Youth In Toronto Research Articles

Barriers to youth sport participation in dense urban centres

This research examines barriers that urban youth face which limit participation in sport. Conceptually, this work distinguishes between three categories of active (participatory) engagement: 1) those that never participated; 2) those that used to participate; 3) those that do participate; and their level of passive engagement. A set of hypotheses for urban youth sport participation incorporating external and intrinsic factors are tested and guided by the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Based on pre-interviews with urban youth (n = 53), a large-sample survey (n = 3,003) of youth in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver was conducted. Results identified four segments of urban youth participation; a multiple regression analysis supported the TPB as an appropriate lens for understanding urban youth sport participation. The development of segments of urban youth based on sport engagement has implications for managers involved in promoting participation. The article contributes theoretically through the extension of the TPB in the context of urban youth participation.

Growing Through the Cracks: Community-Engaged Education and Countering School Disengagement

In this paper, I lay out the possibilities for community-engaged education as a tool for countering school disengagement with marginalized youth in Toronto. Using interviews and observations with staff, youth, and parents who participate in a community-based tutoring and mentoring program, I explore how the program’s grassroots commitments work to minimize marginalization and the pushout of students within the Latinx and Portuguese communities in Toronto. By building relationships based on trust and responding to the community’s needs, parental engagement, and academic-community partnerships, the program creates a space of community engagement that involves the whole family in changing narratives about both communities and their place within the public education system. I posit that this type of community-engaged education is effective in increasing access to postsecondary education for traditionally marginalized students.

Food Insecurity, Dietary Intakes, and Eating Behaviors in a Convenience Sample of Toronto Youth

Background: Food insecurity has been shown to be associated with poor dietary quality and eating behaviors, which can have both short- and long-term adverse health outcomes in children. The objective was to investigate the food security status, dietary intakes, and eating behaviors in a convenience sample of youth participating in the Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment LaunchPad programming in downtown Toronto, Ontario. Methods: Youth aged 9–18 years were recruited to participate in the study. Food security status, dietary intakes, and eating behaviors were collected using parent- or self-reported questionnaires online. Results: Sixty-six youth (mean ± SD: 11.7 ± 1.9 years) participated in the study. The prevalence of household food insecurity was higher than the national average with at least one child under 18 years of age (27.7% vs. 16.2%). Dietary intake patterns were similar to the national trends with low intakes of fiber, inadequate intakes of calcium and vitamin D; and excess intakes of sodium, added sugar, and saturated fat. Despite a low prevalence of poor eating habits, distracted eating was the most frequently reported poor eating habit. Conclusions: Although youth were at high risk for experiencing household food insecurity, inadequate dietary intake patterns were similar to the national trends. Our findings can be used to develop future programming to facilitate healthy dietary behaviors appropriate for the target community.

“It Just Makes You Have More Problems”: An Examination of Anti-snitching Codes among Black Youths in Toronto

Subcultural codes against compliance with the police, or “snitching,” have factored prominently in public and law enforcement discourses related to urban violence and crime prevention. However, scholarship on these issues focuses almost entirely on the United States. This study investigates attitudes toward compliance with the police and perceptions of snitching among a sample of a Black youths who reside in socially and economically marginalized neighbourhoods in Toronto. Drawing on 32 in-depth interviews, I examine how perceptions of community safety and experiences with policing have impacted young people’s willingness to report crimes and comply with police investigations. Contrary to popular discourses, being seen speaking with police or providing information did not necessarily constitute snitching. Rather, consistent with prior research, a complex set of variables, including age, gender, and the perceived seriousness of the crime, all factored in determining what constituted snitching and when someone was considered a snitch. My findings challenge the essentializing nature of popular discourses on snitching while also highlighting how diminished perceptions of police legitimacy and efficacy have impacted young people’s willingness to report crimes and comply with police investigations. Finally, I discuss the implications of my findings for efforts to reform the police and improve police–community relations.

Perspectives of Refugee Youth Experiencing Homelessness: A Qualitative Study of Factors Impacting Mental Health and Resilience.

Homeless refugee youth experience high rates of traumatic and adverse experiences, a significant burden of mental health needs, and compounded barriers in accessing support services. Despite this, there is a paucity of literature exploring the unique intersections and vulnerabilities faced by this subgroup. This study of Youth Without Shelter (YWS), an emergency residence and referral agency serving homeless youth in Toronto, Canada was a qualitative study of homeless refugee youth. Research goals were to describe the mental health needs and identify the factors contributing to the resiliency of refugee youth experiencing homelessness. Data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews with YWS youth (n = 6) and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis with a realist lens. Results highlighted that the mental health of refugee youth experiencing homelessness was subject to system-level factors such as the immigration process (n = 6), housing insecurity (n = 5), finances (n = 5), education (n = 6), employment (n = 6) and sense of safety (n = 4), with acculturative stress, including culture shock (n = 3) and language (n = 4), also have negative effects. Goal directedness (n = 5), independence or responsibility (n = 4), and nurturing social connectedness with family (n = 5), peers (n = 6), and community (n = 4) contributed to participants' resilience. A model for planning future interventions was proposed and was informed by the lived experience of participants. This model focuses on initially on immediate and basic needs and reflected evidence gathered through this work to attend to long-term needs once individuals have integrated into society. Future efforts will be directed toward translating the lived experience of this population and developing practice guidelines to optimize care.

A Practice-based Methodology on Conducting a Collaborative Scoping Review with PRISMA-ScR Model for the Separated Refugee Youth Project

Considering the novelty of the area of a 2-year study on impact of family loss and separation on refugee youth in Toronto, the research team decided to conduct a scoping review of the existing literature as a foundation document that included the extent, range, geography, and nature of research on the topic of interest.
 A collaborative co-design approach for this review bought in wisdom from relevant stakeholders. Arksey and O’Malley’s framework was modified for this scoping review that substantively identified the extent and magnitude of past research, research gaps, and best practice models for conducting such exploratory research on novel ideas. This framework yielded desired output, such as selection and characteristics of sources of evidence, critical appraisal within sources of evidence, and synthesis of results for the next steps of the research. Prudent researchers and professionals in this area of research, service provider agencies, and a university librarian were consulted. The PRISMA-ScR model saved time and ensured the appropriate yield of the search items. The quality of the review process was evaluated by the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Qualitative Studies Checklist tool.
 This article displays a practical example of how the scoping review process was instrumental in a community-based research project with separated refugee youth to generate the foundational evidence for broader research. This quality-embedded process of collecting and charting data for a scoping review is transferable to similar research initiatives. The flexibility and reproducibility of this review method are commendable.

“Jamaican” as Synecdoche for Black Male Identification: Performing Blackness in Toronto

Findings from youth focus groups in Jamaica and Canada between spring and summer 2013 elucidate the ways in which the construction of Jamaican masculinity is both deployed and challenged by Black youth in Toronto. In Toronto, where Jamaicans make up the largest share of Black communities, Jamaica and Jamaicanness are made to stand in for a homogenous Blackness that satisfies two competing desires. On the one hand, “Jamaican,” as a powerful sign of cultural difference, is used to entrench racist discursive narratives that collapse Blackness into a fixed and fearsome category. On the other hand, Black youth of various cultural backgrounds deploy Jamaica and Jamaicanness as modes of community and resistance, even as they challenge efforts to collapse their racialized intersectional differences into a Black nonparticularity. Black youth thus unsettle the city’s racist narrative by centring modes of identity formation grounded in their own political agency and practices of survival.

‘Like, what even is a podcast?’ Approaching sport-for-development youth participatory action research through digital methodologies

ABSTRACT This paper reports findings from a participatory-based study with racialised newcomer youth in Toronto that utilised digital methodologies – specifically the act of podcasting – to explore connections between sport and social development. The paper examines the complex, and sometimes contradictory, relationships between participatory research and digital technologies when examining the social meanings of sport and physical activity for youth. The main argument is that despite important challenges and limitations, employing digital technologies as a form of participatory research can provide specific opportunities to (co)produce knowledge and experiences about sport and social development that may not be available or achievable within a traditional research framework. These findings are used to discuss future issues and questions around the use of participatory research approaches in the field of sport for development.

Aboriginal Youth Talk about Structural Determinants as the Causes of their Homelessness

This article explores structural determinants as possible causes of the homelessness of Aboriginal youth in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It includes a brief literature review and provides some of the findings of a recent research project, which implemented an Aboriginal research methodology with homeless youth in Toronto. These findings point to a strong link between Aboriginal children growing up in poverty and involvement in child welfare and becoming homeless as youth. Suggestions for positive change at the policy level are offered in order to prevent the next generation of Aboriginal children growing up to become homeless youth.

Structural Determinants as the Cause of Homelessness for Aboriginal Youth

This article explores the structural determinants of Aboriginal youth homelessness in Toronto, Canada. It includes a literature review and provides some of the findings of a recent research project, which implemented an Aboriginal research methodology, with homeless youth in Toronto. These findings point to a strong link between Aboriginal children growing up with involvement in child welfare and becoming homeless as youth. Suggestions for positive change at the policy level are offered in order to prevent the next generation of Aboriginal children growing up to become homeless youth.

Playing in the Shadow of Event Urbanism: Newcomer Youth, Neighborhood Change, and TO2015

There has been recent academic attention focused on youth geographies. This literature has worked to emphasize youth experiences in urban life. Concomitantly, there has been a bourgeoning body of research directed at the evaluation of the sport mega-event as a catalyst of urban-spatial reform that has questioned the role of sport in the design of socially-equitable and environmentally-sustainable cities. In this paper, we examine the intersection between geographies of youth and the sport mega-event. Specifically, through a qualitative document analysis of relevant sport mega-event documentation, we compare and contrast written material with a thematic analysis of qualitative data collected with a small sample of newcomer youth in Toronto, Canada. Ultimately, we aim to explore the manner in which event-linked development priorities (and associated ideologies) manifest transnational (elite) representations of space through sport, and in turn, reconstruct urban-spatial fantasies of citizenship in the supposed diverse and inclusive “host” context. Our qualitative data demonstrate the extent to which the everyday places of newcomer youth, so filled with their own hope for the future, are most readily experienced as a perpetual negotiation between strategic exclusion and repressive inclusion—or the future otherwise envisioned for them.

Aboriginal Youth Talk About Structural Determinants as the Causes of Their Homelessness1

This article explores structural determinants as possible causes of the homelessness of Aboriginal youth in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It includes a brief literature review and provides some of the findings of a recent research project, which implemented an Aboriginal research methodology with homeless youth in Toronto. These findings point to a strong link between Aboriginal children growing up in poverty and involvement in child welfare and becoming homeless as a youth. Suggestions for positive change at the policy-level are offered in order to prevent the next generation of Aboriginal children growing up to become homeless youth.

Beyond Information Access: Assessing the Migration Information Practices of Diverse Newcomer Communities to Canada to Customize S ettl ement Information Provision

Drawing from research with Afghan refugee youth in Toronto, Ontario, and Filipino permanent residents in Winnipeg, Manitoba, this paper examines newcomer information practices during migration and settlement, suggesting that how newcomer communities engage with settlement information has direct implications for the methods that information professionals might use to reach them.

Minding the gap: health and social care provider perceptions of parental communication and Black-Canadian youths’ sexual health

Health and social care providers’ perceptions of Black-Canadian parent-youth sexual health communication has important implications for addressing knowledge gaps in the provision of services to young people and their parents. Providers’ perceptions are crucial as they often act as advisers in tailoring programmes or services to the perceived needs of parents and youth. To understand these perceptions, 17 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with providers who worked with African, Caribbean or Black (ACB) parents and youth in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Critical Race Theory was used to help guide the interpretation of findings. The findings revealed providers believed that many parents were unlikely to explicitly discuss sexual health or HIV prevention with young people. Additionally, providers perceived that the content of and approach to parent-youth sexual health communication differed between African and Caribbean clients. Moreover, providers believed that both parents’ and young people’s sex and gender impacted the quality, content and style of sexual health communication and had important implications for programme development. Overall, findings suggest a need for understanding the development of providers’ perceptions of this communication, ways to address these perceptions and further parent-provider collaboration to promote Black youths’ sexual health.

“The Real Toronto”: Black Youth Experiences and the Narration of the Multicultural City

Looking back at more than 45 years of official multicultural policy in Canada, this article asks us to reflect on how the experiences of Black male youth in Toronto and the ways in which race, class, age, and gender intersect to alienate them from full access to educational and employment opportunities disrupt the construction of Canada as an “ideal” and “exceptional” multicultural democracy, built on unchallenged assumptions of inclusivity and impartiality. While Canadian multiculturalism promises respect for cultural differences, free education, and access to jobs for all citizens regardless of national origin or ethnicity, this promise is not borne out in the lives of poor black youth. The article centres the voices and perspectives of these youth by drawing on the documentary The Real Toronto, filmed during the “Summer of the Gun” in 2005, and on the findings from a three-year transnational study of the effects of violence on Black youth in Canada and Jamaica, collected eight years later in 2013. The article argues that Black urban male youth, by situating their precarious life experiences on the margins of a set of core Canadian values, destabilize our understanding of Canadian society by revealing the ways in which they are routinely criminalized and pathologized, and by demanding greater access to upward mobility.

“Unconventional Canadians”: Second-Generation “Habesha” Youth and Belonging in Toronto, Canada

This paper explores how second-generation Ethiopian and Eritrean youth in Toronto, Canada, are perceiving and forging their identity in a society increasingly influenced by forces of globalization and by how cultural diversity in the host society is defined, implemented, and maintained. From the analysis of 20 in-depth interviews, two major categories of interrelated concepts emerged: (1) developing cultural capital and “ethnic” identities—with factor “ethnic” heritage maintenance and cultural values—and (2) becoming Habesha, a supra-national/ethnic term—with factors (a) recognition in private vs the public space and (b) experiences of racial exclusion. Findings suggest that the conflation of ethnicity, race, and culture as labels created for administrative purposes (i.e., multiculturalism policy) indicates a minority status in relation to the dominant white, thus taking on a racial and inferior meaning despite being applied to Canadian-born individuals. This has significant implication for second-generation youth in how they understand, experience, and form responses to the proscribing nature of policy that methodizes the borders of a nation at geographic and socio-political levels. The significant implication for social work practitioners is the importance of organizing and grounding practice in a solid understanding of how ideological practices institutionalized in policies like multiculturalism organize personal experiences.

Lessons in Failing Well: Building Hyper-Migration—a postcolonial, digital, feminist game with refugee youth in Toronto

“Hyper-Migration” is an experimental collaborative project with refugee youth in Toronto that investigates how storytelling might be employed in a digital platform to meet the needs of this community, addressing issues such as displacement, social marginalisation and a lack of access to educational and job opportunities. This paper reviews our process of elaborating, vetting and instituting a method combining praxis and participatory-action research, informed by feminist, postcolonial, trauma and refugee studies. In an experimental art-based approach that aspires to design failure (Halberstam), the project shifts in strategy and objective as the refugee youth iteratively test and redesign a social action game. This paper explores this process and how critical theory and in-situ game play worked as techniques, driving a focus on local problems and needs, ultimately establishing analogue practices that took on affordances normally ascribed to the digital. As well, the project demonstrates the deep critical abilities of refugee youth to drive critical game design addressing their concerns, and to target key structural, policy and social issues affecting refugee communities that require social change.

Performing counter-narratives and mining creative resilience: using applied theatre to theorize notions of youth resilience

ABSTRACTAs part of a nationwide study of growing socio-spatial inequality, researchers collaborated with a Toronto youth shelter and a theatre company, Project: Humanity, to use drama methods to explore local manifestations of poverty and social polarization. Together, shelter-dwelling youths and researchers challenged understandings of ‘resilience’ beyond their normative framings that fail to consider youth perspectives. Provoking affective encounters, the drama methodology activated a youth critique of structural inequalities and a peer mentoring for developing tactics to confront incidents such as unwelcome police interactions. The authors propose the concept of creative resilience, which draws from the idea of the ‘ensemble’ in drama, to collectively devise and rehearse strategies of survival and resistance for application in the real world. Such creative and critical improvised encounters catalyse, they further argue, a critical-affective stance in participants, facilitators, and researchers. Such a critical-affective stance demands theoretical sophistication in the analysis of empirical accounts because it values affect as constitutive to knowledge production. Using an illustrative case, the authors put forward a new theoretical frame for youths resilience as an ensemble practice. The findings of this study support the experiential and cultural knowledge of youth as critics and agents of resistance in the face of growing global socio-spatial inequality.

Public Spaces for Youth? The Case of the Jane-Finch Neighborhood in Toronto

This article examines how public spaces shape racialized youth growing up in a multicultural city. It focuses on youths in the Jane-Finch neighborhood of Toronto presenting their fears, sociospatial practices, and aspirations for social inclusion and urban spaces. Research data consist of interviews with stake-holders and social providers working with youth in Toronto, in general, and in Jane-Finch, in particular. In addition, the article relies predominantly on a focus group discussion with 13 young women and men that took place in The Spot Youth Centre located in Jane-Finch in June 2011. In August 2013, two Black teenagers were killed in the area of Jane-Finch in North-West Toronto. This article was inspired by these tragic losses.

“Living in Our Own World”: Parental Influence on the Identity Development of Second-Generation Ethiopian and Eritrean Youth During Their Formative Years

This study explored the process of identity formation of second-generation Ethiopian and Eritrean youth in Toronto, Canada. Analysis of 20 in-depth interviews presented pathways of acculturation whereby first-generation parents parlay their adaptive process onto their children, influencing the self-identity trajectories and repertoires of the children in their formative years. Findings suggest that parental, social, and cultural forces are an inseparable and critical component of the development of identity. Participants’ identity formation in their formative years was one of high-level cultural identity with their parents’ culture of origin.