Young People's Decision-making Research Articles

Sexing the Child

Sexing the Child

Young people's experiences of a CDH1 pathogenic variant: Decision-making about gastric cancer risk management.

The most effective option for gastric cancer risk management in individuals with a CDH1 germline pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant (PV) in Australia is prophylactic total gastrectomy (PTG). There is, however, increasing confidence in endoscopic surveillance as a risk management strategy thus affording individuals with a CDH1 PV with challenging decisions regarding their gastric cancer risk management. For young people, this decision-making comes at a complex development stage of emerging and young adulthood. This study aims to explore the factors that influence young people's decision-making about their gastric cancer risk management due to a CDH1 PV. Potential participants were identified and approached through the Parkville Familial Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Thematic analysis was used to interpret and analyze the data. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 people with a CDH1 PV aged 18 to 39years, inclusive. The interviews found that participants' familial and shared experiences of cancer and risk management, perceived tolerance of uncertainty, and desire for control over their cancer risk were fundamental in their decision-making about their gastric cancer risk management. The participants' young adult life stage was also deemed particularly important in decisions about the timing of PTG. The findings of this study are vital to inform decisional counseling discussions with this unique population.

Danish young people's decision-making in municipal youth policy

Danish young people's decision-making in municipal youth policy

An Integrative Review of the Influences on Decision-Making of Young People About Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is a key intervention in the prevention of HPV infection and associated cancers. This review emphasizes the importance of understanding what influences decision-making about this vaccine. Guided by the work of Whittemore and Knafl, and Pluye and Hong, we identified 25 studies, from which four prominent themes emerged: fear and risk, pain, parental involvement, and involvement of others. Fear of cervical cancer was a strong motivation to receive the vaccine, and the extent of parental involvement also had an impact on decision-making. Recommendations to receive the vaccine by health-care providers were also an important influence. School nurses are fundamental to the promotion and delivery of the HPV vaccine and should stress the significant role that it plays in the prevention of cancer. Additionally, school nurses should ensure that discussions about HPV infection and vaccine include parents where appropriate and should distinctly recommend vaccination to those eligible.

Space between the borders? Perceptions of professionals on the participation in decision-making of young people in coercive care

The participation of young people in care and treatment decisions is regarded as an essential element in effective decision-making and care. Although care and treatment in juvenile justice facilities is, in the first instance, based on a coercive placement (i.e. non-participatory decision-making), it is likely that participation is also essential for young offenders during their stay in care. In our study, we interviewed 24 care professionals working in two different juvenile justice facilities in the Netherlands. Professionals understand what participation entails (e.g. informing, listening to, taking views into account), and how and why they can use participation in everyday practice. Typically, they link issues such as safety and existing boundaries when talking about participation in a coercive context. Based on our findings, we present a conceptual model of factors that seem to influence a young person’s participation process. These findings indicate that there is a need for the structural incorporation of youth participation into juvenile justice facilities in such a way as to consider the needs and perspectives of both young people and professionals.

‘My mother thought upper secondary school was OK, but then my sibling said no’ - Young People's Perceptions of the Involvement of Parents and Siblings in their Future Choices

This paper seeks to contribute to the research on the role of the family in the educational decision-making of young people by highlighting two overlooked areas of study: vocational education and the role of siblings. It explores young, mainly working-class Finnish 15- to 17-year-olds’ future expectations and decision-making processes concerning the choice between the academic and vocational tracks by drawing on interviews with the young participants of targeted support programmes and their parents. The aim of the paper is to shed light both on how parents try to influence their children's post-school choices and on young people's perceptions of the influence that parents and older brothers and sisters had on their aspirations towards vocational education. The paper demonstrates how horizons for action and educational choices are influenced by family traditions and advice, but that the pieces of advice dispensed by parents and siblings are not necessarily in congruence with each other. The familial suggestions work as a point of reference which is acknowledged and reflected on in the young people's process of mapping and recognising their own preferences. The paper suggests that while the goals of parents and older siblings would not necessarily be upward mobility, but rather to help young people to make a decent choice within a sector corresponding to their own, it is important to acknowledge their influence as a resource valued by many young people.

Risk, Choice and Social Disadvantage: Young People's Decision-Making in a Marketised Higher Education System

Rising tuition fees in England have been accompanied by a policy mandate for universities to widen participation by attracting students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This article focuses on one such group of high achieving students and their responses to rising tuition fees within the context of their participation in an outreach scheme at a research-intensive university in the UK. Our findings suggest that rather than being deterred from attending university as a result of fee increases, these young people demonstrated a detailed and fairly sophisticated understanding of higher education provision as a stratified and marketised system and justified fees within a discourse of ‘private good.’ Our analysis situates their ‘risk’ responses within the discursive tensions of the fees/widening participation mandate. We suggest that this tension highlights an intensified commodification of the relationship between higher education institutions and potential students from disadvantaged backgrounds in which widening participation agendas have shifted towards recruitment exercises. We argue that an ongoing effect of this shift has resulted in increased instrumentalism and a narrowing of choices for young people faced with the task of seeking out ‘value for money’ in their degrees whilst concurrently engaging in a number of personalised strategies aimed at compensating for social disadvantage in a system beset by structural inequalities.

The Higher Education Impact on the Quality of Young People Working Life

The modern trends of society development determine the continued interest to the problem of the working life quality. However, despite the extensive discussion and study of the issue there is no common understanding of the factors that influence the formation and development of the quality of working life. As itself the process of examining the quality of working life of young people in modern conditions is very difficult as soon as defining key trends that influence it. The purpose of the research is a solution of a significant theoretical problem: a study of the influence of the state of the quality of working life on decision-making of young people at the workplace and at the choice of their future educational development. Analysis of studies of remuneration assessment and employment level of young people in Russia, as basic elements that form the quality of working life has revealed the specific role of the education system on delay of the release of potential labor force to the labor market. Due to the lack of experience of the overwhelming number of applicants of full-time university students, respondents’ understanding and expectations concerning quality of their working life a special method of questioning were developed.

Medication management following first-episode psychosis in young people: a developmental approach

SummaryYoung adults and adolescents who experience a first episode of psychosis are faced with important issues and choices concerning their future mental health. Individual and family psychological treatments and psychosocial supportive measures are now well recognised interventions for this group of individuals. This article considers the complexity surrounding medication management after the initial recovery from psychosis. The discussion focuses particularly on the medical treatments, developmental considerations and roles of psychiatrists in improving outcomes for this group of patients.Learning Objectives•Understand the potential benefits and risks of maintenance antipsychotics for young people recovering from first-episode psychosis.•Have an improved knowledge of psychological and developmental concepts that can underpin young people's decision-making regarding maintenance medication for mental illness.•Be able to develop a range of (age-appropriate) strategies to assist medication decision-making.

In School or at Work? Evidence from a Crisis

This paper makes use of the income variability generated by the macroeconomic crisis of 2001/2002 to examine schooling outcomes in Argentina. The effect of this macroeconomic swing is examined with a focus on whether the income or substitution effect dominates in the decision-making of young people. It is demonstrated that the probability of being in school was 6.5–10 percentage points higher in May 2002 than in 2001 for 15–18-year-olds. This is probably the largest (positive) effect found in the developing country literature so far and is comparable to the effect of a 10% increase in household income. For 19–25-year-olds, the probability is between 2 and 6 percentage points higher. Results are robust to a wide range of controls and specification checks. Difference-in-difference panel estimation corroborates these findings and shows that the increase in schooling seems to be driven by a decrease in school exits during the crisis.

The participation and decision making of ‘at risk’ youth in community music projects: an exploration of three case studies

In the UK, recent years have witnessed a considerable growth in youth participation activities that seek to involve children and young people in various forms of decision-making. One such form of youth participation to benefit from increased government support since the late 1990s concerns community arts activities, especially those targeting young people considered to be ‘at risk’. While there exists a developing international literature exploring youth participation in community arts activities, to date relatively little attention has been paid to issues surrounding young people's decision-making within participatory arts projects. Through an exploration of three community music projects based in the North of England, this article considers the nature of young people's participation in project-related decision-making before proposing the need for greater attention to this aspect of community music activity, especially in the case of projects which seek to engage with ‘at risk’ youth.

Fees, Funding and Overseas Study: Mobile UK Students and Educational Inequalities

An article in The Guardian in 2006 claimed that: ‘some bright students have found an answer to the fees nightmare: in Europe’. It went on to argue that the introduction of variable fees in the UK in 2006 had encouraged some UK students to consider moving overseas for their degrees and, in particular, to European countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands, which charged low fees or no fees at all. While there have been a small number of further press reports which have indicated that changes to the funding of higher education in the UK have encouraged more young people to consider seriously the possibility of studying abroad, we still know relatively little about the impact of financial factors on a decision to pursue a degree overseas. Although many researchers have explored the economic rewards which often accrue in the medium- or long-term as a result of overseas study, the academic literature has much less to say about both the impact of fee differentials on young people's decision-making, and the resources upon which they draw to fund a period of study overseas. In an attempt to redress this gap, this paper draws on data from a qualitative study of young UK citizens who had either completed a degree abroad, or were seriously considering moving overseas for this purpose, to explore the impact of short-term economic calculations on their decisions, and the sources of funding upon which they drew. In doing so, we argue, firstly, that there are important differences between mobile students: those who moved abroad for an undergraduate degree tended to be from more privileged backgrounds than those who moved for postgraduate studies and, as a result, considerably less sensitive to price differentials. Secondly, we suggest that, despite important differences in economic capital, both undergraduates and postgraduates were able to draw on significant cultural resources. This raises questions about the extent to which overseas opportunities can be opened up more widely, to include a greater cross-section of young people.

A model of young people's decision-making in using the Web

This article offers a theoretical model of the criteria young people use to evaluate websites. The model combines the concepts of personal preferences, object engagement characteristics, human processing constraints, and contextual constraints to predict a young person's evaluation decision. The qualitative methodology used to gather data for the development and testing of this model included website evaluation sessions and group interviews with 11 young female students. Data analysis took the form of iterative pattern coding using QSR NUD*IST Vivo qualitative data analysis software. Data analysis uncovered strong support for the theoretical and empirical models. Related implications for website designers are discussed, with an emphasis on the importance of enabling users to modify website design to satisfy their personal preferences. Related implications for librarians and teachers are also discussed, with an emphasis on the importance of teaching young people to become more critical users of the Web.