Taking stock of youth organizing: an interdisciplinary perspective

Youth organizing combines elements of community organizing, with its emphasis on ordinary people working collectively to advance shared interests, and positive youth development, with its emphasis on asset-based approaches to working with young people. It is expanding from an innovative, but marginal approach to youth and community development into a more widely recognized model for practice among nonprofit organizations and foundations. Along the way, it has garnered attention from researchers interested in civic engagement, social movements, and resiliency. A growing body of published work evidences the increasing interest of researchers, who have applied an assortment of theoretical perspectives to their observations of youth organizing processes. Through an appraisal of the current state of this still-emerging area of practice and research, including case examples, the authors identify common elements of the practice of youth organizing--relationship development, popular education, social action, and participatory research and evaluation--and conclude with a discussion of promising future directions for research and practice.     

Resilience in the Face of Maternal Psychopathology and Adverse Life Events

Maternal psychopathology has long been recognized as a risk factor for psychopathology in offspring; however, some resilient youth achieve a favorable outcome in the presence of maternal psychopathology. We identified factors that predicted resilience among youth who were exposed to adverse life events, and also examined whether the same factors protected youth against maternal psychopathology and adverse life events. Main and interaction effects of child and family factors were examined employing cross-sectional data from a household probability sample of 1285 youth aged 9 through 17 collected at four sites. On average, children exhibited a greater degree of resilience when they had higher IQ, closer parental monitoring, better family functioning, higher educational aspiration, and were female. Interaction between maternal psychopathology and IQ was significant, and there was a trend between maternal psychopathology and gender. A higher IQ is a protective factor against both maternal psychopathology and adverse life events; whereas being a girl seems to be a protective factor against maternal psychopathology, but not adverse life events.     

Career guidance and social exclusion: a cautionary tale

The relationship of career guidance to public-policy interventions designed to address social exclusion is examined.The nature and origin of the concept of social exclusion are analysed, and the roles of career guidance in response to it are reviewed, particularly in relation to young people who have dropped out of formal education, training and employment or are at risk of doing so. It is suggested that such strategies need to take account of the subjective frame of reference of such young people, including understanding the work in which they are already engaged within the informal economies. The issues raised by such considerations provide a rationale for the partnership arrangements - with, for example, youth workers and community mentors - which have characterised these strategies. Within this context, the development of the new Connexions Service is critically examined. It is argued that it contains fundamental design flaws, from which a number of problems have stemmed. It is concluded that while career guidance has an important contribution to make in strategies to address social exclusion, this should be secondary to its role in supporting individual progression and development within the societal structures to which inclusion is being sought.     

Focusing on the Positive: A Review of the Role of Child Positive Affect in Developmental Psychopathology

This review proposes a transactional model of child positive affect (PA) to reflect the ways that PA, in various contexts, may confer both risk and protection for psychosocial adjustment. Though research has largely explored the ways that low PA relates to maladjustment in youth, much less research has focused on the ways that PA can facilitate adjustment, particularly under conditions of risk. Yet, theory suggests that a greater emphasis on PA as a protective factor is an important endeavor in developmental psychopathology research; such conceptual issues are explored in this review. This review also seeks to spur a more nuanced approach to the study of child PA through the use of increased multi-method, longitudinal assessments as well as the consideration of contextual factors. Building upon this research base is important for aiding in the development of intervention and prevention efforts that attempt to promote positive psychosocial development and mitigate the course of psychopathology in youth at risk for PA difficulties.     

A bifactor model of negative affectivity: fear and distress components among younger and older youth

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule for Children (PANAS-C) is a 27-item youth-report measure of positive affectivity and negative affectivity. Using 2 large school-age youth samples (clinic-referred sample: N = 662; school-based sample: N = 911), in the present study, we thoroughly examined the structure of the PANAS-C NA and PA scales and fit a bifactor model to the PANAS-C NA items. Our exploratory factor analytic results demonstrated that negative affectivity is comprised of 2 main components-NA: Fear and NA: Distress-specifically among older youth. A bifactor model also evidenced the best model fit relative to a unidimensional and second-order factor structure of the PANAS-C NA items. The NA: Fear group factor evidenced significant correspondence with external criterion measures of anxiety. However, the original PANAS-C NA scale evidenced equal (and in some cases greater) correspondence with criterion measures of anxiety. We thus recommend continued usage and interpretation of the full PANAS-C NA scale despite the identification of the fear and distress group factors underlying general negative affectivity. The identification of these fear and distress group factors nonetheless suggest that negative affectivity may be comprised largely of a fear and distress component among older youth. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to better understanding the structure of psychopathology across childhood development and informing the development of future treatments of negative emotions.     

Conduct Disorder and Psychosocial Outcomes at Age 30: Early Adult Psychopathology as a Potential Mediator

Conduct disorder (CD) is associated with a number of adverse psychosocial outcomes in adulthood. There is consistent evidence that CD is predictive of antisocial behavior, but mixed evidence that CD is predictive of other externalizing and internalizing disorders. Further, externalizing and internalizing disorders are often associated with similar psychosocial outcomes as CD. However, relatively little work has examined whether forms of psychopathology (e.g., externalizing and/or internalizing disorders) mediates the relationship between youth CD and adult psychosocial outcomes. The present study examined associations between youth CD and adult psychosocial outcomes and sought to identify forms of psychopathology that may potentially mediate this relationship. Participants completed self-report measures of psychosocial functioning and semi-structured diagnostic interviews during adolescence and young adulthood. Analyses found that most domains of adult psychosocial functioning were associated with youth CD. Adult antisocial behavior was the only form of psychopathology predicted by CD. Adult antisocial behavior appeared to mediate the relationship between CD and marital status, life satisfaction, and being in jail and partially mediated the relationship between CD and family support and global functioning. These data suggest that reducing the progression to adult antisocial behavior may improve multiple psychosocial outcomes among those with a history of CD.     

Is youth spiritual development a universal developmental process? An international exploration

This article describes a new conceptual approach to youth spiritual development, positing it as a universal aspect of positive youth development, and presents initial empirical evidence for the cross-cultural validity of this theory. Based on an international survey with 6725 youth in eight countries, it provides a global portrait of the spiritual lives of 12–25 year olds. The development and psychometric properties of core spiritual development and religious/spiritual engagement across nations and religious traditions are described. Finally, a person-centered analytic technique is used to explore profiles of the unique ways spiritual development manifests itself in the lives of young people. Results suggest that spiritual development is an active process among the majority of youth across diverse religious and cultural backgrounds, with most having spiritual development unfold without particularly strong engagement in explicitly religious or spiritual practices.     

Depressive Symptoms Among Delinquent Youth: Testing Models of Association with Stress and Support

The high prevalence of depression among incarcerated youth indicates a need to better understand factors that contribute to depression within this vulnerable subgroup. Previous research in general community samples has suggested that high levels of stress and low levels of parental support are associated with depression in young people, but it is unclear whether or how they might be associated with depression among incarcerated youth who are already vulnerable. Using a sample of 228 adolescents (aged 13–18 years) who were detained in the juvenile justice system, stress and support were modeled as independent main effects and as interactive risk factors in relation to depressive symptoms. More stressful life events and less caregiver support were each independently associated with depressive symptoms, but no evidence was found for the buffering hypothesis in this sample. Stressful life events were more strongly associated with depressive symptoms among boys compared to girls.     

Respecting religion in youth music subcultures: inclusivity,individuality and conflict avoidance strategy

Drawing on fieldwork with young Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians involved in the secular punk rock subculture, this article examines strategies for building respectful relationships between religious and irreligious young people in youth music subcultures. Although punk rock developed as a secular and often anti-religious youth subculture, and although a thriving Evangelical subculture has developed with its own popular music scenes at odds with secular values, a significant number of young Christians have become active participants in punk. Arguing for the importance of musical and subcultural identities among contemporary youth, this article analyses examples of creative inclusivity and respectful relationships across religious boundaries, as well as examples of conflicts over spiritual values. Outlining strategies for building religious inclusivity and resolving religious conflict in youth subcultures, it is shown that where young people’s creative capacities and individual autonomy are respected and enabled by subcultural peers and secular or religious youth workers and institutions, strongly held religious views can still be welcomed within even strongly secular youth subcultures.     

Family Influences on the Long Term Post-Disaster Recovery of Puerto Rican Youth

This study focused on characteristics of the family environment that may mediate the relationship between disaster exposure and the presence of symptoms that met DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for symptom count and duration for an internalizing disorder in children and youth. We also explored how parental history of mental health problems may moderate this mediational model. Approximately 18 months after Hurricane Georges hit Puerto Rico in 1998, participants were randomly selected based on a probability household sample using 1990 US Census block groups. Caregivers and children (N?=?1,886 dyads) were interviewed with the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children and other questionnaires in Spanish. Areas of the family environment assessed include parent-child relationship quality, parent-child involvement, parental monitoring, discipline, parents’ relationship quality and parental mental health. SEM models were estimated for parents and children, and by age group. For children (4–10 years old), parenting variables were related to internalizing psychopathology, but did not mediate the exposure-psychopathology relationship. Exposure had a direct relationship to internalizing psychopathology. For youth (11–17 years old), some parenting variables attenuated the relation between exposure and internalizing psychopathology. Family environment factors may play a mediational role in psychopathology post-disaster among youth, compared to an additive role for children. Hurricane exposure had a significant relation to family environment for families without parental history of mental health problems, but no influence for families with a parental history of mental health problems.     

Hope and emotional well-being: A six-year study to distinguish antecedents,correlates, and consequences

Hope is a motivational factor that helps initiate and sustain action toward long-term goals, including flexible management of obstacles that get in the way of goal attainment. Despite an abundance of research on the benefits of hope, little attention has been given to this aspect of youth development via longitudinal studies. In this study, we collected ratings of hope and positive and negative affect from 975 adolescents over a six-year assessment period (Grades 7–12). Using cross-lagged structural equation modeling, we found that hope led to greater positive affect, with little evidence for the reverse direction. In contrast, hope and negative affective states were reciprocally related. Hope predicted future well-being particularly well in years when the young people where in transition (e.g. starting high school and transitioning to senior high school). Our data support the position that hope is a malleable attribute that fosters positive youth development.     

Rates of suicide among males increase steadily from age 11 to 21: Developmental framework and outline for prevention

The paper has three purposes. First, explanations for the steady age-related increase in the rate of suicide among male youth from ages 11 to 21 are offered based on a review of epidemiological- and case-control evidence. It is concluded that depression and substance use disorders are major contributors to the age-related pattern in suicide. A general increased capacity for serious acts of aggression from ages 11 to 21 might also contribute to this pattern in suicide. Second, evidence that substance abuse and depression both contribute to, and are exacerbated by, difficulties in negotiating age-salient tasks is summarized. In this context, suicides among young males are posited to mark the endpoint of the bidirectional interplay of psychopathology and developmental difficulties. Third, informed by this developmental perspective, the authors make recommendations to reduce suicides in male youth, emphasizing strategies that may interrupt cycles of depression and/or substance abuse and developmental failure. Strategies to reduce the potential for fatalities, notably method restrictions, are also discussed.     

Cultural and Telehealth Considerations for Trauma‐Focused Treatment Among Latinx Youth: Case Reports and Clinical Recommendations to Enhance Treatment Engagement

Given that trauma exposure among youth, particularly those from communities of color, is high, there is a dire need to improve trauma-focused treatment for young people of color. Growing research has documented that integrating cultural and telehealth considerations into trauma-focused treatment can enhance treatment engagement and lead to positive treatment outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to incorporate cultural and telehealth considerations concurrently to enhance treatment engagement for Latinx youth and their caregivers. Specifically, we describe the process of delivering Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) to three trauma-exposed Latinx youths through the use of telehealth technology. Clinical recommendations are discussed to improve treatment engagement of Latinx youth and other young people of color.     

Sex and today's youth

Changes in sexual activities and attitudes of today's (1974) youth are reviewed. It is concluded that adolescent sexual behavior is not much different from what it was in the last decade, although young people tend to have their 1st sexual experience earlier than in the past and tend to talk about sex more openly. The percent of women who are not virgins at marriage is not markedly higher than it was in the 1920s, nor has the incidence of school-age unwed mothers increased in the last few years. It has become increasingly popular for young, unmarried men and women to live together in recent years and coed dorms have become more widespread, although little sexual activity occurs among the inhabitants of these dorms. The incidence of premarital sex among engaged couples has increased. Young and middle-aged couples today are more ready to experiment with variations in foreplay and coitus. Homosexuals live more comfortably with their sexual behavior and the rate of transexualism has risen. Drug users are more likely to have coitus earler in life, more regularly, and with a greater number of partners.     

Do Overgeneral Autobiographical Memories Predict Increased Psychopathological Symptoms in Community Youth? A 3-Year Longitudinal Investigation

Research suggests that an overgeneral autobiographical memory style (i.e., retrieval of general memories when instructed to retrieve a specific episodic memory) represents a vulnerability marker for depression. Although adolescence is a period of high risk for the emergence of depression, little research has investigated the associations among overgeneral memory, psychopathology, and risk factors longitudinally in a community sample in this age group. We, therefore, investigated overgeneral memory, psychopathology (depression and anxiety), and rumination (an established risk factor for psychopathology) longitudinally in 269 typically-developing youth (125 females, 144 males) across 3 annual assessment points. We sought to determine whether 1) overgeneral memory would predict psychopathology across the entire sample, and 2) whether associations would vary as a function of longitudinal rumination growth. Across the entire sample, overgeneral memory did not predict psychopathology. For youth who reported elevated, and increasing, patterns of rumination over time, transient relationships between overgeneral memory and subsequent increases in anxiety were found. We conclude that overgeneral memory may represent a vulnerability marker for adverse psychological outcomes only for youth at risk for psychopathology.     

A Research Note on Islam and Gender Egalitarianism: An Examination of Egyptian and Saudi Arabian Youth Attitudes

Despite the importance of young people in determining future trends in women's advancement in the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East, no quantitative study to date has focused exclusively on the relationship between Islamic religiosity and gender egalitarianism among youth in the region. Using data from the Youth, Emotional Energy, and Political Violence Survey, I investigate the relationship between Islamic religiosity and gender egalitarianism among youth in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, devoting special attention to gender differences within countries. Particular dimensions of Islamic religiosity have different effects on gender egalitarianism by group, reflecting social currents in each country's civic sphere. For young men in both contexts, orthodoxy and mosque attendance are negatively associated with gender egalitarianism. In contrast, for Egyptian young women self‐identified religiosity positively affects gender egalitarianism while for Saudi Arabian women, Islamic religiosity has no effect.     

Youth mentoring: The American Dream comes to the UK?

This paper examines the ways in which the North American experience has influenced youth mentoring programmes in the UK and focuses on the theoretical assumptions about young people which have underpinned mentoring interventions. A more critical approach to this North American 'legacy' is required if the value of this form of intervention is to be accurately assessed. The paper argues that an over-reliance by mentoring interventions on developmental paradigms has curtailed their capacity to take account of the wider social context in which young people are making their transitions to adulthood. It is suggested that alternative theoretical frameworks which address the complexity and multiplicity of youth transitions hold more promise for understanding and theorising the role of mentoring in the UK setting. A recent Scottish study of informal mentoring processes attempted to open up these theoretical possibilities by using a framework which recognised young people as active participants and agents. This study revealed that a range of models of mentoring may be in place within informal mentoring relationships. The paper argues that findings from this study demonstrated a need for a more critical approach to the 'classic notion' of mentoring as exclusively a one to one relationship between an adult and a young person. Since mentoring is now a highly popular form of intervention with 'socially excluded' young people these questions about the theoretical base for the concept require urgent attention.     

The emotion reactivity scale: development, evaluation, and relation to self-injurious thoughts and behaviors

Prior research has examined the relations between various facets of emotion and psychopathology, with a great deal of recent work highlighting the importance of emotion regulation strategies. Much less attention has been given to the examination of emotion reactivity. This study reports on the development and evaluation of the Emotion Reactivity Scale (ERS), a 21-item self-report measure of emotion sensitivity, intensity, and persistence, among a sample of 87 adolescents and young adults. Factor analysis revealed a single factor of emotion reactivity best characterized the data. The ERS showed strong internal consistency (alpha=.94), convergent and divergent validity via relations with behavioral inhibition/activation and temperament, and criterion-related validity as measured by associations with specific types of psychopathology and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB). Moreover, emotion reactivity statistically mediated the relation between psychopathology and SITB. These findings provide preliminary support for the ERS and suggest that increased emotion reactivity may help explain the association between psychopathology and SITB.     

What We Know and Where We Go from here: A Review of Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Youth Hookup Literature

In this paper, we acknowledge and critique the absence of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) experiences in the recent proliferation of scholarship on “hooking up” among youth (aged 16 to 24). Although previous research has documented that LGB youth hookup at high rates (up to three-quarters of LGB youth), and oftentimes more than heterosexuals, the most basic aspects of hookups (e.g., motivations, experiences, and outcomes) have not been comprehensively explored. This is pertinent because young adulthood, in particular, is a time when young people explore their sexuality. Most scholarship on hooking up has focused on White heterosexual college students, mostly due to sampling constraints and impediments, and so we are left with a critical gap in our knowledge about LGB youth—a population that is typically at higher risk for sexual, mental, and emotional health issues. We begin by reviewing the literature on hooking up among heterosexual young adults as organized by four themes: hookup definitions/frequencies, contexts, motivations, and outcomes. We do this to explicitly highlight and contrast what little is known about LGB youth hookups. We then provide a research agenda that projects how future researchers can advance this area of scholarship and begin to fill its gaps, while considering the hookup experiences of diverse LGB youth.