City Youth Research Articles

Longitudinal Physical Activity Changes in Adolescents

This study aimed to describe the 5-yr longitudinal change in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) among urban adolescents in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and to identify individual, family, and environmental factors associated with changes in MVPA. The Ho Chi Minh City Youth Cohort is a 5-yr longitudinal cohort with systematic random sampling of 759 students (48% boys) from 18 junior high schools in Ho Chi Minh City, conducted from 2004 to 2009. All measures were taken on five separate occassions. MVPA was assessed by self-report and accelerometry. Data were analyzed using multilevel linear regression models with estimation by generalized linear latent and mixed models. Overall, after adjusting for covariates, students' accelerometer-based MVPA reduced 38% per annum (rate ratio = 0.62, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.59-0.64). Boys spent 2.9 times more in MVPA (rate ratio = 2.94, 95% CI = 2.63-3.22) than their female peers. Compared with normal-weight adolescents, overweight and obese adolescents were doing 40% (rate ratio = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.53, 0.67) less MVPA. MVPA significantly declined among Vietnamese adolescents with age. This finding is similar to those reported among Western adolescents and suggests that strategies to promote physical activity in adolescents are a priority in Vietnam because economic transitioning potentially increases the risk of adopting unhealthy lifestyle behaviors associated with obesity and chronic diseases.

De rockeros y neojarochos. Culturas juveniles y lógicas de desarrollo cultural en la Xalapa contemporánea

En Xalapa, Veracruz, se expresan particulares manifestaciones juveniles —identidades, culturas, tribus, subculturas, contraculturas, ciberculturas— que muestran la complejidad de la vida social ligada a la globalización cultural. En términos de diversidad, la ciudad es laboratorio y escenario de múltiples representaciones juveniles donde se experimentan y exhiben culturas e identidades cuyas formas de ser son distintas en sus modos de relación con el Estado cultural, como el rock, distante de las políticas culturales oficiales, y el son jarocho "tradicional", más ligado a la intervención cultural. Ambas son alternativas identitarias entre las juventudes de la ciudad.

Book Review: Lost Youth in the Global City: Class, Culture and the Urban Imaginary

Book Review: Lost Youth in the Global City: Class, Culture and the Urban Imaginary

Endeavors in an Experimental Study on the Effectiveness of an Aftercare Program in the Netherlands

This article addresses our endeavors and experiences conducting a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to evaluate a promising aftercare intervention in the Netherlands. New Perspectives Aftercare Program (NPAP) is an intensive reentry program for serious juvenile and young adult offenders, aged 16 to 24, starting in the last phase of their detention or secure care and lasting for 9 months. Implementing the experimental study was a challenge, because it covered both the juvenile and adult justice system, with offenders receiving aftercare mandated under criminal and civil law, resulting in complex referral pathways complicating the system and moment of randomization. Other matters were related to resistance to random assignment and unforeseen conflicts between administrative and evaluation priorities of the different stakeholders, such as the city council and youth care organizations. Our experiences may be helpful to other researchers who encounter similar problems to fruitfully conduct experimental research in criminal justice settings.

Youth, marginalisation, and the city

Lost youth in the global city: class, culture and the urban imaginary, by Jo-Anne Dillabough and Jacqueline Kennelly, London, Routledge, 2010, 256 pp., £26.99 (paperback), ISBN-13 978-0415995580 A ...

Dialectics of the African Diaspora: The glocality of race and resistance in the Brazilian economy of violence

This article looks at the dialectics of race, space and death in the structuring of black urban life and in the making of the African Diaspora. It argues the African diaspora should be understood not only within the perspectives of the historical trauma of racial terror but also through the spatial agency developed by people of African descent as a way to reconstitute the self and forge a political community. Based on fieldwork with black youth in a shantytown in the city of São Paulo, the article aims to investigate the political subjectivities created through the state’s (morbid) interpellation of black youth in the global city. In order to answer this question, it pays attention to the spatial praxis developed by the direct victims of state violence to reclaim their right to a city divided along racial lines. Finally, it suggests that the global and local articulations of race and racism also convey a transnational explosive black political identity of which black youth spatially grounded strategies of resistance are just one example.

Contesting Privilege with Critical Participatory Action Research

The construct of privilege has been undertheorized in the field of psychology. The discipline more commonly examines those who have been disenfranchised, marginalized, and discriminated against. However, psychologists concerned with social issues must also attend to questions of power and privilege. This article uses a collaborative research project with New York City youth and adults called Polling for Justice to engage in a discussion about privilege as it runs through three areas of that work: by design, in results, and through action. First, the paper argues that privilege is an epistemological standpoint of empirical psychology that has been disguised as objectivity. Next, that privilege is a set of material and social psychological conditions that protect adolescents as they develop, take risks, and mature. Finally, that those who hold privilege can embrace and model a sense of collective responsibility and solidarity, not retreat or passively empathize.

Music and Youth in Brazilian Contemporary Society

Abstract: Based on qualitative and quantitative research with 1,080 youth in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Porto Alegre, this article analyzes the role of music in the constitution of young people's everyday lives. Focusing on how youth obtain, store, and listen to music, as well as on how they describe the presence of music in their lives, we argue that music – facilitated by digital technology – permeates and gives meaning to young people's lives in a way more pervasive than ever before, to the extent that, in their words, it constitutes the ‘soundtrack’ of each individual life. We propose to understand this puzzling statement through a material culture framework, and to do so we ask: how do youth currently give meaning to music as a key feature of life, and how do music and the objects through which it is experienced constitute life as such?

The Success and Contradictions of New Deal Democratic Populism:

The Success and Contradictions of New Deal Democratic Populism:

A Canadian Medical School in Partnership with an Inner City School Division and Community Organization to Promote Interest in Science to Aboriginal and is advantaged Youth: Plugging the First Leakage in the Medical Pipeline

The Biomedical Youth Program and the Inner City Science Centre are the main components of a partnership between the Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg School Division, and the Winnipeg Foundation. This partnership serves the inner city elementary schools that have a predominant population of aboriginal youth. It aims to promote diversity in health professions education, which have underrepresentation of aboriginal and inner city youth. Although aboriginal people represent 4% of the Canadian population, they make up less than 0.25% of the physician workforce. The partnership has three main goals: to provide professional development for teachers; mentor students to build their knowledge, motivation, and confidence in science; and to promote teachers’, students’, and parents’ interests and excitement in the sciences and health professions careers. The partnership’s activities include workshops for teachers to teach science from a lecture-based format into a problem-based curriculum and to develop their leadership skills in order to positively influence science education. Since 2006 approximately 4035 elementary pupils, of whom 43% are aboriginal, have participated in the activities. Evaluations provide evidence of the activities’ effectiveness in promoting teachers’ and students’ interest in science and the health professions, and significant gain in students’ achievements. 75% of the aboriginal participants are now in high schools, and 46% of them have gone on to participate in science fairs, with a success rate of 37% medal awards. 27% of the teachers have been recognized as science consultants, and appointed as site facilitators. These facilitators are now providing workshops for other teachers. Thus, enhancing science education early on in elementary school rather than in high school is likely to stop the leakage in the medical pipeline.

Cohort profile: Ho Chi Minh City Youth Cohort—changes in diet, physical activity, sedentary behaviour and relationship with overweight/obesity in adolescents

ObjectivesThe Ho Chi Minh Youth cohort study aimed to assess the change in nutritional status; indicators of adiposity; diet; physical activity and sedentary behaviours; home, neighbourhood and school microenvironments and...

Cultural Relevance and Working with Inner City Youth Populations to Achieve Civic Engagement

This article helps Extension professionals consider the cultural relevant needs of inner city residents in hopes of achieving ongoing civic engagement and appropriate program activities in these communities. Having a deep understanding of how the various dimensions of marginalized community life among inner city populations affect participation in organized civic activities is necessary for Extension professionals who seek to increase civic engagement capacity among inner city populations. Bridging the unexplored geographical differences of urban vs. suburban Extension will help to achieve successful youth engagement work in America's inner city communities.

Effect of HealthCorps, a High School Peer Mentoring Program, on Youth Diet and Physical Activity

Childhood ObesityVol. 7, No. 5 Effect of HealthCorps, a High School Peer Mentoring Program, on Youth Diet and Physical ActivityJohn Cawley, Linda Cisek-Gillman, Rob Roberts, Carolyn Cocotas, Tieshka Smith-Cook, Michelle Bouchard, and Mehmet OzJohn CawleySearch for more papers by this author, Linda Cisek-GillmanSearch for more papers by this author, Rob RobertsSearch for more papers by this author, Carolyn CocotasSearch for more papers by this author, Tieshka Smith-CookSearch for more papers by this author, Michelle BouchardSearch for more papers by this author, and Mehmet OzSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:18 Oct 2011https://doi.org/10.1089/chi.2011.0022AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byLatino Children's Obesity Risk Varies by Place of Birth: Findings from New York City Public School Youth, 2006–2017 Karen R. Flórez, Sophia E. Day, Terry T.-K. Huang, Kevin J. Konty, and Emily M. D'Agostino27 June 2022 | Childhood Obesity, Vol. 18, No. 5Longitudinal Association between Weight Status, Aerobic Capacity, Muscular Strength, and Endurance among New York City Youth, 2010–2017 Emily M. D'Agostino, Sophia E. Day, Kevin J. Konty, Sarah C. Armstrong, Asheley C. Skinner, and Cody D. Neshteruk27 June 2022 | Childhood Obesity, Vol. 0, No. 0Friends Like Me: Associations in Overweight/Obese Status among Adolescent Friends by Race/Ethnicity, Sex, and Friendship Type Meg Bruening, Richard MacLehose, Marla E. Eisenberg, Sunkyung Kim, Mary Story, and Dianne Neumark-Sztainer14 December 2015 | Childhood Obesity, Vol. 11, No. 6Healthcare Peer-to-Peer: Boots on the Ground in the Battle for a Healthier Nation Mehmet Oz13 December 2011 | Childhood Obesity, Vol. 7, No. 6Peer Mentoring for Health Promotion and Weight Control in Children: A Glass Half Full David L. Katz18 October 2011 | Childhood Obesity, Vol. 7, No. 5 Volume 7Issue 5Oct 2011 Information©2011 by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.To cite this article:John Cawley, Linda Cisek-Gillman, Rob Roberts, Carolyn Cocotas, Tieshka Smith-Cook, Michelle Bouchard, and Mehmet Oz.Effect of HealthCorps, a High School Peer Mentoring Program, on Youth Diet and Physical Activity.Childhood Obesity.Oct 2011.364-371.http://doi.org/10.1089/chi.2011.0022Published in Volume: 7 Issue 5: October 18, 2011Online Ahead of Print:September 6, 2011PDF download

“To Trust in My Root and to Take That to Go Forward”: Supporting College Access for Immigrant Youth in the Global City

Increasing numbers of immigrant youth are coming of age within global cities that are characterized by growing inequalities and few opportunities for social mobility. These youth face numerous educational obstacles that complicate college and labor market access. This article draws from an ethnographic study of public high schools serving low-income, recently arrived immigrant students and explores how the schools provide students with the academic skills and social capital to support college going. It considers how the schools attempt to create new understandings and expectations of the educational possibilities available to low income immigrant students, thus creating a social imaginary that resists the racialized hierarchies of the global city. [immigrant students, English-language learners, college access, social capital, globalization]

Teaching Newton’s Laws to Urban Middle School Students in a College-Based Science Enrichment Program

Participation in secondary physics has been shown to be limited for underrepresented students in urban school districts. This study explores an alternative means for providing physics access for city youth through the use of a university-based Saturday enrichment program for eighth grade Latino students. During a three-week unit on Newton’s laws, students engaged in inquiry-based lessons that featured hands-on tasks, probeware with handheld sensing devices, computer simulations, iPod Touch applications, and multiple representations of mechanics concepts. Students were tested pre- and post- with a modified Force Concept Inventory. Results indicated significant gains in student understanding of Newton’s laws. Implications for physics teaching and learning in urban middle schools and informal science settings are discussed.

Suburban Advantage: Opportunity Hoarding and Secondary Attainment in the Postwar Metropolitan North

This study examines urban/suburban differences in educational outcomes in light of Tilly’s conception of “opportunity hoarding.” Data from the U.S. Census reveal the changing circumstances of 17-year-olds in central city and suburban settings across the post–World War II period. Focusing on the metropolitan Northeast and Eastern Midwest, we consider a range of factors associated with differences in educational attainment. Using a multilevel analytic strategy, we find evidence that clear distinctions emerged in this period, marking the educational status of youth in central city and suburban settings. While there were signs of urban/suburban inequality in certain metropolitan contexts and for specific types of suburbs in 1940, 40 years later the urban-suburban divide was clearly evident across all metropolitan settings. A wide range of factors became associated with this form of spatial differentiation in school experiences during the postwar era, suggesting that a prolonged process of systematic exclusion characterized this dimension of metropolitan development. We close with a brief discussion of policy implications for addressing school-related factors that may contribute to these differences.

P01-559 - Vancouver's inner-city youth: New approaches for a changing demographic

IntroductionInner-city youth suffer a high burden of mental illness and seek health care on an episodic basis (McCreary, 2001).These youth tend to receive limited support services due to a lack of continuity of care as they move from child to adult services. Other barriers include homelessness and substance use.The Vancouver Inner City Youth Mental Health Program (ICYMHP) is a psychiatry led initiative to provide psychiatric services and further collaboration between inner-city youth agencies providing care to at risk youth.AimsTo introduce and review a collaborative model of care between psychiatric services and community based organizations.To review the demographics, presentations and outcomes of youth assessed through the ICYMHP.MethodsA chart review of all clients assessed through the program from its inception (November 2007) to May 2009 (18 months).ResultsResults from clients seen between November 2007 and June 2008 indicate an incidence of psychosis of 40% in men and 21% in women. Mood disorders were the primary diagnosis in 18% of men and 29% of women. Active substance misuse is high (71% of men, cannabis as drug of choice; 54% of women, methamphetamine as drug of choice). Length of stay at Covenant House nearly tripled for those under the care of the ICYMH versus the general shelter population, a positive outcome (21 days versus 9).ConclusionsInner-city homeless youth suffer from a high burden of mental illness. A collaborative model of care exists to improve health care quality and delivery to this population.

Building the future: children's views on nurses and hospital care

Healthcare policies such as standard 7 of the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services and the new NMC standards for pre-registration nursing programmes emphasise the need for universities and their partner trusts to engage with patients and the public in developing both nurse training courses and services. This article describes a two-arm study into the views and experiences of children with regard to hospitals. Conducted as part of an ongoing commitment to the reconfiguration of children's services and the development of a new undergraduate children's nursing programme, the study collected data from 61 children in two children's hospitals in the south of England and from eight members of a city youth parliament. The study sought to involve child users in service planning through two objectives: 1) to ascertain the views of children and young people on what skills, knowledge and attitudes, children's nurses of the future will need to care for sick children and their families; and 2) to seek the views of young people on what children think about before being admitted to hospital, and subsequently as inpatients. The study used a draw and write/tell technique. The main outcome measures were description and analysis of those attributes which children believe nurses of the future should possess, and of those factors which inhibit or enhance childhood hospital admission. A number of themes emerged from analysis of the data: notably that children's nurses of the future should be skilled in both verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as having fundamental clinical skills. Issues relating to children about to be admitted to hospital included being scared or worried, and fear of the unknown, while concerns after admission to hospital related to the care environment, social needs, and individual/ personal needs and requirements. This patient and public involvement study revealed a number areas that children and young people believe to be important for the future training of children's nurses. Additionally, the factors which children consider inhibit or enhance the experience of hospital admission have been identified.

What Leadership Looks Like: Using Photography to See the School Leaders that City Youth Desire

In the city setting in which this article's investigation took place, high school dropout rates have remained above 50% for better than three decades. This article reports on a photographic inquiry into urban youth's perceptions of the very institution of school, revealing reasons behind the multigenerational school disengagement represented by these graduation rate statistics. Relying on visually based mechanisms with which city students are already proficient, the findings suggest that these tools can provide previously inaccessible data on school detachment as well as deepen our perspectives on what these youth believe about school leaders and leadership.

Rock and roll in the Rocket City: the West, identity, and ideology in Soviet Dniepropetrovsk, 1960-1985

How did rock music and other products of Western culture come to pervade youth culture in Brezhnev-era Dniepropetrovsk, a Ukrainian city essentially closed to outsiders and heavily policed by the KGB? In Rock and Roll in the Rocket City, Sergei I. Zhuk assesses the impact of Westernization on the city's youth, examining the degree to which the consumption of Western music, movies, and literature ultimately challenged the ideological control maintained by state officials. One among many of his stories is how the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar led Dniepropetrovsk's young people to embrace not just one, but two Soviet taboos: rock music and Christianity. This book is the first historical study-in any language-of the everyday lives of Soviet urban youth during the Brezhnev era. A longtime student and resident of Dniepropetrovsk, Zhuk began research for this project in the 1990s. Weaving together diaries, interviews, oral histories, and KGB and party archival documents, he provides a vivid account of how Soviet cultural repression and unrest during the Brezhnev period laid the groundwork for a resurgent Ukrainian nationalism in the 1980s. In so doing, he demonstrates the influence of Western cultural consumption on the formation of a post-Soviet national identity.