First Nations youth redefine resilience: listening to artistic productions of ‘Thug Life’ and hip-hop

In recent decades, resilience research has striven to atone for the Eurocentric nature of research conducted with Canada's Aboriginal populations. It has been cautioned, however, that if resilience research fails to account for Aboriginal population's diversity, it risks culturalized images and pan-Aboriginalism. Definitions of resilience should be framed within community-specific models, recognizing dynamic subjects interacting in multiple social worlds. In partnership with six Saskatchewan First Nations communities, our work seeks to understand what resilience means to youth who live on-reserve. We draw on findings from two community-based projects developed with the Battleford Agency Tribal Chiefs First Nations. These projects used arts-based and mixed-methods to identify community strengths and barriers surrounding youth resilience. Although study findings show the influence of family, programming, and culture, our model is emended to show the importance of youth's own definitions of resilience, even when these may appear antithetical to conventional norms. Drawing on the youth's artistic pieces, evolving themes focus on hip-hop culture and Thug Life; showing youth creating a place to belong when they are experiencing a lack of belonging. Within the framework of listening to youth-driven resilience, we put forward an alternative model of reaching youth using positive elements of Thug Life and hip-hop.     

Conditional Families and Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,Transgender, and Queer Youth Homelessness: Gender,Sexuality, Family Instability,and Rejection

Existing research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth homelessness identifies family rejection as a main pathway into homelessness for the youth. This finding, however, can depict people of color or poor people as more prejudiced than White, middle‐class families. In this 18‐month ethnographic study, the author complicates this rejection paradigm through documenting the narratives of 40 LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. The author examines how poverty and family instability shaped the conditions that the youth perceived as their being rejected because of their gender and sexuality. This rejection generated strained familial ties within families wherein the ties were already fragile. Likewise, the author shows how being gender expansive marked many youth's experiences of familial abuse and strain. This study proposes the concept of conditional families to capture the social processes of how poverty and family instability shape experiences of gender, sexuality, and rejection for some LGBTQ youth.     

Positive Development in a Disorderly World

Adolescents need to develop competencies to navigate an adult world that is complex and disorderly: a world of heterogeneous macro‐ to microecological systems containing contradictions and catch‐22s. This exploratory essay examines adolescents' conscious processes of developing pertinent competencies for pursuing goals (agency) in these kinds of “real‐world” settings. It draws on qualitative longitudinal research on youth's experiences working on arts and community projects in which they encounter the irregular dynamics of complex human systems. I describe how youth develop “strategic thinking”: executive skills for formulating strategies based on forecasting dynamics in navigating these systems. I also describe how youth learn to manage emotions (in self and others) that arise in these real‐world transactions and how they develop motivation that sustains their work toward goals. Even as we learn more about the biological hardware of development, I argue that we must study youth's conscious, proactive processes in developing their own “software” to navigate complex and disorderly human worlds.     

Paving Pathways Through the Pain: A Grounded Theory of Resilience Among Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,Trans, and Queer Youth

This grounded theory study utilized interviews with 16 service providers and 19 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) youth to develop a substantive theory of resilience processes among LGBTQ youth. The core category, paving pathways through the pain, suggests that LGBTQ youth build on emotional pain inflicted by external adversities to carve out pathways to resilience. Youth employed the following resilience processes: (1) navigating safety across contexts, (2) asserting personal agency, (3) seeking and cultivating meaningful relationships, (4) un‐silencing marginalized identities, and (5) engaging in collective healing and action. Youth focused on particularly painful adversities and engaged intentionally in one or more of the resilience processes related to the origins of their pain.     

“It Gets Better” … but How? Exploring Resilience Development in the Accounts of LGBTQ Adults

As reports of bullying and suicide increase, research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth must expand its focus from vulnerabilities to resilience development. The purpose of this inductive qualitative study was to explore resilience development in the accounts of LGBTQ adults by analyzing videos posted for the It Gets Better social media campaign (n = 21). Four major themes emerged: (1) leaving hostile social environments; (2) experiencing “coming out” in meaningful ways; (3) remembering the social environment; and (4) turning challenges into opportunities and strengths. These findings suggest that, despite the campaign's premise, life did not automatically get better for the LGBTQ participants. Rather, the findings offer a nuanced look at the pathways to resilience development. Implications for social work practice are discussed.     

Sexual Risk‐Taking Among Recently Emancipated Female Foster Youth: Sexual Trauma and Failed Family Reunification Experiences

Foster youth evidence shows elevated rates of risk behaviors, including sexual risk‐taking (e.g., unprotected sex). Some studies have identified child maltreatment, particularly sexual abuse, as a risk for later sexual risk‐taking, but none have examined how child welfare placement experiences relate to youth's sexual risk‐taking. This study investigated relations among child maltreatment, child welfare placements, and sexual risk‐taking among 114 recently emancipated female foster youth. Sexual abuse and failed reunifications with parents were associated with greater sexual risk‐taking. Moreover, dissociative symptoms exacerbated the relation between sexual abuse and sexual risk‐taking. These findings highlight the need for greater consideration of risks associated with emancipated youth's sexual risk‐taking and for more research to understand how youth experience unsuccessful family reunifications.     

Youth Civic Engagement in the Twenty‐First Century

We enter the 21st century contending with the end of the Cold War's legacy of political uncertainty, expecting youth to play a significant part in the search for new principles that will bring about stability in the world political order. In forging the future, youth will have to collaborate with adults, but on terms more fitting of the historical circumstances that lie ahead than those of the past. This was the framework adopted by a group of social scientists who held several discussions to reflect on the issues and opportunities that bear on youth's civic engagement and development in the century that has just opened. The present article describes the results of those conversations, starting with the issue of defining civic competence, and the finding that an expansive definition is needed to match the real‐world circumstances that affect its development for youth internationally. Specific conditions, such as globalization, information – communication technology, and immigration, are emphasized as forces that affect youth and need to be taken into account by educators and policy makers. In this regard, responsibilities of schools, government, the commercial sector, and community organizations are outlined. Each is viewed as a potential constructive force for promoting engagement insofar as youth's strengths are recognized and focus is placed on building on youth's proven capacities. As always, it is youth’s task to make history in the future and society's obligation to provide youth with sufficient resources and an honest basis for hope in carrying out this task. The authors' policy recommendations are founded on this reciprocal relation that binds the youth generation with its elders in the common task of preserving, while transforming, society for the good of humanity.     

Understanding Why Religious Involvement's Relationship With Education Varies by Social Class

Religiosity's impact on adolescent educational outcomes has been widely documented in the sociology of religion literature. Building upon King's conceptual framework of ideological, social, and transcendent resources that are made available to youth through religious participation, we use qualitative and quantitative data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) to explore how the associations between religious involvement and educational outcomes may vary among lower and higher socioeconomic status youth. Our findings indicate significant positive effects of transcendent and ideological resources on educational outcomes, especially among youth from disadvantaged backgrounds, but limited influence of social resources through youth's religious participation.     

Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,Transgender, Queer,and Questioning Youths' Perspectives of Inclusive School-Based Sexuality Education

Sexuality education is perceived as one way to prevent unhealthy sexual behaviors. However, current sexuality education materials are not tailored to fit the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) youth, and many have been critiqued for disenfranchising these populations. This study solicited the perspectives of LGBTQ youth on their experiences with school-based sexuality education in order to create a framework of LGBTQ-inclusive sexuality education. Five semistructured focus groups (N = 30 LGBTQ participants) were conducted to investigate the sexuality education experiences of LGBTQ youth and to solicit youth suggestions for improving the inclusiveness of sexuality education curricula. Results indicate that LGBTQ youth perceive current sexuality education as primarily “exclusive,” although examples of “inclusive” sexuality education were provided. In addition, participants provided suggestions for creating a more inclusive experience, such as directly discussing LGBTQ issues, emphasizing sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention over pregnancy prevention, and addressing healthy relationships. Educators and policymakers can use these ideas to help improve the quality of sexuality education—not only to make it more inclusive for LGBTQ youth but to make sexuality education more inclusive for all young people.     

The Art of Restraint: How Experienced Program Leaders Use Their Authority to Support Youth Agency

The staff of youth development programs perform a delicate balancing act between supporting youth agency and exercising necessary authority. To understand this balancing in daily practice, we interviewed 25 experienced (M = 14 years) leaders of arts, leadership, and technology programs for high‐school‐aged youth. We obtained accounts of when, how, and why they gave advice, set limits, and “supported youth when disagreeing.” Qualitative analysis found surprising similarities across leaders. They used authority to give advice and set limits, but did so with reasoned restraint. Maximizing youth's opportunities to learn from experience was central in their decision making. They described employing authority in intentional ways aimed at helping youth's work succeed, strengthening youth's agency, and building skills for agency (e.g., critical thinking, “clarifying intent”).     

Parents' perceptions of juvenile probation: Relationship and interaction with juvenile probation officers,parent strategies,and youth's compliance on probation

In the past several years, there has been a growing movement toward family-driven initiatives in many child-serving agencies, including the juvenile justice system. These initiatives underscore the importance of parental involvement in successful rehabilitation of at-risk and offending youth and highlight the unique role of parents to influence and inspire their child's behavior. Despite a growing consensus on the importance of parental involvement in juvenile justice processes, little empirical research has explored the nature of parental involvement in the juvenile justice system. This study examined parents' (n = 87) perceptions of relationship quality and interaction with probation officers, parenting strategies, and how these factors related to youth's compliance on probation. Findings revealed that parents generally had positive relationships with probation officers characterized as supportive, fair, respectful, and helpful toward youth. Most parents also employed practices such as use of reminders and encouragement to promote youth's compliance on probation. Parents' perceptions of probation officers' helpfulness toward youth were associated with decreased used of parenting practices that encourage probation compliance. However, parents' perceptions of supportive, respectful, and fair relationships with probation officers were associated with increased use of parenting practices that promote probation compliance. Supportive, fair, and respectful relationships with probation officers were also linked to fewer counts of technical violations of probation, but not new delinquent offenses, among offending youth. Implications for research, practice, and policy around the potential of collaborative relationships between parents and probation officers in facilitating successful probation outcomes are discussed.     

Enchanted companionship of Korean Catholic youth amid compressed individualization

Korean youth are confronted with “existential vulnerability” in an uncertain labor market. “Compressed individualization” reflects a high-risk society in Korea's socio-economic context and acts as the social backdrop for the “privatization of religion.” Despite de-religionization or the unchurching climate, what are the peculiar features of Korean Catholic youth who are actively participating in a church group? The authors selected five Catholic youth groups and conducted in-depth interviews with 18 of their members. Highly religious young Catholics demonstrate coping with existential insecurity amid compressed individualization via “enchanted companionship” experienced through prayer, sharing, or service. Despite differences in communal culture between groups, the peculiar features of their enchanted companionship include holistic healing, reciprocal transcendence, and solidarity. Amid the youth's struggles to find their way toward the fullness of life, these communities offer them a “free and gratuitous haven” distinct from secular ties in the utilitarian and disenchanted world. They can also voluntarily discover the significance of life through their activities, reflections, and missions. In sum, this study explains how religiosity is formed through a socio-existential vulnerability in youth's lived religion at a micro-level analysis, and signifies enchanted companionship as a key mechanism counteracting the waves of the secular world.     

Smoothing the transition to adulthood: Creating ongoing supportive relationships among foster youth

This paper assesses the utility and effectiveness of a foster care model designed to improve youth transitions to adulthood. The model engages the youth's social network, helps youth to develop supportive, ongoing relationships with adults, and is heavily focused on youth empowerment. A three-year evaluation of 88 foster youth revealed that youth exposed to the model felt they had more power over their lives, had a wider variety of supportive adults in their lives, and could better regulate their emotions than those in a comparison group.     

Interventions for youth aging out of care: A scoping review

Youth aging out the child welfare system are being transitioned out of the child welfare system with few interventions in place to support their move to independence. In developed countries, compared to their peers, youth aging out of care face poorer outcomes when it comes to education, employment, and housing. A better understanding of the effectiveness of the existing interventions that support youth in care is warranted. This paper presents a critical scoping review of the available evidence on interventions available to youth who are aging out of the child welfare system and identifies gaps for future research. Arksey and O'Malley's framework for scoping reviews shaped the process of this review. A total of thirteen databases were searched resulting in the retrieval of 1978 articles. Of the 1978 retrieved, only 68 met the review's criteria. Studies included were in English, described an intervention that was implemented and evaluated in developed countries, and published within the last 20 years. Interventions were categorized as: housing, employment, education, mentorship, independent living, and health. The majority of studies fell under the independent living category which provide cohesive resources to improve education, housing, and employment. Studies evaluating these programs generally reported positive outcomes on youth's ability to complete their education and attain part- or full-time employment. Methods of evaluations were found to be methodologically weak with respect to determining the effectiveness of interventions in ensuring youth's successful transitions to independence. Future research should look at longitudinal outcomes of youth and cost-benefit analysis of supporting youth transitioning out of the child welfare system. Recommendations also include policy changes extending the age of eligibility for youth transitioning out of the child welfare system.     

Why Trust Matters: How Confidence in Leaders Transforms What Adolescents Gain From Youth Programs

Youth's trust in program leaders is considered a key to the positive impact of youth programs. We sought to understand how trust influences youth's program experiences from their perspective. We interviewed 108 ethnically diverse youth (ages 12–19) participating in 13 arts, leadership, and technology programs. Analysis of these accounts suggested five ways in which youth's trust in leaders amplified program benefits. Trust increased youth's (1) confidence in leaders' guidance in program activities, (2) motivation in the program, (3) use of leaders for mentoring, (4) use of leaders as a model of a well‐functioning relationship, and (5) experience of program cohesiveness. Across benefits, trust allowed youth to draw on leaders' expertise, opened them to new experiences, and helped increase youth's agency.     

More Powerful Forces? Women,Nonviolence, and Mobilization

In this survey of studies of women's nonviolent mobilization, I scrutinize “more powerful forces,” the mobilizing forces of marginalized social actors that add to and make possible the development of broad‐based people power. The study of people power has yet to extensively consider the contribution of marginalized social actors. Specifically, I ask: (i) What do women contribute to the development of nonviolent protest power and (ii) What can we learn about mobilizing power, the power of people to protest nonviolently and gain the franchise they seek, when we expand our analytical lens to incorporate women's roles? How do we account for the gendered but often unseen actions taken by marginalized social actors? My focus on women in nonviolent mobilization stems directly from my research on gendered invisibility with an empirical focus on women's gendered socialization. Here, I review how gendered social structures shape women's power of participation and success in nonviolent mobilization.     

Promoting Empowerment Among LGBTQ Youth: A Social Justice Youth Development Approach

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified (LGBTQ) youth are a population with a unique set of service needs. Existing research on effective service methods with LGBTQ youth is limited. Youth empowerment holds potential as an approach that can impact well-being among youth who face discrimination. The current study explores the relationship between the social justice youth development framework (Ginwright and James, New Directions Youth Dev 96:27–46, 2002) and youth empowerment in a sample of LGBTQ youth. Multiple regression analysis of data collected through a community-based youth program identified critical consciousness and community engagement as significant predictors of empowerment. Findings suggest that programs that promote these factors among LGBTQ youth using the social justice youth development framework may enhance empowerment thereby increasing other aspects of well-being.     

Foster home integration as a temporal indicator of relational well-being

This study sought to identify factors that contribute to the relational well-being of youth in substitute care. Using data from the Supporting Siblings in Foster Care (SIBS-FC) study, youth responded to a 9-item measure of positive home integration, a scale designed to assess the relational experiences of youth to their caregivers and their integration into the foster home. Data were collected from youth in six month intervals, for an 18-month period of time. Latent growth curve modeling procedures were employed to determine if child, family, and case characteristics influenced youth's home integration trajectories. Results suggest stability in youth reports of home integration over time; however, children who were older at the time of study enrollment and youth who experienced placement changes during the period of observation experienced decreased home integration during the 18-month period. Results suggest youth's perspectives of home integration may in part be a function of the child's developmental stage and their experiences with foster care placement instability. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Can Johnson's Typology of Adult Partner Violence Apply to Teen Dating Violence?

The authors examined the applicability of Johnson's typology of adult intimate partner violence to female and male youth's reports of teen dating violence. A total of 5,647 youth from 10 schools participated in the survey, 3,745 of whom reported currently being in a dating relationship or having been in one during the prior year (52% female, 74% White). Using hierarchical cluster analysis to classify youth into high‐control versus no‐/low‐control violent experiences, the authors found that Johnson's typology provides a workable framework for examining the violent experiences of dating teens. For the one third of youth in violent relationships, the most common type of violence perpetrated was situational couple violence (86% for females and 80% for males), followed by intimate terrorism (7% for females and 11% for males). Six percent of females and males reported using violent resistance in their relationships, and 1% of females and 4% of males reported mutual violent control