Character Development among Youth of Color from Low-SES Backgrounds: An Examination of Boy Scouts of America’s ScoutReach Program

Kaitlyn A Ferris,Richard M Lerner,Jun Wang,Shaobing Su,Rachel M Hershberg

doi:10.5195/jyd.2015.6

Abstract

This study examined character attributes associated with participation in ScoutReach, Boy Scouts of America’s recent program innovation created to deliver Scouting curriculum to underserved populations. Participants were predominantly Black/African American (72.9%; N = 266, Mage = 10.54, SD = 1.58) and resided in low-income urban communities. Youth completed surveys assessing how much they embody different character attributes (e.g., kindness, helpfulness, hopeful future expectations), and a subset of youth (n = 22) also participated in semi-structured interviews examining character-shaping experiences within the program. Results replicated an eight-factor character structure established with youth involved in traditional Scouting programs, and indicated that involvement in ScoutReach may positively contribute to the development in youth of prosocial behaviors, future career goals, tolerance beliefs, and the manifestation of character attributes across Scouting and non-Scouting contexts. Together, these findings have implications for measuring character constructs among youth of color from low-SES backgrounds, and for the conduct of youth-serving character development programs more generally.

Highlights

Boy Scouts of America (BSA) represents a major out-of-school time (OST) program whose mission is to develop character attributes in youth that will help them become engaged citizens who make positive contributions to society (Hilliard et al, 2014)
Mean scores on character attributes were compared across the larger sample (n = 244) and the mixed-methods sample (n = 22) to ensure that findings from mixed-methods analyses could be generalized to the larger ScoutReach sample
In this mixed-methods study, character attributes were investigated among youth in ScoutReach, drawing from an individual ←→ context conception of character development grounded in relational developmental systems (RDS) metatheory (Lerner & Callina, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

Boy Scouts of America (BSA) represents a major out-of-school time (OST) program whose mission is to develop character attributes in youth that will help them become engaged citizens who make positive contributions to society (Hilliard et al, 2014). Despite the noted benefits of BSA participation, youth of color from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are typically underrepresented in traditional forms of Scouting (Pedersen & Seidman, 2005). This situation corresponds to participation rates in other major OST programs (Lareau, 2003). The absence of such experiences for these youth is unfortunate, given that the existence of external support systems in community and school settings has been shown to promote positive development and to decrease vulnerability to negative outcomes (Richardson et al, 2014)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion