Toward More Equitable Outcomes: A Research Synthesis on Out-of-School Time Work with Boys and Young Men of Color

This article contributes to a growing conversation by identifying trends in an expanding body of research on practices used to support BYMOC. As the field moves toward clearer recognition of what constitutes "effective" practice, afterschool professionals are playing an important role in empowering and organizing BYMOC to achieve more equitable educational, economic, health, and life outcomes

Motivation to Persevere Among Nontraditional Black Online College Students

There is limited research on grit among nontraditional online adult learners, especially focusing on male and female Black college students who are adult online learners, including those who are older than 40. The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental study was to examine possible between-group differences in motivation to persevere, as defined by grit, among nontraditional-age Black online college students. The theoretical framework for this study was life-span development theory and the grit motivational factor model. A sample of 138 Black male and female online, nontraditional-age college students completed an online survey. Demographic information was collected, and scores from the Short Grit-S Survey operationalized perseverance needed to accomplish long-term goals in the face of challenges and obstacles. A 2 by 2 factorial ANOVA analysis was used to test the research hypotheses. The results of the study indicated that male and younger students scored significantly higher than the comparison groups on the Grit-S Scale, but there was no significant interaction. Though these results are not consistent with observed gender differences in retention among Black college students, they suggest that other factors play more influential roles among online learners. These findings may inform positive social change for colleges and universities regarding needs for individualized support of their Black online students, including those related to motivational differences between male and female students and between traditional- and nontraditional-age cohorts

We didn\u27t have courage : Internalizing Racism and the Limits of Participatory Action Research

This article follows a group of Latino/a English language learners conducting Participatory Action Research in a segregated school. I examine how students’ perspectives on civic engagement shifted after they joined an after‐school initiative that brought them together with students from a private Jewish day school located directly across the street. Even as students formed new perspectives on civic engagement throughout the year, internalized racism framed how they understood their capacity for civic action

Putting Youth on the Map: A Pilot Instrument for Assessing Youth Well-Being

Extant measures of adolescent well-being in the United States typically focus on negative indicators of youth outcomes. Indices comprised of such measures paint bleak views of youth and orient action toward the prevention of problems over the promotion of protective factors. Their tendency to focus analyses at a state or county geographic scale produces limited information about localized outcome patterns that could inform policymakers, practitioners and advocacy networks. We discuss the construction of a new geo-referenced index of youth well-being based on positive indicators of youth development. In demonstrating the index for the greater Sacramento, California region of the United States, we find that overall youth well-being falls far short of an optimal outcome, and geographic disparities in well-being appear to exist across school districts at all levels of our analysis. Despite its limitations, the sub-county geographic scale of this index provides needed data to facilitate local and regional interventions

The Youngest Victims: Children and Youth Affected by War

In 1989, the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child declared, “[state parties] shall take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict.” In addition to attempting to secure the welfare of children in armed conflict, the Convention went on to ban the recruitment and deployment of children during armed conflict. Despite the vast majority of sovereign nations signing and ratifying this agreement, this treaty, unfortunately, has not prevented children and youth from witnessing, becoming victims of, or participating in political, ethnic, religious, and cultural violence across the past three decades. This chapter offers an “ecological perspective” on the psychosocial consequences of exposure to the trauma of war-related violence and social disruption

Youth–adult partnership: exploring contributions to empowerment, agency and community connections in Malaysian youth programs

Youth–adult partnership (Y–AP) has emerged as a key practice for enacting two features of effective developmental settings: supportive adult relationships and support for efficacy and mattering. Previous studies have shown that when youth, supported by adults, actively participate in organizational and community decision-making they are likely to show greater confidence and agency, empowerment and critical consciousness, and community connections. Most of the extant research on Y–AP is limited to qualitative studies and the identification of organizational best practices. Almost all research focuses on Western sociocultural settings. To address these gaps, 299 youth, age 15 to 24, were sampled from established afterschool and community programs in Malaysia to explore the contribution of Y–AP (operationalized as having two components: youth voice in decision-making and supportive adult relationships) to empowerment, agency and community connections. As hypothesized, hierarchical regressions indicated that program quality (Y–AP, safe environment and program engagement) contributed to agency, empowerment and community connections beyond the contribution of family, school and religion. Additionally, the Y–AP measures contributed substantially more variance than the other measures of program quality on each outcome. Interaction effects indicated differences by age for empowerment and agency but not for community connections. The primary findings in this inquiry replicate those found in previous interview and observational-oriented studies. The data suggests fertile ground for future research while demonstrating that Y–AP may be an effective practice for positive youth development outside of Western settings

International Perspectives on Youth Leadership Development Through Community Organizing

This chapter details the ways youth community organizing strategies can inform leadership educators’ approaches to engaging marginalized youth in leadership development for social change