This doctoral research studied the North Rupununi Wildlife Clubs (NRWC), an Environmental Education (EE) Program for Makushi Amerindian youth in Guyana. The Club format for EE has become popular, and previous research on EE Club programs provide modest support for the hypothesis that EE Club membership increases pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour in children and youth. There is also increasing interest in the role EE Clubs can play in nurturing Positive Youth Development (PYD). This multi-site case study describes EE Clubs in three villages in the North Rupununi of Guyana. Data was collected from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with stakeholders (such as former Club members, volunteers with the Clubs, Elders, and village leaders). The researcher also kept a reflective journal. Findings suggest community members valued the positive impact they perceived participation in NRWC to have on youth and upon their community. Participants offered recommendations on how to improve the program. One of the original findings is that the Clubs may be a way to help reconnect indigenous youth with their elders and restore the transmission of Indigenous Knowledge. These findings contribute to our understanding of EE Clubs and their impact on pro-environmental behaviour, PYD, and communities. This may be relevant to other indigenous communities in isolated rural areas with EE Clubs, and to the field of EE in general.

In contrast with mainstream Canadian youth, First Nations youth experience many health disparities. Researchers recommended that interventions designed to promote First Nations youth development use a strengths-based lens that recognizes contextual challenges. Furthermore, leadership programming for First Nations youth has begun to show promising outcomes. The overall purpose of this research was to examine the Youth Leadership Program (YLP) program to gain an understanding of program implementation and perceived outcomes related to both individual and community development. Two studies were conducted to fulfil the research purpose. The first study applied a qualitative approach that examined contextual dynamics, implementation issues (Article 1) and perceived impacts (Article 2). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Overall, 12 program staff (5 females), one Elder (male) and 10 youth (8 females) participated in semi-structured interviews. In addition, 11 youth (7 females) participated in two focus groups. The data from the youth and staff were included in the first study. The focus group data was included in the second study. In Article 1, findings were categorized into strategies for success and challenges. The following six themes were identified within the strategies for success: (a) designing youth engagement strategies, (b) being creative and adaptable, (c) being a positive presence, (d) applying experiential learning techniques, (e) balancing the integration of culture with youth voice and (f) identifying partnerships and developing relationships with the community. The three themes relating to challenges were (a) community diversity, (b) social issues and (c) staff burn-out. In Article 2, data analysis resulted in three themes that describe the perceived program effects at the participant, staff and community levels. The three major themes include: a) progressive leadership development, b) enhanced relationships and c) increased community participation. Within the second study (Article 3), methods were based on youth participatory evaluation and Photovoice and the design included capacity building, stakeholder analysis, photo exploration and utilization-focused activities. Using a thematic analysis, five themes were identified: (a) fun and fulfilling to engage the children, (b) positive outcomes for youth leaders, (c) community impacts, (d) challenges and (e) opportunities for improvement. Findings for each study are discussed in relation to current theory and practice, and recommendations are provided for future research and programming. This research makes contributions to applied positive youth development programming, community-based research with First Nations youth, youth-led participatory research and developmental systems theory.

The purpose of this Master’s thesis was to examine emerging adults’ perceptions and experiences of contribution. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with fifteen emerging adults (n= 10 female, n= 5 male) between the ages of 18 to 24 (M= 22.8, SD= 1.61). Participants were recruited through purposive (n= 7) and snowball (n= 8) sampling, where key informants (e.g., program directors, managers) from well-established community organizations helped in the referral of eligible participants. The findings revealed six major themes: (a) contribution is multifaceted, (b) multiple motivations for contributing, (c) social agents play a critical role, (d) early exposure is an important factor, (e) sport can play a key role in becoming a contributing citizen, and (f) contribution fosters the development of assets. Overall, the results from this Master’s thesis illustrate various factors that play a role in youth becoming contributing citizens as an emerging adult. Furthermore, the findings can enhance both research and applied work within the field of positive youth development, particularly related to the 5 C’s model proposed by Lerner. Keywords: positive youth development, contribution, community, motivation, social agents, sport, developmental assets

Public libraries have begun to realize that they must try to develop the youth department, youth participation, and event planning in order to create an attractive meeting place youths can see as a resource in their lives. Librarians have also begun to realize that the youth department needs more space than it had before and preferably to not integrate youths with children, because youths would like to be seen as individuals and developing adults. Libraries also realize that they need to ask the youth what they want and need out of their library experience to make youth libraries a competing force and an advocate for youth development.The purpose of this paper was to investigate how youth librarians work with young individuals to make them involved in the library. The study is based on the theory of Positive Youth Development (PYD), which is centered on the need for young people to build relationships, feel involved, and feel needed to develop into well-rounded, healthy, and active individuals of society. The theory is based on previous research in various areas of youth development, compiled in order to build a clear and unified theory. For the gathering of empirical material, a qualitative method was used in which interviews were conducted with eight librarians in five libraries across Sweden.The results showed that youth librarians want to work with youths to improve their libraries and to be a resource for young library users. Most youth librarians are passionate about their jobs and wish to include youths in the planning and performing of library activities, as well as listen to their requests in issues about the library facilities, and they want to build a genuine connection with the youths both inside and outside of the libraries, as well as on social media platforms. However, youth librarians face difficulties in making these requests into reality; having to work against issues as the opinions of youths as problems shared by the adult public and other librarians, as well as working with a group as diverse as youths.

During adolescence many youth spend increasing amounts of time gaining new knowledge and skills outside of their home in environments such as structured afterschool activities. In these settings, youth have meaningful opportunities to explore new interests, develop varied competencies, and seek social support from peers and adults. As youth get older rates of participation in structured activities decline. Given the role that structured activities can play in nurturing positive youth development, gaining a better understanding of how peers may affect youth's choice to participate in structured activities is important. This study used logistic regression to examine the role of peer influence and how the perceptions of close friends (direct peer influence) and other peers (social norms) impact a youth's decision to participate in structured activities as well as use alcohol and marijuana. Additionally, the association between youth participation in structured activities and reported use of alcohol and marijuana was examined. Study results indicated that youth who reported engaging in specific types of structured activities, specifically performing arts and volunteering, reported lower rates of alcohol and marijuana use respectively. Direct peer influence was an important factor in substance use whereby for each additional best friend a youth had that participated in school activities, students were less likely to have used alcohol or marijuana. Findings are interpreted using an ecological systems perspective and demonstrate that gaining a better understanding of the influence that direct peers and social norms exert on youth behavior has important implications for promoting the positive development of youth.

Convergence among treatment, prevention, and developmental intervention approaches has led to the recognition of the need for evaluation models and research designs that employ a full range of evaluation information to provide an empirical basis for enhancing the efficiency, efficacy, and effectiveness of prevention and positive development interventions. This study reports an investigation of a positive youth development program using an Outcome Mediation Cascade (OMC) evaluation model, an integrated model for evaluating the empirical intersection between intervention and developmental processes. The Changing Lives Program (CLP) is a community supported positive youth development intervention implemented in a practice setting as a selective/indicated program for multi-ethnic, multi-problem at risk youth in urban alternative high schools. This study used a Relational Data Analysis integration of quantitative and qualitative data analysis strategies, including the use of both fixed and free response measures and a structural equation modeling approach, to construct and evaluate the hypothesized OMC model. Findings indicated that the hypothesized model fit the data (χ2 (7) = 6.991, p = .43; RMSEA = .00; CFI = 1.00; WRMR = .459). Findings also provided preliminary evidence consistent with the hypothesis that in addition to having effects on targeted positive outcomes, PYD interventions are likely to have progressive cascading effects on untargeted problem outcomes that operate through effects on positive outcomes. Furthermore, the general pattern of findings suggested the need to use methods capable of capturing both quantitative and qualitative change in order to increase the likelihood of identifying more complete theory informed empirically supported models of developmental intervention change processes.

Magister Artium (Sport, Recreation and Exercise Science) - MA(SRES) / Football around the globe has been used as a vehicle for youth development initiatives. Youth development programmes foster social change in communities and provide an ideal development context that often results in active sport participation. In South Africa, there are a number of youth development programmes that not only use football, but also other sporting codes to implement and create sustainable youth development programmes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore best practices in youth development programmes of selected football academies in the Western Cape

This is a year-long ethnographic study of high-school student activists in the New England area that examines youth perceptions of climate change and climate change activism. Our society often devalues the opinions and experiences of young people because of the intersecting marginalized identities they inhabit, including age, race, and gender. Thus, discussions on how climate activism affects youth tend to lack the perspective of the young people themselves. Through a combination of participant-observation and semi-structured interviews, I sought to answer the following research questions: 1) How do young activists in the New England area understand climate change? 2) How does participating in a youth-centered climate justice organization impact their overall sense of well-being? About half-way through the planning of this research study, the coronavirus pandemic swept the world, which added another layer to this research study: 3) How does the COVID-19 pandemic impact youth perceptions and experiences of climate change activism? In this thesis, I argue that young people in this climate organization, through their shared experiences of cultivating social capital, expanding critical consciousness, and adaptive redefining of social relationships, develop a strong and sustained sense of community that motivates them to continue their activism. In a society that undervalues young people, these youth actively reclaim agency and use this to challenge the structures that continue to perpetuate environmental injustice. This in turn provides these young people with a heightened sense of well-being in the face of multiple existential threats that threaten their current and future existence, namely racial injustice, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the potential destruction of their planet. / 2022-11-23T00:00:00Z

Despite the growing number of organizations that classify themselves as youth development organizations in the country, we know very little about them, particularly as hosts of positive youth development (PYD) programming (Roholt, Baizerman, Rana & Korum, 2013). Absent from the literature is an understanding of how youth development organizations are responding to environmental shifts that have occurred over the past 20 years as the PYD movement has gained ground and legitimacy. Out of this movement has emerged an asset-based framework for working with young people. This framework is starkly different from the traditional view of youth, which historically has treated this age group as deficient and as passive recipients of services. PYD, on the other hand, sees youth as active contributors to society. PYD’s focus is on helping youth gain the skills and competencies necessary to transition successfully into adulthood. This study explored how PYD is influencing the work of community based youth development organizations. In addition, this study looked at how institutional pressures are influencing the way organizations are responding to PYD. The following research questions grounded the study: 1) How is PYD influencing community-based youth development organizations? 2) Are community-based youth development organizations responding similarly to the PYD logic? 3) How are isomorphic pressures influencing the adoption of PYD in community-based youth development organizations? 4) What is the relationship between the isomorphic pressures organizations face and the degree to which PYD strategies are implemented in daily practice? This study used a qualitative multiple case study method to examine three community-based youth organizations in a northeastern city of the United States. This study yielded three main findings: 1) PYD is influencing the work of community-based youth organizations; 2) implementation of PYD varies across organizations; and 3) institutional pressures explain some, but not entirely how PYD is being adopted in community-based youth development organizations. The findings from this study provide important insights on how PYD is influencing community-based organizations by describing how organizations are translating PYD into practice and how this relates to institutional pressures faced by these organizations.

Thesis advisor: Jacqueline V. Lerner / Young people identifying as Black, Latino/a/x, Hispanic, Asian, and other races and ethnicities that are minoritized and marginalized have constrained opportunities for positive development in the United States due to oppression grounded in white supremacy (NASEM, 2019). Importantly, youth of color engage in critical consciousness: interrogating and dismantling systems of oppression (Freire, 1970/2016). My aim was to illuminate the variation within youth of color in their development of critical consciousness, and to consider the implications for their overall development as viewed from a positive youth development perspective (Lerner et al., 2015). Associations between patterns of critical consciousness development and two variables measuring youths’ perceptions of their school context were examined. Using latent profile transition analysis, I explored variation among a sample of youth of color (n = 335) in cognitive, socioemotional, and behavioral processes of critical consciousness (Diemer et al., 2016; Watts et al., 2011) over a short longitudinal period. The mean age was fourteen at time 1 (which took place in 2016) and fifteen at time 2. Group-differential patterns in critical consciousness development were related to contribution—supporting the development of self and giving back to community; engagement in risk and problem behaviors; and emotional problems. Associations between patterns of critical consciousness development and (1) classroom discussions about social justice and (2) open classroom climate were estimated. Multiple patterns of engagement with critical consciousness were identified. Some youth shifted in their patterns of critical consciousness over time. Many participants reported a pattern of low engagement in multiple components of critical consciousness across both time points; higher classroom discussions about social justice were associated with a lower likelihood of youth following this pattern. These youth concurrently reported low contribution. Young people who sustained high levels across all dimensions of critical consciousness had high levels of emotional problems and risk and problem behaviors. Findings indicate broad involvement in critical consciousness can be associated with negative outcomes. Nevertheless, young people who were participating less in critical consciousness may struggle to promote positive development within themselves and their contexts through contribution. Implications for supporting the thriving of youth of color are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.