Youth Development Organizations Research Articles

Volunteer work in youth organizations: predicting distinct aspects of volunteering behavior from self‐ and other‐oriented motives

AbstractThis study examined the impact of motivational underpinnings of volunteerism on self‐reported volunteer behaviors and satisfaction. Data from 153 volunteers in youth organizations supported a two‐dimensional structure of self‐ and other‐oriented motives. Self‐oriented motives were more important in explaining in‐role volunteer behavior, while other‐oriented concerns were also important in predicting extra‐role volunteer behavior and satisfaction. These findings are discussed in the context of a functional approach to volunteerism and linked to recent findings regarding the role of self‐ and other‐oriented motives from the organizational literature. Suggestions for recruiting and motivating young volunteers in youth development organizations are presented.

Engaging Youth, Serving Community: Social Change Lessons from a 4-H Rural Youth Development Program

As a part of its collaboration with the Born This Way Foundation, the Berkman Center is publishing a series of papers that synthesize existing peer-reviewed research or equivalent scholarship and provide research-grounded insight to the variety of stakeholders working on issues related to youth empowerment and action towards creating a kinder, braver world. This series, called the The Kinder & Braver World Project: Research Series (danah boyd, John Palfrey, and Dena Sacco, editors), is presented by the Born This Way Foundation & the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and supported by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. This set of papers involves topics related to the Role of Youth Organizations and Youth Movements for Social Change.Social change targeted at empowering youth requires youth and adults to work together as equals. Youth-adult partnerships create a platform to amplify youth voices. To succeed, youth-adult partnerships must be built on open communication and equal voice. By providing opportunities for youth to develop their voices and build positive relationships with adults, youth-adult partnerships help youth see themselves as competent individuals who can contribute to decisions that impact their communities while helping them develop leadership skills and improve their self-esteem. Such partnerships also help adults gain leadership skills and experience a renewed sense of energy and commitment to their work. Organizations benefit because youth bring fresh perspectives to decision-making processes. Communities are rejuvenated through youthful energy, and when fresh perspectives of societal issues provide new solutions. For such initiatives to succeed, public stakeholders must recognize the importance of youth participation. 4-H has developed an initiative that focuses on exactly this issue.4-H is the largest youth development organization in the United States, with more than 6 million youth participants; 514,000 volunteers; 3,200 professionals; and over 70 million alumni. 4-H engages youth from elementary through high school in experiential learning activities through research-driven programming. The experiential learning model has five steps: experience and discover; share results; process information; generalize about the experience; and, apply to other areas. In a well-designed experiential learning model, youth are fully engaged in learning processes. Four basic youth needs are met by 4-H: Mastery, Belonging, Generosity, and Independence.Engaging Youth, Serving Community (EYSC) is a 4-H program funded through the National 4-H Council and the United States Department of Agriculture/National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA). EYSC is designed to empower communities to involve youth as partners with adults in decision-making and governance. From 2006 to 2010, EYSC included 18 land-grant university projects representing 17 states. Each university worked with at least five rural underserved communities with a population of 10,000 people or less, reaching over 90 different communities during the five years.Using a case study, this paper shares six broadly applicable lessons learned through the EYSC program. Based on evaluation and understanding of the EYSC experience, it highlights examples of how youth-adult partnerships can promote social change and civic engagement.

HOW YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY COLLABORATION CONTRIBUTE TO SAFE COMMUNITIES

BackgroundThe Wellington Boys' and Girls' Institute (BGI) is a youth development organisation that works in partnership with the Wellington City Council (WCC) to make Wellington a safer community for all...

Ladders to Leadership: What Camp Counselor Positions Do for Youth

The 4-H youth development organization understands and has recognized residential camping as one of the major modes of program delivery. Primary benefactors of the residential camping program are those youth who serve as camp counselors. Not only are they recipients of the educational program, but also supervise and teach younger campers (Garst & Johnson, 2005; McNeely, 2004). As a result of their experience, camp counselors learn about and develop leadership and life skills (Thomas, 1996; Purcell, 1996). The residential camping experience allows youth to serve as volunteers through their role as camp counselors. In addition to the benefits earned from their volunteer role, residential camping provides youth camp counselors the opportunity to gain leadership skills (Arnold, 2003) as well as add to the camp structure, planning, and implementation (Hines & Riley, 2005).

Diversity and Inclusion in Youth Development: What We Can Learn from Marginalized Young People

As we commemorate 100 years of youth development programs whose origins are traced to organizations founded in the United States, we consider key insights as well as strategies relevant for diversity and inclusion. Many of the large, mainstream youth development organizations and programs that were founded over a century ago now primarily serve youth in the “mainstream”: youth from the middle classes, traditional families, and dominant cultural groups. A growing body of scholarship considers the positive development of youth who are marginalized due to their social class, ability, sexuality, citizenship status, race, ethnicity, or culture. We draw insights from studies of youth and families who are immigrants, or who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). These findings provide a vantage point for considering ways that contemporary youth development organizations might stretch the margins, or adapt their practices, in order to reach and include all youth.

Walking the Extra Mile: Navigating Slum Identities Through Social Activism in Mathare, Kenya

This article uses narrative lenses to explore the identities that emerge among youth living in a slum in Kenya. Using the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA), a youth development organization, as a site for analysis, the author examines various perspectives that emanate from the youths' own accounts of their lives. This study focuses specifically on how the identities of MYSA youth are situated within competing narratives that are located at the intersection of personal and societal discourse. Data from MYSA is used to reveal how the youth consume and navigate dominant narratives. Further, the performed identities that emerge when the youth embody societal narratives about themselves, as well as how they use counter narratives to reject pre-determined societal identities, is discussed.

A Heuristic Framework for Understanding the Role of Participatory Decision Making in Community‐Based Non‐Profits

This paper explores the role of member participation in decision-making (PDM) from an organizational learning (OL) perspective. Community-based organizations (CBOs) serve as mediators between the individual and the local community, often providing the means for community member participation and benefiting organizationally from members' input. Community psychologists have recognized these benefits; however, the field has paid less attention to the role participation plays in increasing CBOs' capacity to meet community needs. We present a framework for exploring how CBO contextual factors influence the use of participatory decision-making structures and practices, and how these affect OL. We then use the framework to examine PDM in qualitative case study analysis of four CBOs: a youth development organization, a faith-based social action coalition, a low-income neighborhood organization, and a large human service agency. We found that organizational form, energy, and culture each had a differential impact on participation in decision making within CBOs. We highlight how OL is constrained in CBOs and document how civic aims and voluntary membership enhanced participation and learning.

Promoting Adolescent Health Via the Internet in Youth and Family Development Organizations in Central America

Promoting Adolescent Health Via the Internet in Youth and Family Development Organizations in Central America

Selves in play: Sports, scouts, and American cultural citizenship

US youth organizations, several now celebrating their hundredth birthdays, have inherited a history of crafting selves through cultural appropriation. In organizations such as the YMCA, Boy Scouts of America, and Camp Fire Girls, woodcraft and wilderness sports associated with Native Americans have played a privileged role, serving to construct American citizens through a form of mimesis popularly known as ‘playing Indian’. As dominant ways of dealing with cultural diversity have changed from assimilation and cultural appropriation to multicultural inclusion, and as various anti-discrimination laws have been enacted, US youth organizations have struggled to transform their traditions. This article tracks a history of cultural appropriation and organized play in US youth development organizations in order to understand these organizations’ dilemmas and strategies as they attempt to remain vital and relevant in the 21st century.

Getting Real Results with Ohio State University Extension’s Real Money. Real World. Program

Youth development organizations have a unique opportunity to offer programs that help young people develop financial skills they need to become successful adults. This article describes Ohio State University Extension’s Real Money. Real World. (RMRW) and the systematic approach used to evaluate its effectiveness. The RMRW curriculum includes an active, hands-on experience that gives young people the opportunity to make lifestyle and budget choices similar to those they will make as adults. The realistic simulation creates a teachable moment. The outcomes of the statewide evaluation clearly indicate the curriculum accomplishes its goals of raising awareness, changing attitudes, and motivating students to plan for behavior changes concerning financial management, education, and career choices. The article concludes with a discussion of the organizational outcomes of conducting the evaluation.

Participation in Boys & Girls Clubs, vulnerability, and problem behaviors

Using a risk and resilience approach, this study examined the impact of participation in Boys & Girls Clubs on reducing vulnerability and problem behaviors among 297 youths aged 9 to 16 years of age. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to examine the relationships among the observed indicators of Club participation and poor self-concept and the latent constructs of vulnerability and problem behaviors. Results indicate that participation in Boys & Girls Clubs had a small, but significant relationship with a decrease in poor self-concept. Poor self-concept was in turn directly related to increased vulnerability; and increased vulnerability was related to increased problem behaviors. These findings point to the importance of Boys & Girls Clubs and other youth development organizations in promoting positive self-concepts to help decrease vulnerability and problem behaviors among program participants.

Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components of civic action: Towards an integrated measure of civic engagement

Using data from 8th grade participants in the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, factor analytic procedures were used to explore a model of active, engaged citizenship, termed Civic Identity/Civic Engagement (CICE). We identified a higher order factor model in which CICE is a second-order latent variable that is comprised of several dimensions including civic duty, civic skills, and civic participation, adult social connection, peer social connection, and neighborhood social connection. Covariation was assessed between CICE scores and participation in youth development organizations, such as 4-H. Participation in 4-H was related to higher scores on five of the six factors as well as the overall CICE score. Both limitations of this study and the need for longitudinal assessments of CICE are noted and the implications of the presence of an integrated construct of civic engagement for the conduct of youth programs is discussed.

Impact of Yearlong 4-H Japanese Internship Experience on United States Participants

The importance of cultural understanding, intercultural communication skills, and foreign language ability is being echoed from a variety of different platforms including the business, governmental, and educational arenas. For the past 15 years, the States’ 4-H International Programs Committee has collaborated with Japanese youth development organizations to provide year-long internship experiences for young adults who have previously participated in the 4-H Program. Using survey research, this descriptive study was conducted to explore the benefits of the internship program on the lives and career choices of the former interns. Among the many benefits described by the former interns, gains in personal growth were clearly expressed. Increased self-confidence, flexibility, tolerance and adaptability were evident. Values learned by the interns are being passed on to their children. Recommendations to strengthen the internship program included a more strategic use of former interns in preparing new interns for their positions.

Engaging Adolescents as Community Organizers

VOX Teen Communications, a non-profit youth development organization in Atlanta, GA, positions adolescents as leaders in their community. Empowerment theory and a participatory approach are tools often utilized to achieve youth leadership. Teens participated in a community organizing project to create a “for-teens”, “by-teens” resource guide Web site (www.teenresourceatl.org). This guide evaluates agencies, Web sites and hotlines on their “teen-friendliness” when providing services to youth in need. The empowerment-based program allowed the teens to take ownership of the project, resulting in a high level of commitment. Anticipated successes of the program include better access to help for teens in need; positioning teens as both users of the guide and leaders of the project; increased confidence and skill-level of the teen participants; and better informed service providers in the community.

Religion as a resource for positive youth development: Religion, social capital, and moral outcomes.

Although existing literature demonstrates that developmental benefits are associated with religion for adolescents, little is understood about the dynamics of this relationship. Drawing on social capital theory, this study tested a conceptual model exploring socially embedded religious influences on moral outcomes. A three-dimensional model of social capital demonstrated how social interaction, trust, and shared vision enable social ties associated with religiousness to influence moral behavior. Structural equation modeling was used with data gathered from 735 urban youths to test a proposed model of the effects of religiousness on moral outcomes. Results suggested that religiously active youths report higher levels of social capital resources and that the influence of adolescent religiousness on moral outcomes was mediated through social capital resources. Suggestions for further research and implications for faith-based youth development organizations are considered.

Community contexts for mentoring

AbstractMentoring programs attempt to foster a relationship that is too often missing from the lives of disadvantaged children and youth. However, in view of both the power and the limitations of mentoring programs, it is important to understand how mentoring occurs naturally. Assuming an ecological perspective, we examine mentoring in four contexts: classrooms, youth development organizations, work and service‐learning, and faith‐ based organizations. Although none has been studied in sufficient depth, and no research has been found on natural mentoring in faith‐based organizations, available evidence indicates that such mentoring adds to young people's intellectual, psychological and emotional, social, and, to a lesser extent, physical assets. This review poses many questions for future research, including fundamental ones about the prevalence of mentoring in these contexts, the circumstances in which it arises, and its risks and benefits. Nonetheless, the evidence is sufficient to encourage practitioners to promote mentoring relationships of youth and adults in all of these contexts. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Case for Expanded School-Community Partnerships in Support of Positive Youth Development

This article discusses the results of two studies exploring the status of partnerships between schools and community organizations. In the first study, 90 teachers, administrators, and support service staff reported that the most common type of partnership involved youth development organizations, mental health providers, parents and residents, and the juvenile justice sector. Respondents described the need for further partnership expansion with the business sector, parents and residents, the juvenile justice sector, and youth development organizations, particularly in relation to academic support, youth development, and prevention and social service programming. Given the importance of youth development organizations in supporting these program and service delivery needs, the second study surveyed 389 school staff members working in schools that had out-of-school-time programs operating in their communities. Results indicated that communication, coordination, and collaboration within these partnerships were often limited in scope. The need for more expansive and strategic school-community partnerships is discussed, particularly the role of the school social worker in fostering these linkages and system designs.

Job Satisfaction among Employees of a Youth Development Organization

The purpose of this study was to explore the association between overall job satisfaction and selected demographic variables among 332 employees of a youth development organization. The Job Satisfaction Index (JSI) was used to measure the level of job satisfaction, and demographic information was obtained via a questionnaire developed by the researchers. Data analysis procedures included descriptive statistics, Spearman’s rho, Pearson r, t tests, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results indicated no significant relationships or differences (p = 0.05) between job satisfaction and demographic variables. These findings have implications for future research on job satisfaction and employee retention in youth development organizations.

4-H Volunteer Leader Skills and Implications for Global 4-H Program Development

When 4-H originated in 1902, the intent was to improve agricultural practices and enhance quality of life for rural American families through youth development. Its success is evident; it remains the oldest and largest youth development organization in the U.S. with an increasing international component. Over 80 countries currently participate in 4-H programs, the majority of which maintain an agrarian and rural quality of life focus in program goals and curricula. Contemporary 4-H programs also convene youth from diverse ethnic, cultural and economic backgrounds through international youth exchange programs. A unique feature of 4-H worldwide is its reliance upon adult volunteer leaders who teach and guide youth. This study reports the results of an assessment of volunteer leaders’ skills to promote positive youth development among 4-H youth in the U.S. The authors developed survey items to assess seven adult skills that foster positive youth development among youth: physical and psychological safety; appropriate structure for youth development; opportunities for youth to learn about supportive relationships; opportunities for youth to belong; opportunities for youth to learn about positive social norms; opportunities for building life skills; and support for efficacy and mattering. Study results indicate that parents who participate in 4-H as volunteer leaders tend to rate their skills to work with youth significantly higher than parents who do not volunteer to lead. These results provide important information for Extension 4-H agents in the U.S. and abroad who recruit, screen, educate and manage adult volunteer leaders to promote positive development among 4-H youth.

Religion as a resource for positive youth development: religion, social capital, and moral outcomes.

Although existing literature demonstrates that developmental benefits are associated with religion for adolescents, little is understood about the dynamics of this relationship. Drawing on social capital theory, this study tested a conceptual model exploring socially embedded religious influences on moral outcomes. A three-dimensional model of social capital demonstrated how social interaction, trust, and shared vision enable social ties associated with religiousness to influence moral behavior. Structural equation modeling was used with data gathered from 735 urban youths to test a proposed model of the effects of religiousness on moral outcomes. Results suggested that religiously active youths report higher levels of social capital resources and that the influence of adolescent religiousness on moral outcomes was mediated through social capital resources. Suggestions for further research and implications for faith-based youth development organizations are considered.