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Gina Pol wants society to realize that youth are active, engaged thinkers, not benign sponges that soak up whatever media throws their way.
“I want people to start recognizing that youth are active consumers and that their actions and choices should not always be associated with being ‘vulnerable’ or a ‘need to be protected,’” she said.
To help advance this understanding, Pol has partnered with a faculty member as passionate as she is: Ana Campos-Holland, assistant professor of sociology. The collaboration has since produced one published, co-authored paper (with three others in progress) and joint attendance at two conferences.
“I look for three attributes in potential student researchers: creativity, willingness to do the hard work and motivation,” Campos-Holland said. “Gina has all three.” Together, Pol and Campos-Holland are examining youth and consumerism, an area that nicely bridges Pol’s dual interests in economics and sociology. Having already worked since high school with New York-based Virtual Enterprises International, an in-school, live, global business that teaches children and youth to become financially literate, Pol was drawn to Campos-Holland’s opportunities for research in the field.
Current consumerism literature suggests a couple of theories related to how youth determine their purchasing behavior. One of those theories is at the heart of their joint research—that children look at what society presents and then reinterpret it to meet the needs of their peer culture.
Whether children receive or share information about products through social media or through other media channels, Pol and Campos-Holland, along with the rest of the student-faculty research team, are finding that youth navigate their online worlds in ways that suggest far more discernment on their part. They question. They consider their own peer culture in terms of what they purchase. They also recognize the adult authority within their social networking sites.
“Children are often one of the most silenced populations—they talk, but they aren’t heard,” Campos-Holland said. “This research is helping us create platforms for children to be heard.”
It also has broader implications for how adults can learn to understand children and youth better within society.
“Children are complex and amazing, and our work is helping us understand the sociology of childhood, specifically that there is a link with consumerism and childhood studies, both of which are primarily separate entities of study,” Pol said.
But the research experience has also done something that Pol never expected—transform the relationship between a professor and a student.
“She sees me as a scholar and colleague now,” Pol said. “She accepts my ideas and is open to discussing them. We may disagree, but that is all part of the process. Even at the conferences we have attended together, I am viewed as being an equal contributor with all the other conference participants.”
Because of her research experience, Pol is now considering pursuing a Ph.D. “I never considered doing research when I started at Conn,” Pol said. “That has all changed now.”