GPN Speaker Series with Dr. Ashley Cureton: Refugee Youth and OST Programs

GPN Speaker Series with Dr. Ashley Cureton: Making a Change! Exploring Refugee Youth’s Civic Engagement in Out-of-School Programs to Cultivate Critical Consciousness

Join us for this month's GPN Speaker Series at the University of Pennsylvania for an exciting online event featuring Dr. Ashley Cureton from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Cureton will dive into her research focusing on refugee youth and the role of out-of-school time (OST) programs in cultivating opportunities for civic engagement and critical consciousness. She identifies the potential of OST programs to serve as an anchor for refugee youth, who lack familiarity with U.S. schools and communities.

Youth civic engagement encompasses activities that are critical for empowering young people to participate in political, economic, and social initiatives, becoming agents of positive change. While civic engagement has been deemed an important activity, Dr. Cureton has detected limited research that highlights refugee youth’s motivation, benefits, and engagement in civic duties within local communities. Her phenomenological research, drawing from a critical consciousness framework, has sought to explore refugee youth's motivations as well as types of civic engagement offered in OST programs. Furthermore, she leverages her findings to recommend ways in which schools and community partners can assist refugee students in becoming more civically involved in OST settings.

Dr. Ashley Cureton (she/her) is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work and Marsal Family School of Education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is also a faculty associate in the African Studies Center and Center for Global Health Equity at the University of Michigan. Dr. Cureton identifies as a forced migration and international social work scholar who seeks to identify culturally specific interventions, programs, and policies to improve the educational, socio-emotional, and environmental outcomes of refugee youth and their families in the U.S and abroad. By engaging in community-based participatory research, she is further interested in the role of institutions (e.g., resettlement agencies, refugee-led organizations, schools) in supporting the distinct needs of these vulnerable groups. Her research builds on over a decade of research and practice focusing on child and adolescent development among refugee and migrant populations in global contexts like Uganda, South Africa, Zambia, Lebanon, Jordan, India, and the United States.

Reserve your spot for our Friday, June 7th event today!