Analytical Paper Optional: All enrolled students have the option of completing a research paper of at least 20-25 pages, with faculty and peer review of a substantially complete draft. This paper can be used to satisfy the analytical paper requirement for J.D. students.

Prerequisites: None

Exam Type: No Exam

Art of Social Change for Youth is an introductory course for students across Harvard schools who are interested in using law and policy as tools to advance justice for children and young people. The course begins from the premise that effective social change advocacy requires much more than mastery of legal doctrine. Lawyers and advocates seeking to transform youth-serving systems must understand the root causes of social problems, identify leverage points within complex institutions, envision and articulate compelling alternatives to the status quo, exercise strategic judgment about when and how to pursue legal reform, and approach advocacy with humility about their role and positionality within broader movements for change. Through an analytical framework known as Approaching System Change, developed by youth advocates over the past fifty years, students learn to think critically about the strategies, assumptions, and values that shape efforts to reform systems affecting young people.

The course centers on a series of conversations with leading advocates, organizers, litigators, and scholars who are engaged in efforts to transform youth-serving systems. Topics vary from year to year, but often include school policing and the school-to-prison pipeline, racial inequities in the juvenile legal system, state constitutional rights to education, reform of the family regulation system, youth-led environmental advocacy, and other pressing issues. Throughout the semester, students use the Approaching System Change framework to analyze these efforts, examining how advocates diagnose problems, develop strategies, build power, and navigate the challenges of pursuing lasting change.

The major assignment is a semester-long project in which students, working individually or in pairs, design their own system change campaign in response to a problem facing young people that they believe demands action. Through a series of short assignments, workshops, and opportunities for peer and instructor feedback, students develop a sophisticated vision for how law and policy can contribute to broader movements for justice. This course offers students eager to think expansively about how lawyers and advocates can help imagine, shape, and sustain transformative social change a welcoming intellectual home. It will not provide a doctrinal survey of the field of children and the law.

Class participation constitutes a portion of the final grade, and we create multiple opportunities to participate that do not necessarily involve speaking in class. Please see the Y-Lab Website for information about related courses. This course is required for all Y-Lab Fellows.

Note: This course is cross-listed with GSE.