3,368 research outputs found

    Young people : leading change

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    Evaluation of GHA’s youth diversionary programme

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    To assist with funding decisions in this area and to build an evidence base, GHA commissioned an evaluation of a selection of its youth diversionary programmes in 2007

    Meeting their potential: the role of education and technology in overcoming disadvantage and disaffection in young people

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    This report is a review of literature, policy and reported practice, exploring the potential of technology to mitigate disaffection and disadvantage in education and raise attainment of those young people who are under-achieving in school or other educational settings

    Too Cool at School - Understanding Cool Teenagers

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    Cool can be thought about on three levels; the having of cool things, the doing of cool stuff and the being of cool. Whilst there is some understanding of cool products, the concept, of being cool is much more elusive to designers and developers of systems. This study examines this space by using a set of pre-prepared teenage personas as probes with a set of teenagers with the aim of better understanding what is, and isn’t cool about teenage behaviours. The study confirmed that teenagers are able to rank personas in order of cool and that the process of using personas can provide valuable insights around the phenomenon of cool. The findings confirm that cool is indeed about having cool things but in terms of behaviours cool can be a little bit, but not too, naughty

    As long as your\u27re resilient you\u27ll succeed: School disaffected adolescents\u27 perspectives on their willingness to engage in high injury-risk graffiti-writing activities

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    A lack of sense of school belonging can be a destabilising aspect in disaffected students’ lives, so much so that they will often seek an alternative sense of belonging outside of the school arena. Gaining out-of-school acceptance within the non-conforming, graffiti subculture is dependent upon proving one’s worth through willing engagement in visual acts of high-risk daring. This exemplar study examines the health-risk injuries sustained by eight adolescent crew leaders within the graffiti subculture. The study’s findings reveal four reoccurring sources of graffiti-related injury (ie. tagging hard-to-reach places, fighting rival crews, graffing under the influence, and eluding Police capture). A second finding emanating out of the study is the perception among teenage crew leaders that they needed to be seen to be resilient, in terms of overcoming their graffiti sustained injuries, if they are to succeed in their desire of maintaining their status both within their crew and broader graffiti youth subculture. Finally, the societal need to establish a non-conforming/delinquent bridging pathway to social inclusion is discussed

    Tranquillity, Guided Visualisation and Personal Discovery for Disengaged ‘Dispirited’ Pupils

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    Swindon Youth Empowerment Project (SYEP) is currently working in six schools in urban disadvantaged areas in Swindon. The project encourages young people with disaffected and challenging behaviour to reflect on their own behaviour, relationships and potential. The particular innovation of SYEP includes guided personal reflection using visualisation, words and music in an ambient environment without distractions (called “the Tranquillity Zone”), followed by focused activities to stimulate personal discovery (called “the Discovery Zone”). The current phase is to train Learning Mentors in schools in the Excellence in Cities initiative in Swindon to run sessions for pupils at risk in their schools, and assess the impact of these programmes. The project team calls these “dispirited pupils” as they have never learnt to reflect on their self-worth and potential. The main education staff involved are two trainers from the Swindon Youth Empowerment Project (SYEP), who are working in partnership with the Excellence in Cities initiative (EiC) to train 9 Learning Mentors. These Learning Mentors organizationally are part of the EiC, and are employed to guide and support challenging pupils (mainly from secondary schools), so that these pupils become more engaged and motivated with their learning and improve their behaviour. The Swindon Youth Empowerment Project team has trained the Learning Mentors in the Tranquillity Zone and Discovery Zone programmes, which are designed to stimulate pupils in a non-authoritarian way to reflect on their attitudes, reactions, relationships and actions, to consider the consequences of these, and devise alternative life strategies. This is described as reflection on and development of their “higher nature” in ways designed to have a positive effect on relationships and self-esteem. The Tranquillity Zone is guided with text and music in an ambient environment and is linked with the Discovery Zone, which inspires young people to move to their higher nature through personal discovery and activities to develop and articulate their understanding and thinking. The project seeks to influence behaviour by addressing the root causes of personal insecurities and open up new possibilities. Within the 18 project elements of personal, moral, social and emotional learning, the organization is non-authoritarian and aims to illuminate staff, pupils and parents with a positive outlook, which helps them to rise above their problems. The project is developing and expanding, and has involved me as researcher as a dynamic part of that developmental process. Feedback from the Excellence in Cities government initiative has been enthusiastic, recognizing it as an innovative new strategy to refocus and re-energize disaffected young people both in primary and secondary schools. The Learning Mentors who operate the project in schools regard it as most effective and have enthusiastic views on their training. Pupils who have been through the project express strong views that it is been personally effective to them and even “turned them round” from failure to success. All concerned have the highest opinion of the effectiveness of this project in terms of increasing the personal confidence of disaffected young people and giving them a sense of direction, agency and aspiration. The relationship between the project team and these young people is crucial to its success, and the process of building capacity through training is beginning. As the project is not funded by mainstream educational funding, it is totally reliant for its survival on marginal funding bids which are currently restricting expansion. For this it needs to follow up the pupils who have benefited from the programme, and their parents – and to create long term evaluation procedures

    "Working with Teenagers within HCI Research: Understanding Teen-Computer Interaction"

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    There has been limited consideration of teenagers (defined as 12-19 year olds in this work) as participants and end-users in Child-Computer Interaction and mainstream HCI communities. Teenagers reside in a fascinating and dynamic space between childhood and adulthood, and working more closely with teenagers within HCI may bring great insights and benefits. This paper provides an overview of teenage development from a psychological perspective, and then reviews existing work considering teenagers within HCI. Teenagers have long been identified as unique and studied within the field of developmental psychology, and the overview we provide in this paper highlights key understandings that should be carefully considered when working with teen participants. The paper concludes by presenting a set of key research questions that need to be explored in order to effectively work with teenagers within the field of HCI and provide a roadmap for future research within the Teen-Computer Interaction area

    Group cooperation, inclusion and disaffected pupils: some responses to informal learning in the music classroom

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    This paper examines some personal and inter-personal issues concerning group-work and informal learning in the music classroom. It analyses data from a recent research project, which adopted and adapted the informal music learning practices of popular musicians, for use in the classroom. The discussion focuses on three aspects of the project. Firstly, it considers the issue of group cooperation, or the ways in which pupils interacted to organise their learning in small groups. This includes various approaches, identified as ‘group learning’, ‘peer-directed learning’ and ‘leadership’. Secondly, the paper addresses the topic of inclusion in relation to how individuals with differing needs and experiences were able to respond to the project, and the extent to which the learning practices allowed differentiation. Thirdly, weaving through the first two strands, the paper examines the inclusion of pupils who had been identified by their teachers as disaffected. This involves considering the roles of imaginative play and personal identity in the music classroom, with relation to both music’s cultural delineations and its sonic properties
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