Activity In Youth Research Articles

Influence of recreation activities with the priority use of badminton exercises on indicators of physical fitness and motor activity of boys 13-14 years old

Scientists and practitioners in the field of physical culture and sports are trying to solve issues related to increasing the interest of children and youth in physical activity, especially during leisure time. One of the ways to increase physical activity is rationally organized leisure time based on the application of various health and recreational activities. The use of games in the recreational and health-improving activities of children and youth helps to optimize their motor activity, promotes the development of motor skills. The purpose of the study was to develop a program of leisure activities with priority use of badminton exercises for boys aged 13-14. The program development process included three stages: organizational, practical and control. The development of the program was based on the principles of leisure activities: principle of interest, individual approach, differentiated approach, consistency, systematicity, voluntariness, and compliance of leisure services with the existing conditions of the classes. The program lasted 6 months. The study involved 10 boys who attended classes three times a week. Each lesson lasted 60 minutes. The content of the program material was divided into blocks: general physical training, special physical training, technical training, and games, which also included outdoor games. The effectiveness of the training program is proven by the results obtained at the end of the study, which indicate an improvement in physical fitness indicators (strength by 13.6 %, agility by 2.8 %, flexibility by 15.5 %, speed and strength qualities by 5.1 %, speed - by 2.9 %) and motor activity of boys aged 13-14.

Influence of Youth Unemployment on Youth Involvement in Crime in Kakuma Refugee Camp

Youth, constituting an estimated 70% of the total population, play pivotal roles in society due to their energy and dynamism. Conversely, a significant portion of the refugee population comprises young individuals who, despite being provided with various capacity-building programs, sometimes find themselves involved in criminal activities. The study sought to assess the influence of youth unemployment on youth involvement in Crime in Kakuma Refugee Camp. Employing a descriptive research design, the study was guided by Strain theory. The target population included refugees, host community members operating businesses within the study area, government officials, and officials from humanitarian agencies implementing projects in refugee settlements. Stratified random sampling was utilized to select South Sudanese sub-clans, while purposive sampling was employed to select security officers and stakeholders from various departments. Data collection involved the use of questionnaires and interviews, gathering responses from 125 and 20 respondents, respectively. Primary data was obtained through questionnaires and interviews with government officers working in the camp, such as those from the Department of Refugee Services (DRS), law enforcement officers, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), community peace and protection teams (CPPTs), and national and county government administrators overseeing the refugee camp's jurisdiction. Secondary data was sourced from scholarly journals, books, the internet, reports, newspapers, and treaties on refugees, aiding in achieving the study objectives. Data analysis employed descriptive statistics for quantitative data and content analysis for qualitative data, utilizing SPSS and NVIVO software, respectively. Results were presented through tables, charts, and figures. The study found that poverty was a significant factor contributing to youth involvement in crime. Additionally, societal treatment, characterized by suspicion, victimization, lack of recognition, and disharmony influenced youth criminal behaviour. To address these issues, the study recommends that humanitarian organizations and governments provide income-generating activities for youth, intensify initiatives to alleviate community involvement in crime, foster positive societal attitudes towards youth, and provide proper guidance on avoiding negative peer influence, thereby deterring youth from joining criminal groups.

Measuring Physical Activity in Children Who Do Not Walk and With Cerebral Palsy: An Exploratory Case Series.

The purpose of this case series was to describe physical activity (PA) amount and intensity in the home and school environment. Accelerometers and heart rate (HR) monitors are reliable and valid measures of PA in children with cerebral palsy (CP) who can walk. There is limited research on PA measures in children with CP who cannot walk. Three 9-year-old boys with CP, Gross Motor Function Classification System levels IV and V, participated in a 1-week measurement period wearing waist- and wrist-worn triaxial accelerometers to measure PA counts and a wrist-worn HR monitor to measure PA intensity. PA intensity was calculated using an estimated HR max. Accelerometer counts were reported. Parents and school staff completed activity and eating journals. Six days of PA and HR data were analyzed. Two participants spent more time in moderate/vigorous PA intensity during school compared to at home. Activities with greatest PA intensity included oral eating, communication, and social engagement. Higher activity counts were recorded from the wrist compared with the waist accelerometers. PA and eating journal adherence were high in both settings. The findings provide preliminary data to evaluate PA amount and intensity in children with CP who have little walking ability. It is important to consider PA levels in daily activity for youth with CP when designing plans of care.

“Probably the Most Perfect Symbol of Our Democracy”: The Army, Sports, and the Re-education of German Youth during the Early American Occupation of Germany, 1945–1946

During World War II, Germany and the United States fought it out on the battlefields, but once the Allies were victorious, American attention quickly turned to the playing fields. Despite recent enmity, in the spirit of amity GIs quickly started recreational games with German youngsters. This seemingly natural development was at odds with both American expectations of the Germans and vice versa. Reeducation of Germany, and especially its Nazi-indoctrinated youth, was viewed as essential to peace, and the army, through sports, became perhaps unlikely early reeducators. This article outlines sports’ inherent Americanness, this impromptu playing, and its relationship to the formal army program of youth activities.

Relationship of regional ultraviolet index data with rash and systemic disease activity in youth with childhood-onset systemic lupus: results from the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance Registry

ObjectiveTo investigate the association between ultraviolet light index (UVI), as a marker for UV exposure, and seasonality with rash and systemic disease activity in youth with childhood-onset systemic lupus (cSLE) from the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (CARRA) Registry.MethodsWe reviewed data on rash and disease activity from Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2 K) scores from cSLE CARRA Registry participants with visits between 2010 and 2019 and obtained zipcode level UVI data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Our main exposures were UVI and season during the month of visit and one month prior to visit. We used mixed-effects logistic regression models to examine associations between regional UVI (by zipcode)/season and odds of rash and severe SLEDAI-2 K score (≥ 5 vs. 0–4), adjusting for age, sex, race and income.ResultsAmong 1222 participants, with a mean of 2.3 visits per participant, 437 visits (15%) had rash and 860 (30%) had SLEDAI-2 K score ≥ 5. There were no associations between UVI during the month prior to visit or the month of the visit and odds of rash or elevated systemic activity. However, fall season was associated with increased odds of rash (OR = 1.59, p = 0.04), but not increased disease activity.ConclusionThis study found no association between UVI and rash or UVI and disease activity. However, further studies directly measuring UV exposure and accounting for patient-level protective behavioral measures may help to better understand the complex relationship between sun exposure and SLE disease activity.

SOCIAL SUCCESS AS A COMPONENT OF STUDENT YOUTH ACTIVITY

The article discusses the concepts of social success and social activity of student youth. The need of an individual to achieve social success and the ability to solve urgent problems in society is becoming increasingly important. Active work is the key to social success and the formation of a socially successful personality. The purpose of the article is to substantiate social success as a condition for the formation of social activity of students. The social success of a student in a higher education institution is formed in the process of certain activities, social activity, and interpersonal interaction. The issue of social success and activity of a higher education student is defined as one of the priority goals in a number of regulatory documents. The authors used the methods of theoretical analysis of modern scientific literature of Ukrainian and foreign researchers, generalization, and systematization to deepen the understanding of the concept of social success and activity of student youth. Research attention is paid to the importance of promoting the level of social activity of student youth and social performance, as this affects not only the formation of an active life position of students, but also helps to improve the level of knowledge acquisition. The article reveals the concept of student's social activity, in particular, as a personality quality manifested in various forms of socially important activities, in particular, those which are a manifestation of social success. The achievement of social success by a person is impossible without his or her social activity in important areas of life. That is why the formation of social activity of student youth is one of the important tasks of a higher education institution, because it will help in the future to form a successful personality who will have an active life position and a desire to influence not only the life of the community, but also the life of the country.

Individual and Interpersonal Factors Associated with Youth Antisocial Behavior among a Low Income, Immigrant, and Ethnic Urban Youth Sample

This study explores the association between youth antisocial behavior outcomes and predictors including individual factors (youth attitudes) and interpersonal factors (friends and parents) in a low income, immigrant, and ethnic community in Pomona, California USA. Social cognitive theory is used in a cross sectional design to perform correlation and multiple regression analysis on survey data from 2,693 high school students. While factors related to youths and their best friends were associated with youth antisocial behavior outcomes, parental factors did not show any association with youth antisocial behavior outcomes in both correlation and regression analysis. These results conflict with dominant trends in the literature and underscore the need for at risk communities such as Pomona to develop their own community data so that intervention programs can respond to their unique circumstances. The following intervention strategies are recommended for youth program designers in Pomona: prioritize individual youth and friends in intervention activities; develop intervention strategies to grow parental influence on youth antisocial behavior such as integrating engagement tools which immigrant, minority, and low income parents could use to counter antisocial risk factors and enhance protective factors. Future research should investigate the factors that drive the influence of best friends on youth antisocial behavior particularly how these trump parental influence in Pomona and other disadvantaged environments. The research findings should shape the intervention strategies recommended above.

Practical considerations for using low-cost sensors to assess wildfire smoke exposure in school and childcare settings.

More frequent and intense wildfires will increase concentrations of smoke in schools and childcare settings. Low-cost sensors can assess fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations with high spatial and temporal resolution. We sought to optimize the use of sensors for decision-making in schools and childcare settings during wildfire smoke to reduce children's exposure to PM2.5. We measured PM2.5 concentrations indoors and outdoors at four schools in Washington State during wildfire smoke in 2020-2021 using low-cost sensors and gravimetric samplers. We randomly sampled 5-min segments of low-cost sensor data to create simulations of brief portable handheld measurements. During wildfire smoke episodes (lasting 4-19 days), median hourly PM2.5 concentrations at different locations inside a single facility varied by up to 49.6 µg/m3 (maximum difference) during school hours. Median hourly indoor/outdoor ratios across schools ranged from 0.22 to 0.91. Within-school differences in concentrations indicated that it is important to collect measurements throughout a facility. Simulation results suggested that making handheld measurements more often and over multiple days better approximates indoor/outdoor ratios for wildfire smoke. During a period of unstable air quality, PM2.5 over the next hour indoors was more highly correlated with the last 10-min of data (mean R2 = 0.94) compared with the last 3-h (mean R2 = 0.60), indicating that higher temporal resolution data is most informative for decisions about near-term activities indoors. As wildfires continue to increase in frequency and severity, staff at schools and childcare facilities are increasingly faced with decisions around youth activities, building use, and air filtration needs during wildfire smoke episodes. Staff are increasingly using low-cost sensors for localized outdoor and indoor PM2.5 measurements, but guidance in using and interpreting low-cost sensor data is lacking. This paper provides relevant information applicable for guidance in using low-cost sensors for wildfire smoke response.

Volunteering for a Job: Creativity and Tanzanian Youth

This paper explores motivations behind voluntary activities of youth in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, during an increasingly common period of ‘waithood,’ characterized by prolonged status as youth and delay in adulthood due to challenges with unemployment. Drawing on ethnographic anthropological fieldwork conducted in 2019, this paper uses stories of two youths from two youth-led organizations located in Dar es Salaam to explore differing motivations for engaging in volunteering. These examples illustrate how volunteering either acts as a stepping-stone to future employment or as a replacement for formal employment, dependent on class identity. It is argued that for Tanzanian youths, volunteering is a creative response to the challenges of waithood. This paper suggests that policymakers and civil society organizations addressing youth issues in Tanzania should recognize the diverse motivations and creative and strategic dimensions of volunteering to better support young people in navigating waithood and their futures.

Columns: Teaching Multilingual Learners: #ToBeMoreFree: Supporting Multilingual Learners’ Literacies toward Activism and Social Justice

Drawing on one multilingual youth’s literacies, a teacher educator and social media researcher presents a culturally digitized pedagogical framework to guide educators in exploring youth identity, activism, and language, with a focus on social justice issues.

중국 청년들을 둘러싼 저층화 공간 서사의 전환과 재맥락화

This research examines how impoverished youth's perceptions of space, both real dwelling spaces and abstract social progress areas, are evolving. It examines in particular how the problems of'snail homes' and 'ant tribes', which were big difficulties connected to living spaces in the early 2010s, are continuing in what social context, and how disadvantaged youth are generating new narratives within this. They deploy narratives of 'disgust and exclusion' and'sympathy and empathy' towards poverty at the same time, eventually demonstrating new attitudes and actions in reaction to the state's narrative that has backed the development logic. Of course, their living conditions have not changed significantly, but the young are now learning to collect and recontextualize their own experiences and narratives in limited living spaces. Furthermore, in terms of social progress, they choose employment that provide stability in their lives rather than a single direction of travel focused in the city or the quest of tremendous achievement. Even people with strong academic credentials opt to go to the competitive perimeter, advance their jobs, and then return to the core city. The author believes that their psychological state is not entirely free of the stress of a competitive society and the narrative of competition, but that they are becoming psychologically stronger through lightness rather than previous heaviness, and cynicism and joy rather than sadness or despair. When reading impoverished youth's actions as signals of social transformation, it is assumed that the spectrum of interpretations will expand as we approach closer to future China.

Schools as Hubs of Health: A Comprehensive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education Model for Promoting Wellness in Low-Income Communities.

Research indicates that health interventions are most effective when they address multiple social determinants of health to support positive behavior. Schools as Hubs of Health, a comprehensive model of nutrition and physical activity education, was developed to support wellness within school communities defined as low-income by the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed). Components of the model include the following: classroom education; garden education; youth engagement; staff training; parent and community engagement; and policies, systems, and environments. Findings over the last decade indicate positive outcomes in nutrition and physical activity behaviors, youth leadership and engagement, and systems and environmental changes that support health and wellness.

“We Can Transform This, We Can Change This”: Adolescent Sociopolitical Development as a Catalyst for Healthy Life-Span Development

In the late 1970s, adolescents in East Harlem, New York, participated in a program called the Youth Action Program where they worked collectively to address systemic issues causing inequities in their communities (e.g., inequities in housing and education). In the current study, we integrate the sociopolitical development framework with life-course health development to explore how participation in the program shaped adolescents’ skills and capacities for social transformation in ways that were health-promotive and informative for life trajectories. Data included retrospective interviews and member-checking focus group data of 10 former Youth Action Program members (current Mage = 63; 45% female; 55% male) from predominantly Black and Latinx backgrounds. We used reflexive thematic analysis and adopted a case study approach to highlight how participants’ adolescent experiences of sociopolitical development and resistance against oppressive circumstances propelled healthy life-course development. Specifically, participants were able to establish healthy lives through four health-promotive sociopolitical developmental processes: questioning the system not the self; carving out alternative spaces and pathways; building agency in a dehumanizing society; and finding purpose through committing to social change. Our study suggests that contemporary youth organizing programs can incorporate sustaining practices including the careful vetting and training of adult staff, pursuing tangible opportunities to create change, and embedding youth voice and leadership into programmatic structures to encourage healthy development via sociopolitical development.

Foreign experience of investigating crimes committed by members of youth informal groups (associations)

The article deals with specific issues of foreign experience in investigating crimes committed by members of informal youth groups (associations). It is emphasized that the study of foreign experience in the investigation of crimes committed by members of youth informal groups (associations) will contribute to the development and improvement of recommendations for the investigation of the corresponding category of criminal offenses in Ukraine.
 The peculiarities of detection and investigation of crimes committed by members of youth informal groups (associations) in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and the USA are analyzed.
 Most often, French youth can unite in informal groups in connection with a common place of residence (street, district, city), because of race, nationality, political views, social crises, etc. Difficulties in investigating the criminal activities of informal youth in France are associated with the active use of social networks for the preparation and concealment of committed offenses, the organization of gangs, an increase in their number, and a great public outcry.
 All youth informal groups (associations) in Germany can be divided into 3 types: 1) associations of young people who are migrants, refugees and spend their free time together, live on the same street, in the same district; 2) neo-Nazi youth associations; 3) unification of youth on the basis of political views and protest sentiments.
 The boom in youth crime in the Netherlands occurred in the early 1980s. But a balanced preventive work, starting in 1985, gave results. An active struggle is being waged against youth neo-Nazi groups (associations) on the Internet.
 There are 434 youth gangs in Canada with approximately 7,070 members. The greatest concentration of youth gangs in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.
 In the 50s. XX century. American youth, and students in particular, showed themselves for the first time as an active political force, able to defend their positions on an equal footing with political parties and «adult» public organizations. The youth of that time advocated civil liberties – freedom of speech, organizations, meetings, etc. But informal youth groups in the USA are not only a subcultural phenomenon, but also gangs that actively engage in criminal activities based on the promotion of ideas, views, and lifestyles.

Decolonizing Impact Through the Culture-Centered Approach to Health Communication: Mobilizing Communities to Transform the Structural Determinants of Health

ABSTRACT In this issue, we outline the central tenets of the culture-centered approach to health communication. What does the culture-centered approach address when suggesting the co-creation of voice infrastructures? What is the theory’s methodological emphasis for mobilizing and transforming structures that shape health inequalities for communities at the margins? Drawing on examples of culture-centered interventions in over fifty communities spread across 17 countries and three continents, a large number of them housed under the umbrella of the Center for Culture-centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at Massey University in Aotearoa, New Zealand, we articulate the communicative processes (referring to actionable sources and targets of communicative action) that shape the building of voice infrastructures mobilizing toward structural transformation. For instance, African American communities organizing under the framework of the culture-centered approach, documented in Dutta, Collins, and colleagues study in 2019, discuss the building of voice infrastructures where community members participate in co-creating heart health information based on comparative effectiveness research, building an African American media ecosystem disseminating the information alongside community-led initiatives growing healthy food, community-led youth activities, and activism addressing the racist structural drivers that adversely impact African American heart health. In this essay, we describe the impact of culture-centered interventions reflected in the voice infrastructures within communities that witness and articulate the oppressions that threaten human health at the margins and in the transformations of these structures that organize various facets of life and livelihood at the global margins linked to health.

Conducting Care-full Research: Collaborative Research amidst Corona, a Coup, and Other Crises

Abstract Feminists have long called attention to often profoundly uneven power relations in international relations research, assumptions regarding who is able to be a “knowledge producer,” and the risks of extractive research. In research “on” and with young people, these dilemmas are compounded by ageist suppositions about youth competencies. This paper reflects on efforts by the authors to design and undertake a youth-led, adult-supported research project on youth activism and peace processes in South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Myanmar through virtual interviews. It discusses how our approach to skills training, mentorship, and research design empowers youth researchers to engage in dialogue with youth peacebuilders to establish a more collaborative research agenda. Centering collaboration offers opportunities for more responsive engagement with communities traditionally marginalized within the research environment. The global pandemic has raised questions about research at a distance, the requirements of “participation,” and the ethics of reciprocity with research participants as knowledge producers. In each case, challenges raised difficult questions about the ethics of pursuing research in these complex contexts. We offer the idea of care-full research that centers a feminist, reflexive approach, is collaborative in multiple ways, and generates new possibilities for knowledge creation amidst multiple crises and beyond.

Reflections on co‐productive research in a youth‐focused climate education project

AbstractThe 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasises the value of listening to young people’s voices. Since its inception, there have been significant moves to involve young people in research that concerns their lives in a time of environmental emergency. Drawing on critical analysis of our work with Youth Action Partnerships (YAPs), this article explores how co‐production with young people can effectively be achieved and offers meaningful ways for young people to share their stories in a time of climate crisis. We draw on rich insights from our experience of working in partnership with young people and explore how they have been supported to shape and influence the research process. Our findings enable us to build on Hickey’s five principles for co‐production with adults in a health and social care context. We show that, in addition to those, there is need to consider three other principles when co‐working with youth. We embed the eight principles for co‐production in a new model for effective co‐production with young people to support researchers to successfully prepare for, and implement, such co‐production processes in other work.

Analysis of University Students' Perspectives on Physical Activity and Mandatory Physical Education

The decline in physical activity levels during the transition from high school to college is evident, despite the known impact of youth and adolescent physical activity on later life. Observable trends reveal a decline in enthusiasm for sports activities and a notable decrease in motivation for engaging in physical activity. The college environment plays a pivotal role in shaping students' engagement with physical activity, presenting an opportunity to significantly enhance their quality of life. This study's primary objective is to analyse university students' attitudes toward physical activity and assess their satisfaction with compulsory physical education at Masaryk University, comparing results spanning nearly two decades. In adherence to contemporary research methodologies, a questionnaire survey combining standard quantitative and qualitative analysis procedures was conducted. The survey questions focused on examining various facets of physical activity, including volume, intensity, sports preferences, and attitudes toward mandatory physical education at Masaryk University in Brno. A total of 1,293 respondents (422 men and 871 women) with an average age of 20.7 years participated in the study. The findings underscore a notable inclination among almost 73% of students to welcome an extension of compulsory physical education to 2 or more semesters (currently set at 2 semesters at MU). Moreover, over 75% of students express contentment with the spectrum of mandatory sports activities offered in physical education. The study reveals a growing interest among students in individual physical activities and a burgeoning enthusiasm for unorganized sports. These outcomes furnish valuable insights into students' perceptions regarding the organization of physical and sports education activities within university settings.

Motivation to participate in structured physical activity for autistic youth: A systematic scoping review.

Autistic youth participate less in physical education classes and organised sport than their neurotypical peers. We conducted a review of existing studies to investigate what is known about what motivates (and does not motivate) autistic youth to take part in structured physical activities. We systematically searched electronic databases and found 18 publications that met the criteria to be included in this review. Data from these studies were extracted and mapped to the self-determination theory to identify factors that support (or undermine) motivation for autistic youth. We also discussed the findings with autistic individuals and other relevant stakeholders to discover how the review related to their experiences. Our results found competence (youth feeling competent in their athletic and social skills and abilities) to be the most reported psychological need impacting motivation for autistic youth. Intrinsic motivation (participating for enjoyment and satisfaction) was the most common facilitator of motivation. Autism-specific themes outside of the self-determination theory were mapped inductively, and we found that the sensory environment was a prominent theme reported to influence the motivation of autistic youth not covered by the self-determination theory. The findings of this review suggest that supporting the psychological needs of autistic youth can foster motivation to engage in physical activity, although how these needs are met can differ from their neurotypical peers. Future research should examine motivational factors that support engagement in structured physical activities through the lens of autistic youth and their experiences.

The associations among sleep-related difficulties, anxiety, and error-related brain activity in youth

Given the high prevalence of anxiety disorders and their associated impairment, elucidating neural mechanisms related to these disorders has been increasingly prioritized. The error-related negativity (ERN) has been identified as a neural marker that indexes risk for anxiety across development. The ERN seems to confer risk for developing anxiety, especially in the context of stressful life events. The present study sought to examine sleep-related difficulties as another stressful factor that might impact the ERN. In a sample of 221 girls, aged 8 to 15 years old, we first examined the relationship between longer-term (i.e., over the past month) and shorter-term (i.e., over the past week) sleep difficulties and the ERN. We then investigated whether specific sleep difficulties uniquely predict the ERN. In exploratory analyses, we assessed whether sleep difficulties moderate the relationship between the ERN and anxiety. Results indicated that youth who report longer-term lower sleep duration, longer-term worse sleep, and shorter-term lower sleep duration on school days over the past week have a larger (i.e., more negative) ERN. Additionally, only shorter-term sleep duration on school days over the past week uniquely predicted the ERN. Finally, an elevated ERN predicted greater clinical anxiety in the context of longer-term sleep difficulties. Future studies should clarify the direction of these associations via longitudinal designs.