Chicago Youth Research Articles

Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954

Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954

68.2 Smartphone-Based Intervention for Homeless Youth

Homeless youth experience high rates of mental health problems, including depression, substance use, anxiety, and PTSD. Furthermore, a significant number of homeless youth experience traumatic events both in childhood and during periods of homelessness. Despite mental health need, there are significant barriers to receiving mental health care within this population. Mobile health technologies are an emerging way to deliver care to high-risk youth populations that may otherwise go untreated. This presentation will describe the results of a smartphone intervention implemented among homeless youth in Chicago, with key lessons for child mental health providers.

How Can Violence Among Urban Youth Be Stopped?

How Can Violence Among Urban Youth Be Stopped?

Does Parental Monitoring Moderate the Impact of Community Violence Exposure on Probation Youth's Substance Use and Sexual Risk Behavior?

The present study examined whether parental monitoring buffers the negative effects of communtity violence exposure on probation youth's substance use and sexual risk behaviors. Among a sample of 347 Chicago youth on probation, ages 13-17 years, parental monitoring did not moderate the relationship between community violence exposure and probation youth's sexual risk and substance use. However, parental monitoring was independently associated with less engagement in sexual risk and substance use, and community violence exposure was independently associated with more risk behavior among probation youth. The present study contributes to the growing literature on the impact of community violence exposure and parenting on adjudicated youth risk.

Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954 by Timothy B. Neary

Reviewed by: Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954 by Timothy B. Neary Eileen M. McMahon Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914–1954. By Timothy B. Neary. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 272pp. $45.00. Timothy Neary’s Crossing Parish Boundaries examines the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) founded in Chicago in 1930 by Bishop Bernard Sheil. Sheil aimed to attract working class youth tempted by a secular world into morally-based athletic competitions. From the beginning, Sheil’s hoped to use the CYO as a mechanism to bridge the racial divide that threatened the stability of Chicago’s Southside neighborhoods since the advent of the Great Migration. The CYO’s foundation rested on parish-based men’s Holy Name and Big Brother Societies and school gymnasiums and community centers. Although a small minority of the city’s African American population, Black Catholics from St. Monica’s, St. Elizabeth’s, Corpus Christi, and St. Anselm’s were eligible to play in its leagues. Sheil’s view on race was based on a simple spiritual principle—African Americans were a part of the body of Christ and equally eligible to participate—hence the title Crossing Parish Boundaries. Recognizing its glamor in a rough, industrial world, Sheil organized boxing matches. That success led to the creation of other sports competitions in basketball, track and field, swimming, and summer day [End Page 99] camps. The CYO also supported young women’s athletics. As a charismatic leader, Sheil attracted the attention and support of local and national sports figures to promote the CYO. Neary argues that Sheil and the CYO fostered lasting positive interracial experiences for white and black youths. Neary also claims that this interracial experience factored into ties between the Chicago Irish political machine and black Catholic politicians. In this regard, Crossing Parish Boundaries adds to the history of Catholic Chicago and the interaction of racial groups in urban America. Neary, however, argues that his book “presents a counternarrative to the dominant historical interpretation of white ethnic Catholicism rejecting everyday interracialism in American cities.” This “counternarrative” is not an original argument, nor is his claim correct that the dominant historical literature presents a rigidly racially divided Catholic American experience. Neary argues against one book—Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (1996) by John McGreevy. McGreevy’s fine book does examine Catholic parish throughout the North and argues that interracial cooperation was a rarity and failed to achieve any lasting success. Although his study focuses on Chicago Catholicism, Neary overlooks works by Jeffrey Burns, John Kotre, and James Smurl, that would have contextualized his study and told a far more complex story on Catholicism and race in this city. The Catholic Interracial Council and the Christian Family Movement were both founded as lay organizations and headquartered in Chicago. Their inspiration came from the same Catholic Social teaching of Monsignor Hillenbrand and operated local “cells” that “crossed parish boundaries.” Chicago also hosted a vital Young Catholic Worker movement that reached out to youths—black and white—across the city. While they did not create an integrated society any more than the CYO, they did transform attitudes and lives in much the same way Neary claims the CYO did. Neary also overlooks the findings of my book What Parish are You From? A Chicago Irish Parish Community and Race Relations, 1916–1970 [End Page 100] (1995), which documents the work of Chicago Catholic clergy and laity who crossed “parish boundaries” for racial justice on Chicago’s Southwest Side in the 1950s and 1960s. St. Sabina pastor Monsignor John McMahon helped found the Organization of Southwest Communities (1959) with the Catholic Interracial Council and priests inspired by Monsignor Hillenbrand. Its goal was to create stable, harmonious, integrated neighborhoods. To achieve that end, the OSC and its member churches not only “crossed parish boundaries” reaching out to African Americans, it also created an ecumenical movement by including Protestants and Jews. Like the CYO, the OSC did not achieve a racial utopia in Chicago. Because of its commitment to Catholic social justice, however, St. Sabina’s did not racially “turn overnight...

Exposure to Community Violence Among Low-Income African American Youth in Chicago: A Latent Class Analysis.

African American youth are exposed to some of the highest rates of exposure to community violence. However, few studies have explored factors related to exposures and various subtypes of exposures to community violence (i.e., no exposure, witnessing only and being a witness/victim). Among a matched sample of 129 African American youth and their caregivers, no exposure to community violence was correlated with being heterosexual versus being a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) person, having parents who owned their homes versus rented, and having higher authoritarian parenting attitudes. In addition, being a witness/victim of community violence was correlated with any youth substance use, lower levels of school bonding, having less future orientation, less parental home ownership, and an adverse family history. Practice and programmatic considerations are discussed based on these findings.

Examining the effects of emotional and cognitive desensitization to community violence exposure in male adolescents of color.

The current study examined pathways in a model of desensitization, the Pathologic Adaptation Model, in adolescent males of color. Specifically, the current study examined depressive symptoms and deviant beliefs as mediators of the association between community violence exposure and subsequent violent behavior. The current study included 250 African-American (67%) and Latino (33%) male adolescents (T1 mean age = 15.32) from the Chicago Youth Development Study. Consistent with the Pathologic Adaptation Model, results demonstrated that depressive symptoms mediated the association between the quadratic violence exposure term in middle adolescence and violent behaviors in late adolescence, but the direction of the mediation effect was dependent upon the levels of violence exposure in middle adolescence. However, deviant beliefs were not found to be a significant mediator. Emotional desensitization effects may increase the likelihood of violence perpetration in adolescent males exposed to community violence, and the implications for future research and intervention efforts are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Examining the Pathologic Adaptation Model of Community Violence Exposure in Male Adolescents of Color

The current study examined a model of desensitization to community violence exposure—the pathologic adaptation model—in male adolescents of color. The current study included 285 African American (61%) and Latino (39%) male adolescents (W1 M age = 12.41) from the Chicago Youth Development Study to examine the longitudinal associations between community violence exposure, depressive symptoms, and violent behavior. Consistent with the pathologic adaptation model, results indicated a linear, positive association between community violence exposure in middle adolescence and violent behavior in late adolescence, as well as a curvilinear association between community violence exposure in middle adolescence and depressive symptoms in late adolescence, suggesting emotional desensitization. Further, these effects were specific to cognitive-affective symptoms of depression and not somatic symptoms. Emotional desensitization outcomes, as assessed by depressive symptoms, can occur in male adolescents of color exposed to community violence and these effects extend from middle adolescence to late adolescence.

Reciprocal Effects of Positive Future Expectations, Threats to Safety, and Risk Behavior Across Adolescence

We examined the reciprocal relationships among positive future expectations, expected threats to future safety, depression, and individual substance use and delinquency using 4 waves of data (N = 248–338) from African American and Latino adolescent male participants in the Chicago Youth Development Study. Individual positive future expectations and expected threats to safety were assessed at each wave and modeled as latent constructs. Individual substance use and delinquency were assessed at each wave and represented as ordinal variables ranging from low to high. Categorical autoregressive cross-lagged structural models were used to examine the hypothesized reciprocal relationships between both aspects of future expectations construct and risk behavior across adolescence. Analyses show that future expectations has important effects on youth substance use and involvement in delinquency, both of which in turn decrease positive expectations and increase expectation of threats to future safety across adolescence. Similarly, low positive expectations for the future continued to predict increased substance use and involvement in delinquency. The expected threats to safety construct was significantly correlated with delinquency within time. These effects are observed across adolescence after controlling for youth depression and race. Findings support the reciprocal effects hypothesis of a negative reinforcing cycle in the relationships between future expectations and both substance use and involvement in delinquent behavior across adolescence. The enduring nature of these relationships underscores the importance of future expectation as a potential change mechanism for intervention and prevention efforts to promote healthy development; vulnerable racial and ethnic minority male adolescents may especially benefit from such intervention.

HARDINESS SCRIPTS: HIGH‐ACHIEVING AFRICAN AMERICAN BOYS IN A CHICAGO CHARTER SCHOOL NAVIGATING COMMUNITY VIOLENCE AND SCHOOL

Youth exposure to violence, criminal activities and deviant peer affiliation may impact overall development and the transition into adulthood. Low income African American youth are disproportionately exposed to chronic stressors, but little is known about how they conceptualize challenges and success once they enter adulthood. We examine how low incomes African Americans reflect on exposure to chronic stressors during adolescence that impact their description of challenges and successes in emerging adulthood. We interviewed thirteen African American males and females who are former participants of Chicago Youth Programs. Participants identified three challenges: neighborhood violence, familial stress and financial instability as barriers to success in emerging adulthood. Participants identified conditions that facilitated success in emerging adulthood: perseverance and access to Chicago Youth Programs. Understanding challenges and successes associated with emerging adulthood for low‐income African Americans may lead to better informed support services for low income African Americans across the life course.

Assessing future expectations of low-income minority young men: Survival-threats and positive expectations.

Future expectations, a subset of overall orientation, represent youths' most realistic appraisals of future outcomes, and has been demonstrated to be associated with a range of health risk behaviors and wellbeing. The current study extends previous measurement efforts to operationalize and measure future expectations by estimating a multidimensional model of future expectations encompassing both positive and survival-based expectations, and using longitudinal data to test the consistency of these constructs over time. The current work uses data from six waves of the Chicago Youth Development Study (n=338), a sample of African American and Latino young men from low income neighborhoods in an urban center, to test a hypothesized multidimensional structure of future expectations across adolescence. Test retest confirmatory factor analyses from six waves of data covering the mean age range of 12 to 19 years reveal good model fit for the hypothesized multidimensional model of future expectations at each wave. Strong measurement invariance based on race/ethnicity is established for the multidimensional model. Implications for a latent construct approach to future expectations with low-income racial/ethnic minority young men are discussed.

“Police took my homie I dedicate my life 2 his revenge”: Twitter tensions between gang-involved youth and police in Chicago

ABSTRACTThe hostile and adversarial relationship between youth and police in urban settings has remained pervasive and persistent for centuries. This is a tension historically rooted in the miasma of lack of trust; racial, ethnic, and cultural differences; and fear, anger, and hostility from racialized surveillance and policing. Indeed, most Black youth have little contact with police unless it involves harsh profiling and/or criminalization. In this article, we leverage the policing literature to examine how the perpetual detestation between urban youth and police is expressed in physical and digital contexts (e.g., Twitter). We find that urban youth, particularly gang-involved youth, publicly articulate their disdain for law enforcement agents on Twitter. The young people in our study expressed chronic grief and anger after the fatal police shooting of a Southside Chicago gang member. Further, they expressed a strong desire to violently retaliate against the Chicago Police Department after their friend was killed. In fact, users on Twitter frequently posted the hash tag #CPDK—an acronym for Chicago Police Department Killer—shortly after this incident. We discuss the implications of using Twitter data to inform policing practices, as well as early intervention and prevention strategies for youth living in inner cities.

Effects of Victimization and Violence on Suicidal Ideation and Behaviors Among Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Adolescents.

Sexual minority youth (SMY) are at higher risk for victimization and suicide than are heterosexual youth (HY). Relatively little research has examined which types of victimization are most closely linked to suicide, which is necessary to develop targeted prevention interventions. The present study was conducted to address this deficit. The data come from the 2011 Chicago Youth Risk Behavior Survey (n = 1,907). Structural equation modeling (SEM) in Mplus evaluated the direct, indirect, and total effects of sexual orientation on a latent indicator of suicidal ideation and behaviors via seven types of victimization. Four indicators of victimization were school-specific (e.g., harassment due to sexual orientation or gender identity (SO/GID), bullying, threatened or injured with a weapon, and skipping school due to safety concerns), and three indicators assessed other types of victimization (e.g., electronic bullying, intimate partner violence, and sexual abuse). Thirteen percent of youth were classified as SMY. Significantly more SMY than HY reported suicidal ideation (27.95% vs. 13.64%), a suicide plan (22.78% vs. 12.36%), and at least one suicide attempt (29.92% vs. 12.43%) in the past year (all P < .001). A greater percentage of SMY reported SO/GID-related harassment, skipping school, electronic bullying, and sexual abuse. Sexual orientation was not directly related to suicidal ideation and behaviors in SEM. Rather, SMY's elevated risk of suicidality functioned indirectly through two forms of school-based victimization: being threatened or injured with a weapon (B = .19, SE = .09, P ≤ .05) and experiencing SO/GID-specific harassment (B = .40, SE = .15, P ≤ .01). There also was a trend for SMY to skip school as a strategy to reduce suicide risk. Although SMY experience higher rates of victimization than do HY, school-based victimization that involves weapons or is due to one's SO/GID appear to be the most deleterious. That SMY may skip school to reduce their risk of suicidal ideation and behaviors is problematic, and schools should be encouraged to enact and enforce policies that explicitly protect SMY from victimization.

Coleman project seeks readers’ contributions

Sidney Coleman was a physicists’ physicist. With science historian David Kaiser, we are working to gather and publish a collection of his correspondence. One of us (Diana, Sidney’s wife) is already in possession of many fascinating letters that document his life from his youth in Chicago through his education at Caltech and his long career in Harvard University’s physics department. Letters written by Sidney to colleagues and family, and those he received and chose to keep, exhibit his renowned warmth and humor and paint a portrait of a man engaged across the breadth of physics.Over the years, Sidney said several times that he went into theoretical physics “because it makes my head feel funny.” He was probably thinking of the weirdness of quantum mechanics, the spooky fascination of black holes, the possibility of wormholes providing access to multiple universes. He convinced Diana that the universe is full of stuff that would make any thinking person’s head “feel funny.” One of the delights of reading Sidney’s papers and letters is that they embody his spirit of adventure and sense of wonder.The collection of letters in our possession, we are certain, does not reflect the entirety of Sidney’s correspondence. Many letters, notes, and postcards, written by hand or typed, must have escaped his records. We invite readers of Physics Today to share copies or scans of any correspondence they have, from or to Sidney. Materials can be sent to Aaron Sidney Wright, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University Science Center 371, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, or by email to [email protected].© 2015 American Institute of Physics.

Empowering Immigrant Youth in Chicago

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an approach that engages community residents with a goal of influencing change in community health systems, programs, or policies. As such, CBPR is particularly relevant to historically marginalized communities that often have not directly benefited from the knowledge research produces. This article analyzes a youth empowerment program, Chicago's Youth Health Service Corps, from a CBPR perspective. The purpose of this work was (1) to discuss Youth Health Service Corps as a health promotion program, (2) examine the use of CBPR within the immigrant community, and (3) discuss preliminary findings using a model on critical youth empowerment.

Summer jobs reduce violence among disadvantaged youth.

Every day, acts of violence injure more than 6000 people in the United States. Despite decades of social science arguing that joblessness among disadvantaged youth is a key cause of violent offending, programs to remedy youth unemployment do not consistently reduce delinquency. This study tests whether summer jobs, which shift focus from remediation to prevention, can reduce crime. In a randomized controlled trial among 1634 disadvantaged high school youth in Chicago, assignment to a summer jobs program decreases violence by 43% over 16 months (3.95 fewer violent-crime arrests per 100 youth). The decline occurs largely after the 8-week intervention ends. The results suggest the promise of using low-cost, well-targeted programs to generate meaningful behavioral change, even with a problem as complex as youth violence.

Results from a community-based trial testing a community health worker asthma intervention in Puerto Rican youth in Chicago

Objective: Puerto Rican children suffer disproportionately from asthma. Project CURA tested the efficacy of a community health worker (CHW) intervention to improve use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and reduce home asthma triggers in Puerto Rican youth in Chicago. Methods: This study employed a behavioral randomized controlled trial design with a community-based participatory research approach. Medications and technique were visually assessed; adherence was determined using dose counters. Home triggers were assessed via self-report, visual inspection and salivary cotinine. All participants received education on core asthma topics and self-management skills. Participants in the CHW arm were offered home education by the CHW in four visits over four months. The attention control arm received four newsletters covering the same topics. Results: While most of the participants had uncontrolled persistent asthma, < 50% had ICS at baseline. In the CHW arms, 67% of participants received the full four-visit intervention. In the Elementary school cohort (n = 51), the CHW arm had lower odds of having an ICS (OR = 0.2; p = 0.02) at 12-months; no differences were seen in other outcomes between arms at any time point. The only significant treatment arm difference in the high school cohort (n = 50) was in inhaler technique where the CHW arm performed 18.0% more steps correct at five months (p < 0.01) and 14.2% more steps correct at 12 months (p < 0.01). Conclusions: While this CHW intervention did not increase the number of participants with ICS or reduce home asthma triggers, important lessons were learned including challenges to CHW intervention fidelity and the need for CHWs to partner with clinical providers.

Psychiatric disorders, high-risk behaviors, and chronicity of episodes among predominantly African American homeless Chicago youth.

This cross-sectional study investigated the relationships between psychiatric and substance-related disorders, high-risk behaviors, and the onset, duration, and frequency of homelessness among homeless youth in Chicago. Sixty-six homeless youth were recruited from two shelters in Chicago. Demographic characteristics, psycho-pathology, substance use, and risk behaviors were assessed for each participant. Increased frequency and duration of homeless episodes were positively correlated with higher rates of psychiatric diagnoses. Increased number of psychiatric diagnoses was positively correlated with increased high-risk behaviors. Participants with diagnoses of Current Suicidality, Manic Episodes, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Substance Abuse, and Psychotic Disorder had a higher chronicity of homelessness than those without diagnoses. Significant differences were evident between the three time parameters, suggesting that stratification of data by different time variables may benefit homelessness research by identifying meaningful subgroups who may benefit from individualized interventions.

The location of placement and juvenile delinquency: Do neighborhoods matter in child welfare?

This study aims to advance the knowledge base by investigating where foster youth are placed in terms of neighborhood characteristics and whether specific neighborhood characteristics were associated with delinquency for adolescents in the child welfare system. This study followed the placement experiences of 2360 foster youth in Chicago from birth to 16years of age. The study used State administrative data, census data, and the community survey of the Project of Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. The results indicated that foster care placements cluster in neighborhoods characterized by high concentrated disadvantage, low ethnic heterogeneity, low collective efficacy, prevalent neighborhood disorder and violent culture. The results indicated that neighborhood ethnic heterogeneity is positively associated with delinquent offending. The implications for policy and practice are discussed.

The Relationship Between Substance Use and Sexual Health Among African-American Female Adolescents with a History of Seeking Mental Health Services

BackgroundThis study examined relationships between substance use patterns and problems and sexual health outcomes among low-income, urban, African-American female adolescents with a history of seeking mental health services. MethodsParticipants were recruited from outpatient mental health clinics serving urban, primarily low-income youth and families in Chicago, Illinois, as part of a 2-year, longitudinal investigation of HIV risk behavior during which they completed interviews every 6 months (five time points). Girls who completed at least one follow-up interview were invited to participate in a sixth wave of assessment to assess trauma exposure, substance use problems, and sexual risk. The current study (n = 177) examined the association between sexual risk behavior and substance use problems reported at the most recent interview (ages 14–22) and substance use patterns and sexually transmitted infections (STI) reported at all six times points. Multiple regression examined the combined and unique effects of different patterns of substance use and substance use problems as correlates of sexual risk behavior and STIs. FindingsSubstance use problems were associated with increased sexual risk behavior and increased likelihood of experiencing STIs. Substance use patterns were associated with sexual risk behavior. ConclusionsResults suggest that specific patterns of substance use and substance use problems are important to address in sexual health promotion among low-income, urban, African-American girls with a history of seeking mental health services. Understanding the nuances of these relationships is important in informing how to best serve this vulnerable group of adolescents who experience significant sexual risk and mental health care disparities.