained Democracy (with Hava Gordon)
- Rethinking Youth Political Socialization: Teenage Activists Talk Back (with Hava Gordon)
Teaching Interests
Latin American and Latinx Youth Movements; Youth and Citizenship; Latin American Childhoods; The Politics of Childhood and Youth; Latin American Social Movements; Qualitative Research Methods.
