A review of financial literacy education programs in the United States revealed that the voices of youngsters, particularly urban adolescents enrolled in high school, are lacking in the discussion about financial literacy education. By neglecting the experiences with which these adolescents come to learn financial literacy, educational researchers, teachers, and policymakers are unwittingly limiting their educational outcomes. In this qualitative inquiry, the researcher prepared in-depth interviews and surveys conducted by the researcher to determine how 19 urban students at one high school perceived that financial literacy education could build on their personal literacies and expand their educational outcomes. In addition, the researcher prepared interview questions and provided them to a third-party company which included them in a survey it conducted of adolescents throughout the United States to determine how they perceived financial literacy education could build on their personal literacies and expand their educational outcomes. The overarching finding of this study was that the adolescents’ financial literacy education should focus on their self-identified goals rather than on financial literacy topics prescribed by a financial literacy program. Furthermore, financial literacy education should integrate adolescents’ everyday experiences from outside the classroom into their in-class educational experiences. Recommendations offered for teachers and policymakers, adolescents, and future researchers. Given multiple factors that affect culturally and socially responsive and engaging financial literacy experiences for adolescents, consideration of the appropriateness of recommendations should take place on an individual basis.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In sociological literature and in health policies on adolescent sexual behavior, researchers, educators, and policymakers continue to express their concern with the high number of adolescents engaging in an early sexual debut because of pregnancy risk, high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In particular, much attention is given to the young age of sexual experiences among Black youth compared to those of other races. However, for Black female adolescents, the experiences and dilemmas they face can be more compelling, because the “Black female experience defies a singular definition” (Rozie-Battle 2002, p. 60). This study will fill a gap in previous literature on sexual decisions among Black teens by moving beyond a discussion of only negative decisions. If attachment and social bond theory are taken into consideration, family instability could weaken attachment and lead to riskier sex by weakening controls on undesirable behavior like condom non-use. These same theories would also pose that weakened attachment between family members and adolescent women can create replacement ties and stronger bonds to a sexual partner, which in turn leads to more sex, but not necessarily riskier sex. Utilizing the Young Women’s Project (YWP) at Indiana University, the present study investigates both of these hypotheses.

Rap is an extremely popular form of modern music that is notorious for incorporating themes of guns and violence into the lyrics. Early rap was mainly party or dance music until the mid-80s when structural shifts in social conditions brought feelings of hopelessness and frustration into black inner city communities and youth culture. These feelings now find expression in rap lyrics. This thesis uses rap lyrics as qualitative data to understand the plight of urban black youth. Rap music can be seen as a form of resistance for young African Americans who have historically never had such a medium to express their lived experiences and frustrations with society. The rap performance becomes a stage where the powerless become powerful by using the microphone as a symbolic AK-47 and words as weapons in the form of symbolic hollow point cartridges. This Thesis examines the contemporary African American experience, its reflection in the lyrics of rap music, and its fascination with guns, violence and death. A key theme is while rap lyrics sometimes seem radical and frightening to the mainstream, they often express lines of analysis and understanding that have been widely discussed in conventional sociological literature

Les jeunes, et en particulier ceux qui sont marginalisés, investissent un temps et une énergie considérable dans la construction de leur statut et de leur estime auprès de leurs pairs, ainsi que dans la société plus large. Cette thèse explore les pratiques sociales par lesquelles des jeunes Français noirs, d’origine africaine et antillaise, construisent leur identité ethnique, raciale et genrée, tout en gagnant et négociant leur pouvoir et leur prestige. Examinant la culture populaire noire dans des contextes publics, privés et « virtuels », cette thèse se concentre sur les sociabilités musicales de la scène afro, telles qu’elles émergent dans des boîtes de nuit, des maisons de jeunes, des centres commerciaux, des sites de réseaux sociaux, des maisons et des rues de la région parisienne. Les pratiques sociales et les formes d’interaction de ces jeunes attestent non seulement de leur adaptabilité et leur ingéniosité, mais de leur capacité à se voir du point de vue d’un autre. Cette compétence interpersonnelle sophistiquée est illustrée dans leur habilité à puiser dans, et à alterner entre, une multiplicité des ressources culturelles et de styles comportementaux. C’est au moyen de pratiques sociales telles que le bluff, la frime et le commérage que les jeunes Noirs, tentant de concilier leurs ambitions individuelles avec les contraintes d’une vie relationnelle particulièrement intense, acquièrent et négocient leur statut social. / This dissertation investigates the social practices whereby French young people of African and Caribbean background, both construct distinctive ethnic, racial and gendered identities, and acquire and negotiate power and prestige, in a context of unacknowledged structural racism. These young people often invest considerable time and energy in building status and esteem for themselves, among their peers and in society at large. Examining contemporary Black popular culture in public, private, and “virtual” settings, this dissertation focuses on the musical sociabilities of the afro scene, as they emerge in nightclubs, youth clubs, shopping malls, social media sites, homes and streets in the Paris region. The social practices and patterns of interaction of these young people attest not only to their versatility and ingenuity, but more importantly, to their ability to see themselves from another’s point of view. This refined interpersonal competence is made manifest through their capacity to draw from, and switch between, a multiplicity of cultural resources and behavioral styles. It is by means of social practices such as bluffing, flaunting or gossiping that young Black people, aiming to reconcile their individual ambitions with the constraints of a particularly intense relational life, acquire and negotiate personal standing.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:32:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eliana Batista Ramos.pdf: 1539930 bytes, checksum: b2aa04622fcd52ba9b9e5c8e7d3977d3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-03-12 / Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo / This research intend to make a reflection about the ways of contestation used by Brazilian urban youth during the 1980s, as well as to investigate the relationships between Brazilian rock songs conceived in the period of construction of alternative ways to express themselves politically and socially. The reason of this research was the perception that there is comparative analysis between youths of historical period with different contexts, creating spaces for paradigmatic construction about this category, based on the experiences of subjects who lived the 1960s, at the expense of others. Urban youth of 80s had been under the pressure in the latest years of military rule, they lived a process of political freedom in which censorship still survive for very long and the forms of protest used traditionally returned slowly after being banned for years, losing much of its transformer character. Besides, this decade was configured as a time when globalization and identity questions reached a peak and Brazil faced one of the most serious crisis in its history. Thus, the alternative of contestation had to be transformed to meet the demands of lived time, which prompted the investigation of the relation between these alternatives and some songs from Brazilian rock produced at the time, as responses to the needs created by the subjects. For this, the main sources of this work are Brazilian rock songs of the 80s and testimonies of subjects who lived in those years of their youth. It also sought to aid in bibliographic references and research about the subject and avail of the freedom afforded by the cultural studies that represent the everyday experiences of the subjects to make sense to historical analysis. The forms of contestation used by the urban youth in the 80s were closely linked to cultural events of the period. The music, personified by the Brazilian rock, was the most representative because its popularity among the youth of that decade / Esta dissertação busca fazer uma reflexão sobre as formas de contestação usadas por algumas juventudes urbanas brasileiras durante a década de 1980, assim como investigar as relações existentes entre as canções do rock brasileiro concebido no período com a construção de formas alternativas de se manifestar política e socialmente, provindas destes jovens. O que justificou esta pesquisa foi a percepção de que há análises comparativas entre juventudes de períodos históricos com contextos distintos, criando espaços para construções paradigmáticas acerca desta categoria, baseando-se nas experiências dos sujeitos que vivenciaram os anos 1960, em detrimento de outros. Os jovens urbanos dos anos 80 estiveram sob a pressão dos últimos anos do regime militar; vivenciaram um processo de abertura política, no qual a censura ainda sobreviveria por muito tempo; e as formas de protesto tradicionalmente utilizadas retornavam lentamente, após ficarem banidas por anos, perdendo muito do seu caráter transformador perante estes. Além disso, a referida década se configurou como uma época em que a globalização e as questões identitárias atingiram o seu ápice e o Brasil enfrentou uma das crises econômicas mais sérias de sua história. Desta forma, as alternativas de contestação precisaram-se transformar para atender às demandas do tempo vivido, o que incitou a investigação da relação entre estas e algumas canções do rock brasileiro produzido na época, como respostas às necessidades engendradas pelos sujeitos, conforme as experiências vividas. Para isto, as principais fontes deste trabalho são canções de rock brasileiro da década de 80 e depoimentos de sujeitos que vivenciaram, naqueles anos, parte de sua juventude. Buscou-se também auxílio em referências bibliográficas e pesquisas sobre o tema, além de valer-se da liberdade conferida pelos estudos culturais que relevam as experiências cotidianas dos sujeitos para dar sentido às análises históricas. As formas de contestação usadas pelos jovens urbanos nos anos 80 estiveram intimamente ligadas às manifestações culturais do período. A música, personificada pelo rock brasileiro, fora a de maior representatividade devido a sua popularidade entre os jovens daquela década

The present study utilized the ecological-transactional theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1983; Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993) as a theoretical framework for examining the relationship between Community Violence Exposure (CVE) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among Jamaican inner-city children and adolescents. Social support and spirituality/religiosity were proposed as potential mediating factors. Based on the empirical and theoretical literature, two competing models were designed and tested, a priori. In the primary model, CVE was proposed to directly impact PTSD both directly and indirectly through social support and spirituality/religiosity. The alternate model tested the full meditational effect of social support and spirituality/religiosity on the relationship between CVE and PTSD. It was hypothesized that the primary model would adequately fit the data. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the fit of the two models to the data for the present study. Results indicated a poor fit for both the primary and the alternate model. However, post hoc model modification yielded adequate fit with the removal of social support from the model. Theoretical, research, and practice implications are discussed in relation to these findings, as well as methodological limitations and directions for future research. The study concluded that spirituality/religiosity has the potential to protect Jamaican inner-city children and adolescents from the consequences of CVE / Access permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Adolescence is a time of great changes, a time where experimentation and exploration is expected and when the values of authority figures are examined and challenged. Adolescents will experiment and push the boundaries of all aspects of their life in order to find their own place and identity in a world that has changed its expectations of them. Use of drugs is one of the ways that they do this. Australian adolescents grow up in a society where alcohol and tobacco is an acceptable part of daily life. Their use of drugs is at least on par with and in some cases exceeds that of the general population. The overall goals of this research were to gain more information on drug use of Australian adolescents, using existing data sets. This research examined, using a number of different age groups, the differences in adolescent drug use between urban and rural Australia for lifetime use, use in the last year and use in the last month using the 2002 edition of the Australian School Student Alcohol and Drug (ASSAD) survey series in conjunction with the 2001 National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS). It also used these data sets to investigate differences between indigenous adolescents and non-Indigenous adolescents and whether there were any differences in adolescent drug use across socio-economic status groups. Four hypotheses were developed. The first was that rural adolescents are more likely than urban adolescents to use licit drugs and the second was that urban adolescents are more likely than rural adolescents to use illicit drugs. Thirdly, that Indigenous adolescents are more likely than non-Indigenous adolescents to use both licit and illicit drugs and the fourth was that adolescents from low socio-economic status (SES) groups are more likely than adolescents from high SES groups to use licit and illicit substances. The data offered little support for any of the hypotheses. The hypothesis on rural adolescents being more likely to use licit drugs was supported by the ASSAD surveydata but not the NDSHS. All other hypotheses were not supported by either of the data sets. While there are aspects of the information from the two data sets that are contradictory making it difficult to prove or disprove the hypotheses formulated for this research, they highlighted a number of aspects of adolescent drug use. The first of these is that this research supports the premise that rural adolescent drug use rates are converging with urban drug use rates for younger adolescents. It also highlighted that there are a large number of rural school students who are using alcohol and cannabis. The ASSAD data also confirmed other Australian research showing that Indigenous adolescents are less likely than their non-Indigenous counterparts to use alcohol. Both data sets confirmed previous research by indicating that adolescents from the high SES groups are more likely than their counterparts in the lower SES groups to consume alcohol. Further investigation is needed to find out why the data sets did not substantiate each other and to gain further insight into the consumption of alcohol by Indigenous adolescents and adolescents from the higher socio-economic status groups. Increasing the samples of Indigenous people in both of the data sets and lobbying the Australian Bureau of Statistics to increase their sample for the Indigenous Social Survey to include 12-14 year olds should give more information on Indigenous adolescents that could be used in research and prevention activities.

Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / Bibliography / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This research has used a critical discourse analysis approach encompassing postcolonial theory and theory of media effects in order to investigate the influence of political discourse in the media upon youth’s violence in Cameroon. As a result it has been found that the use of private violence by young people in urban cities has become ordinary. Such an attitude reflects among other some aspects of youth’s lifestyle designed to cope with the hardship of their social status and to resist the elite’s dominance. While no counter-narrative has been found in the independent publications about the portrayal of youth’s violence as criminal by the state-owned press, the young people nevertheless have produced through a street culture a narrative deconstructing the political discourse in the media and highlighting their grievances in a more or less violent tone. Thus the use of private violence during the riot in February 2008, is far from an isolated (re)action of angry young people , it obeys the very practicality of their existence and the political turmoil it might cause is incidental to the way of life in which it is embedded. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die navorsing het ‘n kritiese diskoers analise-benadering gebruik wat ‘n postkoloniale teorie en ‘n teorie van media-effekte insluit om sodoende die invloed van politieke diskoers in die media op jeuggeweld in Kameroen, te ondersoek. Daar is gevolglik gevind dat die gebruik van private geweld deur jongmense in stedelike gebiede normaal geword het. So ‘n houding reflekteer onder andere sommige aspekte van die jeug se leefstyl wat ontwerp is om die ontbering van hul sosiale status te hanteer en ook die elite se dominasie te weerstaan. Ofskoon geen teen-narratief sover gevind is in die onafhanklike publikasies oor die uitbeelding van jeuggeweld as krimineel en die publikasies van die staatsbeheerde pers wat die jeug uitbeeld met min agentskap nie, het jongmense wel ‘n teen-narratief geskep deur ‘n straat-kultuur. Hierdie teen-narratief dekonstruktueer die politieke diskoers in die media en onderstreep hul griewe in ‘n geweldadige toon. Dus die gebruik van private geweld gedurende die onluste in Februarie 2008, wat nie as ‘n geïsoleerde (re)aksie van woedende jongmense gesien kan word nie, is getrou aan die wese van hulle bestaan en die politieke onrus wat dit moontlik mag veroorsaak, is bykomstig tot die leefstyl waarin dit vasgelê is.”

A presente dissertação de mestrado tem como objetivo pesquisar em que medida o rap, música característica do movimento hip-hop, é capaz de possibilitar o processo de letramento de jovens provenientes das classes menos favorecidas, que habitam na periferia de São Paulo, enriquecendo suas experiências linguísticas e subjetivas. A dissertação é o resultado de uma pesquisa-ação realizada na ONG Casa do Zezinho, localizada na região do Capão Redondo, extremo sul da cidade de São Paulo, com jovens entre 13 e 15 anos, regularmente matriculados em escolas públicas do entorno. O trabalho empírico desenvolvido, por meio de oficinas, privilegiou a interdiscursividade do rap para discutir as desigualdades sociais e raciais, às quais está submetida uma importante parcela da população, a fim de analisar a construção da identidade dos jovens urbanos, aproximando a cultura de sua comunidade das intervenções propostas como situações de ensino. Buscou-se, ainda, oferecer por meio do rap e toda sua oralidade formular, situações significativas de letramento para que o funcionamento social da linguagem e os conteúdos relacionados à língua pudessem ser compreendidos em suas dimensões discursivas. Tomando como base as letras de rap e a escuta da imagem sonora da palavra, entendemos que a linguagem adotada pelo rap também possibilitou a reinterpretação das experiências vividas na comunidade, ao dar novos significados ao imaginário do adolescente, conferindo à palavra a força da experiência vivida, individual e coletivamente. / This dissertation aims to investigate the extent to which rap, the characteristic music of the hip-hop movement, is able to facilitate the process of literacy in young people who inhabit the low-income periphery neighborhoods of São Paulo, enriching their linguistic and subjective experiences. The dissertation is a result of research conducted at Casa Zezinho, an NGO located in the Capon Redondo region, in the extreme southern area of the city, with young people between the ages of 13 and 15, enrolled in public schools in its surrounding areas. Through workshops, the empirical work focused on the interdiscursivity of rap to discuss social and racial inequality, to which a significant portion of this population is subjected, in order to analyze the nature in which urban youth construct their identities, using the culture of their communities in the aforementioned workshops as teaching tools. We also attempted to offer, through rap and its utterly oral nature, significant focus on literacy so that the social function of language and the content relating to language could be understood in their discursive dimensions. Using rap lyrics as our basis and listening to the sound image of the words, we understood that the language adopted by rap also allows for a redefinition of the experiences of the community by giving adolescents the chance to imagine the world in a new way, giving the word the force of individually and collectively lived experiences.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Bexley Hall, Crozer Theological Seminary, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-85).