A Resistance Framework for Racially Minoritized Youth Behaviors During the Transition to Adulthood

Abstract

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a challenging time marked by rapid changes in relational connections, housing status, and academic or work trajectories. We emphasize how structural inequality shapes racially minoritized youth behaviors and center the potential for resistance, arguing that a resistance lens allows us to deepen our understanding of the transition to adulthood for racially minoritized youth. Throughout the paper, we include research on how racially minoritized youth experience marginalizing institutional structures concurrently across multiple systems and their resulting behaviors. We end with the clinical and research implications of a resistance framework to illuminate resistance-informed responses such as rethinking risk and creating spaces for youth-led self-making, youth–adult partnerships to scaffold transitions, and cultivating youth activism.