Youth require opportunities to master and demonstrate new skills, make independent choices, and form positive social relationships to encourage positive youth development. Camps provide a unique setting that fosters the development of new sources of social capital and social support. Current literature examining positive youth development in camps has been able to identify some demographic differences in camper experiences at camp, but has not yielded statistically significant relationships and no consensus as to the explanations for those relationships. Using a longitudinal dataset gathered in a camp setting, this study examined the relationships between gender and age and personal development. Social capital and social support were found to have significant roles as mediating variables in the development of personal development at camp. This study enhances the understanding of the benefits to children from attending camp, and why females and older children may benefit the most from these experiences.

Resilience is a systemic process between a person and his/her environment (Ungar, 2005), whereby a person demonstrates a pattern of “good outcome despite serious threats to adaptation or development” (Masten, 2001, p. 28). Despite much research, the resilience research field lacks consensus on specific definitions of resilience factors (Ungar et al., 2005). Therefore, it is recommended that research prioritize specific resilience variables (Luthar & Zelazo, 2003) while attending to contextual and systemic factors (Ungar, 2005). The study took place in a community center in a low SES, predominantly African-American neighborhood in the Midwest. Neighborhood residents worked with research team members to co-construct a local definition of youth resilience through focus groups. Children meeting this definition were nominated by staff and participated in interviews about resilience factors. Children, parents, and staff also completed rating scales measuring resilient youth’s academic, behavioral, social, and emotional functioning. Qualitative examinations of data resulted in an ecosystemic model of resilient youth in the community. Resilience was found to be influenced by interactions between individual, familial, and community factors. Individual perseverance and adult involvement and awareness, as well as community cohesion were important protective factors identified by participants. Results of the study were shared with community center staff with plans to utilize them at the center to help promote positive youth functioning. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

This study is in two parts, separate and distinctive, yet interconnected. It is concerned with black young people, bom in Croydon, whose parents and grandparents were born in the Caribbean or who were socialised as Caribbeans. It seeks to generate a theory of how being black and bom in Britain creates intergenerational tensions which transcend those of "normal" adolescent relationships and how this affects their membership of 'main-stream' society. Part A, is an Institution Focused Study which examines the efficacy of the grounded theory approach as a suitable methodology for an ethnographic study of British-born black young people, necessitating in-depth interviewing both of the young people themselves and adults of their parents' and grandparents' generations. The Institution Focused Study explains the background to the research including the interest of the researcher in this topic. It charts the conditions which black young people face in a white-dominated and inherently racist society and highlights the paucity of research on this issue. It examines the grounded theory approach, suggesting that its suitability arises from its similarity to the youth work practitioner's style of operation and devises an appropriate research design to ensure that sufficient subjects are recruited and interviewed to provide information-rich data to be collected and analysed. It concludes that this method, when applied with scientific rigour, will produce sufficient data to enable both substantive theories and a more formal theory of British-born black young people to be generated. Part B constitutes the main study. After a brief introduction a discussion on Adolescence is provided to contextualise the study in view of the varying and rapid changes occurring in this period of human development. The study returns to the question of the research design and considers how information-rich data is to be gathered, and how subjects will be recruited and interviewed for which It provides an interviewer prompt sheet. An analysis of the data is then offered, grouped into the categories which have emerged and been developed as the study unfurled. Discussion then centres around the subjects 'own stories' together with other theories and research. The findings are summarised leading to a number of substantive theories which then are synthesised into a formal theory of British-born black young people. This suggests that they suffer a sense of cultural anomie denying them a necessary, new and distinctive identity as emerging black British citizens. The study raises the implications of this for the future work of the Croydon Youth Development Trust before offering a foot-note on methodology; a reflection on the grounded theory approach and its suitability to this type of ethnographic research.

plan A / Pacific Islands Studies

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 259-269).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-114).

Research has shown that adolescent students' sense of connection to adults and peers and sense of belonging to school are important for academic achievement, social-emotional growth and well-being, and overall success at school. One key mechanism schools have implemented to foster such relationship building is advisory. Much of the advisory research has focused on advisory programming and best practices. While some scholarship has found advisory programs to improve students' sense of connectedness to their advisor and peers and to increase students sense of belongingness to their school, the advisory literature also indicates that a number of schools and educators have experienced challenges to making advisory work for them and their students. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to explore how and to what extent enhanced advisory fosters ninth grade students' development, as characterized by the Five Cs of positive youth development. The sample was comprised of 55 ninth grade students participating in enhanced advisory (EA), seven EA advisors, and a previous cohort of 96 ninth grade students who participated in traditional advisory (TA). Pre-post surveys were used to measure the development of students in EA over the course of one academic year and end-of-year surveys were used to compare the positive development of students in EA to that of a previous cohort of ninth grade students in TA. Interviews with EA students and advisors were used to investigate and illuminate the quantitative data on students' sense of connectedness to each other, their advisory groups, and their advisors. Major findings revealed that enhanced advisory (EA) students' end-of-year mean scores on 12 of 16 positive development measures surpassed those of students in traditional advisory (TA), indicating that enhanced advisory played a role in fostering students' positive development. Qualitative data revealed that almost all interviewed students built a positive relationship with their advisors and benefitted academically, socially, and psychologically from that relationship. Many--but not all-- students also described the role of advisory in strengthening their connections to peers and sense of belonging to their advisory group.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Bradley Burenheide / This study addressed an existing gap in research on after-school programs, a lack of qualitative research. It consisted of a case study, conducted through a phenomenological theoretical framework, aimed to explore the experiences of four youth enrolled in a privately-funded, faith-based after-school program in an urban Midwest community. Unlike most after-school programs, the program studied provides services to youth that run continuously from sixth grade through high school graduation. Research was conducted primarily through observation at both the youth’s public school affiliated with the program and at program events outside of school, as well as both group and individual interviews. The Hirsch, Deutsch, & DuBois (2011) conceptual framework of the role of comprehensive after-school programs on youth, the Rhodes (2005) Model of Youth Mentoring, and the philosophy of positive youth development were key to this study.

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of family worldview and cultural socialization on indicators of positive youth development in American Indian youth. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to determine whether cultural socialization moderated the relationship between family worldview and indicators of positive development in American Indian youth as measured by ethnic identity, pro-social activity, positive family relationships, hope, self-regulation, and future orientation. Individual and family differences were also examined. Participants included a community sample of 311 American Indian children and youth from 174 American Indian families from three tribes in the Pacific Northwest. Results demonstrated that the amount of variance between families for each of the positive youth outcomes was significant enough to warrant hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Family worldview was not significantly related to any of the positive youth outcomes and when entered into the HLM models did not significantly explain any variation in mean scores between families. The relationship between cultural socialization and ethnic identity was significant and positive and when entered into the HLM models significantly explained 10% of the variation in mean scores between families. There was a significant difference between the ethnic identity scores of males and females, with females having a higher mean than males. Positive family relationship scores were negatively correlated with age. Older youth tended to report less positive family relationships than their younger counterparts. Implications for research and practice are discussed.