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“Time to be free”: Playful agency in LOVE 's in‐school programme for at‐risk youth
Children & Society
Abstract
Research increasingly suggests that positive youth development programmes play an important part in preventing youth violence and promoting positive developmental trajectories. We conducted a focussed ethnography of LOVE, a social development programme aimed at supporting youth who have been exposed to violence. Building on a previous study's exploration of this programme's afterschool setting, we examined the programme's social functioning in school settings. Findings underline the role of playfulness—alongside an egalitarian/friendly approach, gentle authority/structure, strengths‐based support and a safe space to express vulnerability—to foster in youth the ability to feel free, confident/empowered, connected/empathic and positive feelings about school and life.
... Nos objectifs sont (a) une meilleure connaissance de l'impact qu' ont les représentations dominantes de l' enfance considérées comme allant de soi, ainsi que de leur « héritage » éthique, politique et ontologique qui façonne le monde des jeunes (c' est-à-dire « l' oppression épistémologique » perpétuée par les conceptions du développement de l' enfant fondées sur l'âge) et (b) décrire comment le cirque social peut agir comme une « orientation pratique » (c.-à-d., une approche novatrice qui peut se traduire en actions concrètes). Par exemple, l' engagement dans un programme de cirque social peut aider à renforcer la résistance et l'inventivité (artistiques) des jeunes au sein de leurs communautés à l'aide d'approches (pédagogiques) innovatrices qui créent un espace sécuritaire pour rejoindre les jeunes -incluant les jeunes moins expressifs verbalement grâce à des formes d' expressions basées sur le mouvement (à noter que le terme « espace sécuritaire » se rapporte à un contexte social qui procure un espace sans jugement et une zone de confort pour l' expression de l'individualité d'une personne; Hausfather et al., 2023). Nous avons examiné comment certaines formes de justice sociale (l'inclusion par exemple) peuvent être facilitées par la mobilisation d' organismes communautaires agissant pour contrer l' oppression systémique subie par les jeunes, notamment les jeunes qui vivent dans des contextes sociaux particulièrement marginalisés. ...
... Sur la base de nos travaux précédents qui démontraient (a) les trois volets de l'agentivité des jeunes (les aspirations moralement significatives, les préoccupations et les capacités) (Siedlikowski et al., 2022) et (b) comment leur agentivité est socialement imbriquée (c' est-à-dire comment le contexte social renforce ou entrave l' expression de l'agentivité) (Carnevale, 2020;Carnevale et al., 2021;Esser et al., 2016;Hausfather et al., 2023;Siedlikowski et al., 2022), cette étude démontre les façons précises, élaborées dans la section qui suit, dont les programmes de cirque social peuvent être bénéfiques au développement de la connaissance de soi des jeunes en tant qu'agents moraux. ...
... Plusieurs jeunes se sentent exclu·es dans leur quotidien, un quotidien où les pratiques dominantes des institutions sociales dans lesquelles iels tentent de naviguer (école, lieu de travail, famille, organismes communautaires, par exemple) entravent leur participation significative aux activités quotidiennes (Hausfather et al., 2023;Makansi et Carnevale, 2020). Par conséquent, les occasions qu'iels ont de mieux comprendre leurs propres désirs et . ...
Le cirque social réfère aux programmes qui utilisent le cirque dans un contexte d’intervention sociale. Bien qu’ils leur soient destinés, peu de données existent sur l’impact qu’ils ont sur les jeunes. Nous nous penchons sur un événement de cirque social de quatre jours. Quatre thématiques caractérisent l’expérience des participant·es : (a) la création d’un espace social sécuritaire; (b) l’enrichissement de la compréhension de soi; (c) le renforcement des capacités expressives; et (d) l’expérimentation du monde qui nous entoure. Cette recherche démontre comment le cirque social peut créer des milieux sociaux sécuritaires et enrichissants, adaptés aux expériences des jeunes.
... We aimed to (a) advance understandings of the impacts of taken-for-granted dominant figurations of childhood and related everyday ethical, political, and ontological "inheritances" that shape young people's worlds (i.e., epistemological oppression perpetuated by agebased developmental constructions of childhood) and (b) describe how social circus can operate as an "actionable orientation" (i.e., a novel approach that can be operationalized into concrete actions). For example, engagement with social circus programs can bolster young people's resistance and (artful) invention within their communities by using innovative (pedagogical) approaches that create safe spaces that engage youth-including those who may be less verbally expressive in movement-oriented forms of expressions (NB: "safe spaces" refers here to a social context that provides a shelter from judgment and a zone of comfort to express one's individuality; Hausfather et al., 2023). We examined how some forms of social justice (e.g., inclusion) can be promoted by the mobilization of community organizations as they act to counter systemic oppression that is borne by young people, particularly youth living within marginalized social contexts. ...
... Building on our previous work that demonstrated (a) the three-fold structure of young people's agency (i.e., morally meaningful aspirations, concerns, and capacities; Siedlikowski et al., 2022) and (b) how their agency is socially embedded (i.e., social contexts can bolster or impede agential expression; Carnevale, 2020;Carnevale et al., 2021;Esser et al., 2016;Hausfather et al., 2023;Siedlikowski et al., 2022), this study has demonstrated specific ways that social circus programs can be beneficial in supporting young peoples' development of their self-understanding as moral agents. We discussed these results in further detail in the sections that follow. ...
... Many youth feel excluded within their daily lives, where dominant practices in the social institutions they try to navigate (e.g., school, work, family, community organizations) impede their meaningful participation in common activities (Hausfather et al., 2023;Makansi & Carnevale, 2020). In turn, this limits the types of opportunities that are open to them that can help them better understand their own hopes and worries and learn skills and capabilities that can help them flourish (e.g., building confidence, learning how to connect with others). ...
Social circus refers to programs that use circus arts to facilitate social intervention with people experiencing marginalization. Although some programs focus specifically on youth, little is known about how they are impacted by their participation. We examined the experiences of youth participating in a four-day social circus event. Four themes were identified that characterized participants’ experiences: (a) creating a safe social space; (b) enriching your self-understanding; (c) bolstering your expressive capacities; and (d) experiencing the world around you. This research highlights how social circus activities can create safe and enriching social spaces that are adapted to the experiences of youth.
... Adults can support children's rights and agential expression by creating and valuing opportunities to engage in play. Contrary to the dominant conception of play as a frivolous way of occupying or wasting time, or taking one's mind off things, playfulness is an important, meaningful means of expressing agency (Hausfather et al., 2024). For example, adolescents have demonstrated that play can be revealing, creating an opportunity for expressing dimensions of agency that are systematically suppressed by social norms that devalue all that is associated with childhood as frivolous and unimportant (Hausfather et al., 2024). ...
... Contrary to the dominant conception of play as a frivolous way of occupying or wasting time, or taking one's mind off things, playfulness is an important, meaningful means of expressing agency (Hausfather et al., 2024). For example, adolescents have demonstrated that play can be revealing, creating an opportunity for expressing dimensions of agency that are systematically suppressed by social norms that devalue all that is associated with childhood as frivolous and unimportant (Hausfather et al., 2024). ...
Bereavement during childhood impacts children’s wellbeing and biopsychosocial development. Research examining impacts and outcomes of childhood bereavement and supportive interventions has highlighted a myriad of factors that influence children’s unique, complex experiences of grief, necessitating a personalized, child-centred approach. Children’s grief support is underpinned by well-established grief theories studied primarily in adult populations, and stage-based developmental theories that characterise child development as “normative” and universal. We propose a rethinking that recognises: development in childhood as transactional, dynamic, and bidirectional; children as active agents; and social contexts influencing grief and development. This conceptualisation invites expanded understandings of: children’s grief in response to death and non-death losses; contextual, relational influences on children’s experiences of grief; ways that grieving children’s rights and agency are supported and thwarted in their daily lives; and opportunities for professionals, family and community members to support grieving children with compassionate curiosity and cultural humility to nurture grief-literate communities.
Qualitative health research is ever growing in sophistication and complexity. While much has been written about many components (e.g. sampling and methods) of qualitative design, qualitative analysis remains an area still needing advanced reflection. Qualitative analysis often is the most daunting and intimidating component of the qualitative research endeavor for both teachers and learners alike. Working collaboratively with research trainees, our team has developed SAMMSA (Summary & Analysis coding, Micro themes, Meso themes, Syntheses, and Analysis), a 5-step analytic process committed to both clarity of process and rich ‘quality’ qualitative analysis. With roots in hermeneutics and ethnography, SAMMSA is attentive to data holism and guards against the data fragmentation common in some versions of thematic analysis. This article walks the reader through SAMMSA’s 5 steps using research data from a variety of studies to demonstrate our process. We have used SAMMSA with multiple qualitative methodologies. We invite readers to tailor SAMMSA to their own work and let us know about their processes and results.
This work presents the results of four cooperative-creative game programs (Game Programs). In all four studies, experimental designs with repeated pretest-posttest measures and control groups were used. Validation samples ranged from 86 to 178 participants, randomly assigning participants to the experimental and control conditions. Before and after each program, a battery of assessment instruments was applied to measure the variables under study. The intervention consists of conducting a weekly game session during the school year. The results of the posttest covariance analyses confirmed a significant impact: (1) in social development, by increasing various positive social behaviors and decreasing many negative social behaviors; by increasing assertive cognitive strategies and prosocial resolution of interpersonal problems; and by enhancing relationships and positive communication among group members; (2) in emotional development, by improving self-concept, peer image, and emotional stability; and (3) in cognitive development, by increasing verbal intelligence, verbal and graphic-figurative creativity, as well as creative personality behaviors and traits. This work provides empirical evidence of the relevance of cooperative-creative play in child development.
Background: Children's holistic development includes physical, cognitive, socio-emotional, moral and affective development and lies in early childhood development education (ECDE). According to research, children learn through different age-appropriate teaching and learning pedagogies. Therefore, the importance of implementing a play-based methodology in the early years. This study was underpinned by the theory of play as a spiral of learning.
Aim: This study aimed to demonstrate how a play-based pedagogy could be utilised to enhance holistic development in young children.
Setting: Three ECD centres in Gauteng, South Africa participated in the Thutopapadi (play-based learning) research. The action learning set (ALS) consisted of one Grade R teacher and two practitioners; the Grade R facilitator and three North-West University researchers.
Methods: We employed a qualitative approach within the participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) design to interrogate the extent to which a play-based pedagogy could be useful in enhancing the holistic development of young children. Transcriptions of meetings held by the ALS and photovoice were used to generate data. The participants reflected on and communicated about themes discussed during the ALS. We used the principles of thematic content analysis to analyse the generated data.
Results: The results of this study proposed that to support holistic development in young children, practitioners and parents should maximise the use of a play-based methodology in both social and learning environments.
Conclusion: Follow-ups should be made to ensure that the pedagogy that is being used in early childhood development education centres corresponds with the needs for the development of young children.
Research on gender violence has identified as one main component leading to gender violence a dominant socialization process which associates attractiveness to men who show violent behaviors and attitudes, while egalitarian and non-violent men are emptied of attractiveness. This is known as coercive dominant discourse. Starting from the evidence that the peer group is a main context of socialization in adolescence, quantitative data were collected from six classes of secondary education (14–15-year-old adolescents) to explore whether the coercive dominant discourse is displayed in social interactions in the peer group and, if so, how it influences attractiveness patterns and sexual-affective behavior in adolescence. The analyses reveal that the coercive dominant discourse is often reproduced in the peer group interactions, creating group pressure, and pushing some girls to violent relationships. Alternative ways of interaction are also reported, which allow a socialization leading to more freedom, less coercion, and more healthy relationships.
Purpose
This paper describes the origins and application of a theory, the social development model (SDM), that seeks to explain causal processes that lead to the development of prosocial and problem behaviors. The SDM was used to guide the development of a multicomponent intervention in middle childhood called Raising Healthy Children (RHC) that seeks to promote prosocial development and prevent problem behaviors. This paper reviews and integrates the tests of the SDM and the impact of RHC. While the original results of both model and intervention tests have been published elsewhere, this paper provides a comprehensive review of these tests. As such, this integrative paper provides one of the few examples of the power of theory-driven developmental preventive intervention to understand impact across generations and the power of embedding controlled tests of preventive intervention within longitudinal studies to understand causal mechanisms.
Methods
Application of the SDM in the RHC intervention was tested in a quasi-experimental trial nested in the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP). SSDP is a longitudinal study of 808 students who attended 18 public schools in Seattle, WA, and whose parents consented for their participation in longitudinal research when they were in grade 5 (77% of the eligible population in participating schools). Students assented at each survey administration and consented to longitudinal follow-up when they turned 18. Panel subjects were followed and surveyed 15 times from grade 5 through age 39, with most completion rates above 90%.
Results
We describe effects of the full multicomponent RHC intervention delivered in grades 1 through 6 by comparing outcomes of those children assigned to the full RHC intervention condition to controls from middle childhood through age 39. We also report the effects of the full RHC intervention on the firstborn children of participants compared with the firstborn children of controls.
Conclusions
We discuss the use of the theory to guide the development and testing of preventive interventions and the utility of nesting intervention tests within longitudinal studies for testing both theory and interventions.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) has become more central to education because of demand from educators, parents, students, and business leaders alongside rigorous research showing broad, positive impacts for students and adults. However, all approaches to SEL are not equal. Systemic SEL is an approach to create equitable learning conditions that actively involve all Pre-K to Grade 12 students in learning and practicing social, emotional, and academic competencies. These conditions require aligned policies, resources, and actions at state and district levels that encourage local schools and communities to build the personal and professional capacities of adults to: implement and continuously improve evidence-based programs and practices; create an inclusive culture that fosters caring relationships and youth voice, agency, and character; and support coordinated school-family-community partnerships to enhance student development. Promoting social and emotional competencies—including the abilities to understand and manage emotions, achieve positive goals, show caring and concern for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions—are important for success at school and in life. In this article, we summarize key concepts and evidence for systemic SEL. Next, we explain interrelated Theories of Action and resources developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to implement and continuously improve systemic SEL in schools, districts, and states. We discuss research on nested, interacting settings and processes involved in systemic SEL at proximal (classrooms, schools, families, and communities) and distal (districts, states, national, and international) ecological levels. We conclude with recommendations for future SEL research, practice, and policy.
We describe an ontological approach to childhood studies that we refer to as Childhood Ethics. This involves an interdisciplinary hermeneutic orientation towards examining the morally meaningful dimensions of matters that affect young people. We draw on our empirical research with young people from 3‐ to 17‐years old, examining their experiences in a diversity of contexts and geographical settings. Our investigations challenge dominant binary conceptions of young people along lines of decisional in/capacity and im/maturity. We argue for a view of children as active agents with meaningful relational engagements and participation interests and capacities and outline corresponding implications for research and practice.
This review outlines the current perspectives on positive youth development (PYD). Besides presenting the diverse theoretical roots contributing to PYD approaches, this review also introduces several PYD perspectives, including Benson’s 40 developmental assets, Lerner’s 5Cs and 6Cs conceptions, Catalano’s 15 PYD constructs, social-emotional learning (SEL) and the “being” perspective (character and spirituality). A comparison of the different PYD models in terms of theoretical orientation, the role of community, spirituality, character/morality, thriving, “being” versus “doing” and origin is also presented. The review suggests three future research directions, including the development of spirituality and character approaches to PYD, differentiating the role of “being” versus “doing” in PYD and construction of PYD models as well as conducting related research in non-Western contexts.
Evaluation studies often use stand-alone and summative assessment strategies to examine the impacts of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Gender-based Violence (GBV) prevention education programs. However, implementation research is yet to offer an integrative framework that can be used to investigate the implementation drivers that lead to the uptake of programs that pursue SEL and GBV prevention agendas. We address this gap in research by presenting a framework developed to investigate factors affecting the implementation of the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program, an SEL and GBV prevention education program developed for primary and secondary schools in the state of Victoria, Australia. Drawing upon and advancing a conceptual framework for implementation fidelity proposed by Carroll and colleagues we discuss the iterative process designed to investigate the individual, school and system level factors within the wider political and ideological setting(s) of the program that impact on its implementation. Within this iterative process, we highlight the need to focus on 'the ecology of relations' that exists between various implementation elements, and their possible mediating impact on program delivery, uptake and outcomes.
Games occupy a unique and valuable place in our lives. Game designers do not simply create worlds; they design temporary selves. Game designers set what our motivations are in the game and what our abilities will be. Thus: games are the art form of agency. By working in the artistic medium of agency, games can offer a distinctive aesthetic value. They support aesthetic experiences of deciding and doing.
And the fact that we play games shows something remarkable about us. Our agency is more fluid than we might have thought. In playing a game, we take on temporary ends; we submerge ourselves temporarily in an alternate agency. Games turn out to be a vessel for communicating different modes of agency, for writing them down and storing them. Games create an archive of agencies. And playing games is how we familiarize ourselves with different modes of agency, which helps us develop our capacity to fluidly change our own style of agency.
When conducting ethics research with children in health care settings, studying children’s experiences is essential, but so is the context in which these experiences happen and their meaning. Using Charles Taylor’s hermeneutic philosophy, we developed a methodological framework for health ethics research with children that bridges key aspects of ethnography, participatory research, and hermeneutics. This qualitative framework has the potential to offer rich data and discussions related to children as well as family members and health care workers’ moral experiences in specific health care settings, while examining the institutional norms, structures, and practices and how they interrelate with experiences. Through a participatory hermeneutic ethnographic study, important ethical issues can be highlighted and examined in light of social/local imaginaries and horizons of significance, to address some of the ethical concerns that can be present in a specific health care setting.
Implementation is the process by which interventions are put into practice and is critical
to outcomes. Issues related to implementation for social and emotional learning (SEL)
have largely focused on fidelity to the programme, dosage, clarity of guidance and the
characteristics of the facilitator, although attention has also been paid to multi-level
factors within an ecological system. The primary emphasis, however, has been on „what‟
should happen, rather than „how‟. Both content and process matter for both access and
addressing difference. This paper details the ASPIRE principles and pedagogy for SEL
and shows how incorporating these may help address diversity across needs and cultures.
ASPIRE is the acronym for Agency, Safety, Positivity, Inclusion, Respect and Equity.
These principles apply not only to the classroom but to relational well-being at all levels
of the system and as such are aspirational. Many are based in the positive psychology
literature, and are applicable to both individualistic and collectivist cultures as the
intention is not to impose a set of values and behaviours but to structure activities that
enable young people to explore what works for themselves and their communities. They
have been put into practice within the Circle Solutions framework for SEL across
Australia with both Aboriginal and Anglo communities and further afield in the UK,
South-East Asia and Africa.
This meta-analysis reviewed 82 school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions involving 97,406 kindergarten to high school students (Mage = 11.09 years; mean percent low socioeconomic status = 41.1; mean percent students of color = 45.9). Thirty-eight interventions took place outside the United States. Follow-up outcomes (collected 6 months to 18 years postintervention) demonstrate SEL's enhancement of positive youth development. Participants fared significantly better than controls in social-emotional skills, attitudes, and indicators of well-being. Benefits were similar regardless of students’ race, socioeconomic background, or school location. Postintervention social-emotional skill development was the strongest predictor of well-being at follow-up. Infrequently assessed but notable outcomes (e.g., graduation and safe sexual behaviors) illustrate SEL's improvement of critical aspects of students’ developmental trajectories.
Adolescents may especially need social and emotional help. They’re learning how to handle new demands in school and social life while dealing with new, intense emotions (both positive and negative), and they’re increasingly feeling that they should do so without adult guidance. Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs are one way to help them navigate these difficulties. SEL programs try to help adolescents cope with their difficulties more successfully by improving skills and mindsets, and they try to create respectful school environments that young people want to be a part of by changing the school’s climate. In this article, David Yeager defines those terms and explains the changes that adolescents experience with the onset of puberty. Then he reviews a variety of SEL programs to see what works best with this age group. On the positive side, Yeager finds that effective universal SEL can transform adolescents’ lives for the better. Less encouragingly, typical SEL programs-which directly teach skills and invite participants to rehearse those skills over the course of many classroom lessons-have a poor track record with middle adolescents (roughly age 14 to 17), even though they work well with children. But some programs stand out for their effectiveness with adolescents. Rather than teaching them skills, Yeager finds, effective programs for adolescents focus on mindsets and climate. Harnessing adolescents’ developmental motivations, such programs aim to make them feel respected by adults and peers and offer them the chance to gain status and admiration in the eyes of people whose opinions they value.
This study expands upon the extant prior meta-analytic literature by exploring previously theorised reasons for the failure of school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programmes to produce expected results. Eighty-nine studies reporting the effects of school-based, universal SEL programmes were examined for differential effects on the basis of: (1) stage of evaluation (efficacy or effectiveness); (2) involvement from the programme developer in the evaluation (led, involved, independent); and (3) whether the programme was implemented in its country of origin (home or away). A range of outcomes were assessed including: social-emotional competence, attitudes towards self, pro-social behaviour, conduct problems, emotional distress, academic achievement and emotional competence. Differential gains across all three factors were shown, although not always in the direction hypothesised. The findings from the current study demonstrate a revised and more complex relationship between identified factors and dictate major new directions for the field.
Objective: To review the challenges and potential benefits of involving adolescents in the development and delivery of prevention programming. Key Points and Implications: Adolescent violence prevention programs are typically designed and delivered by adults in school-based settings. However, research has highlighted a number of problems with the effectiveness and sustainability of adult-designed prevention models. In this commentary, we consider the possibility that program effectiveness might be improved if innovative, evidence-based prevention strategies could be developed to help guide adolescents in developing and delivering prevention materials themselves. To inform our discussion, we surveyed 14 adolescent peer leaders about their experiences developing and delivering violence prevention in their schools and communities. Using their input, we critically review the limitations of adult-delivered prevention, discuss the potential benefits and challenges of involving adolescents in designing and delivering violence prevention content, and suggest a number of future directions for researchers and program developers.
In this paper I focus on a distinctive kind of sociological ethnography which is particularly, though not exclusively, adopted in applied research. It has been proposed that this branch of ethnography be referred to as focused ethnography. Focused ethnography shall be delineated within the context of other common conceptions of what may be called conventional ethnography. However, rather than being opposed to it, focused ethnography is rather complementary to conventional ethnography, particularly in fields that are characteristic of socially and functionally differentiated contemporary society. The paper outlines the background as well as the major methodological features of focused ethnography, such as short-term field visits, data intensity and time intensity, so as to provide a background for future studies in this area.
URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0503440
Social and emotional learning (SEL) has been well researched and validated as an important component of youth education (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011; Elias et. al., 1997). However, much of the literature implies a very monolithic approach to SEL interventions (Watts, Griffith, & Abdul-Adil, 1999). The current study examines a predominately African-American urban alternative school's unique approach to reaching students' SEL needs. Utilizing Consensual Qualitative Research (Hill, 2012), researchers interviewed 15 staff members at the school, ranging from teachers to mental health professionals to community educators, to obtain a thorough understanding of the unique approaches to SEL within urban alternative education. Implications for educators and mental health professionals working in alternative educational settings are discussed.
In this paper, we explore the implications of applying critical perspectives to the play occupations of Indigenous children in Canada, and of reframing play as an occupational determinant of health. First we consider the normalizing construction of play in early child development. We then apply critical perspectives to discuss the implications of reframing play as an occupational determinant by exploring how Indigenous children's play can be shaped by broader historical, political and socio-economic structures that may otherwise remain obscured. We propose that a critical reframing of play as an occupational determinant of health may be important in fostering health equity for Indigenous children.
Over the past half century, in the United States and other developed nations, children's free play with other children has declined sharply. Over the same period, anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism have increased sharply in children, adolescents, and young adults. This article documents these historical changes and contends that the decline in play has contributed to the rise in the psychopathology of young people. Play functions as the major means by which children (1) develop intrinsic interests and competencies; (2) learn how to make decisions, solve problems, exert self-control, and follow rules; (3) learn to regulate their emotions; (4) make friends and learn to get along with others as equals; and (5) experience joy. Through all of these effects, play promotes mental health. Key words: anxiety; decline of play; depression; feelings of helplessness; free play; narcissism; psychopathology in children; suicide Children are designed, by natural selection, to play. Wherever children are free to play, they do. Worldwide, and over the course of history, most such play has occurred outdoors with other children. The extraordinary human pro-pensity to play in childhood, and the value of it, manifests itself most clearly in hunter-gatherer cultures. Anthropologists and other observers have regularly reported that children in such cultures play and explore freely, essentially from dawn to dusk, every day—even in their teen years—and by doing so they acquire the skills and attitudes required for successful adulthood. 1 Over the past half century or so, in the United States and in some other developed nations, opportunities for children to play, especially to play outdoors with other children, have continually declined. Over this same period, measures of psychopathology in children and adolescents—including indices of anxiety, depression, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism—have continually increased.
Objectives: Given the high rates at which adolescents engage in violence, the strong link between adolescent and adult violence, and the financial and social costs of violence, the prevention of violent behavior is a national priority. Methods: The authors conducted a comprehensive review of evaluations utilizing quasi-experimental or experimental research designs to assess violence reduction. Results: Seventeen interventions were identified as producing a significant reduction in youth-perpetrated physical or sexual violence. The interventions were varied in terms of targeted age groups, content, strategies, and length of programming, and included programs focusing on individual, peer, school, family, and community factors. Conclusions: Widespread use of effective interventions such as these, across settings and development, and implemented with fidelity, is likely to substantially reduce youth violence. Continued evaluation of violence prevention programming is also needed to increase the number of options available for replication and establish effects on diverse populations.
This article has two broad objectives: (a) It reviews the theoretical and practical litera- ture on the use of games to facilitate social and emotional learning (SEL). (b) Based on this review, it argues that games are a powerful way of developing social and emotional learning in young people. In addition, we draw on our collective experience as educa- tional psychologists to identify effective practice when using games to teach SEL. The social and emotional skills needed to play successfully with others are those needed to succeed at work and in adult life. Prosocial skills involve regulating negative emotions, taking turns and sharing, support orientations to others that are fair, just, and respectful. The natural affiliation between children, play, and the desire to have fun with others makes games an ideal vehicle for teaching SEL. Circle Time games are used to support universal programs for teaching SEL to whole classes. Therapeutic board games pro- vide an effective intervention for young people who have been targeted for further guided practice in small group settings. Verbatim quotations from students and teachers demonstrate ways in which SEL has generalized to real-life situations. The role of facilitator is crucial to the success of this approach, both in modeling appropriate skills and making the learning connections for students. In this article, facilitation and debriefing are deconstructed and the value of collaborative, rather than competitive, aspects of games highlighted.
To provide an overview of the relevance and strengths of focused ethnography in nursing research. The paper provides descriptions of focused ethnography and discusses using exemplars to show how focused ethnographies can enhance and understand nursing practice.
Orthodox ethnographic approaches may not always be suitable or desirable for research in diverse nursing contexts. Focused ethnography has emerged as a promising method for applying ethnography to a distinct issue or shared experience in cultures or sub-cultures and in specific settings, rather than throughout entire communities. Unfortunately, there is limited guidance on using focused ethnography, particularly as applied to nursing research.
Research studies performed by nurses using focused ethnography are summarised to show how they fulfilled three main purposes of the genre in nursing research. Additional citations are provided to help demonstrate the versatility of focused ethnography in exploring distinct problems in a specific context in different populations and groups of people.
The unique role that nurses play in health care, coupled with their skills in enquiry, can contribute to the further development of the discipline. Focused ethnography offers an opportunity to gain a better understanding and appreciation of nursing as a profession, and the role it plays in society.
Focused ethnography has emerged as a relevant research methodology that can be used by nurse researchers to understand specific societal issues that affect different facets of nursing practice. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE/RESEARCH: As nurse researchers endeavour to understand experiences in light of their health and life situations, focused ethnography enables them to understand the interrelationship between people and their environments in the society in which they live.
The term
positive youth development piques the interest of professionals working with adolescents and triggers a search for more data about "what works" to promote healthy growth. R. F. Catalano, M. L. Berglund, J. A. M. Ryan, H. S. Lonczak, and J. D. Hawkins (2002) provide an abundance of information about programs that cultivate competency in the nation's youth. Our commentary on the report on effective positive youth development programs hopefully answers some of the questions that stakeholders have about how positive agents influence youth development. We offer a definition of positive youth development and explore issues related to the theoretical underpinnings and process and outcome of adolescent growth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article presents findings from a meta-analysis of 213 school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs involving 270,034 kindergarten through high school students. Compared to controls, SEL participants demonstrated significantly improved social and emotional skills, attitudes, behavior, and academic performance that reflected an 11-percentile-point gain in achievement. School teaching staff successfully conducted SEL programs. The use of 4 recommended practices for developing skills and the presence of implementation problems moderated program outcomes. The findings add to the growing empirical evidence regarding the positive impact of SEL programs. Policy makers, educators, and the public can contribute to healthy development of children by supporting the incorporation of evidence-based SEL programming into standard educational practice.
A meta-analysis of after-school programs that seek to enhance the personal and social skills of children and adolescents indicated that, compared to controls, participants demonstrated significant increases in their self-perceptions and bonding to school, positive social behaviors, school grades and levels of academic achievement, and significant reductions in problem behaviors. The presence of four recommended practices associated with previously effective skill training (SAFE: sequenced, active, focused, and explicit) moderated several program outcomes. One important implication of current findings is that ASPs should contain components to foster the personal and social skills of youth because youth can benefit in multiple ways if these components are offered. The second implication is that further research is warranted on identifying program characteristics that can help us understand why some programs are more successful than others.
Literally, ethnography means writing about people, or writing an account of the way of life of a particular people. In early anthropology, what was aimed at was a descriptive account that captured a distinctive culture. Initially, ethnography was contrasted with ethnology, which was concerned with the historical and comparative analysis of cultures based on ethnographic accounts, the latter often being produced by travelers and missionaries. Over time, the term ethnology has fallen out of favor, and ethnography has come to refer to a combination of theoretical interpretation of cultures and firsthand investigation carried out by anthropologists themselves. Moreover, the term has a double meaning, referring both to a form of research and to the product of that research: ethnography as a practice produces ethnographies. And, recently, a distinction has sometimes been drawn between doing ethnography and using ethnographic methods. This has been employed by some anthropologists in an attempt to mark off their own practice from what passes for ethnographic work within sociology and other areas (Wolcott 1999).
Within his earliest contributions to the human sciences, Charles Taylor challenged dominant behavioral views by advancing a hermeneutical conception of human agency. For Taylor, persons continually navigate their meaningful worlds and make sense of things and act in light of background horizons of significance and social imaginaries. Yet, conceptions of children have lagged as dominant outlooks construe young people as immature and incapable – perpetuating behavioral approaches to controlling their actions rather than hermeneutic ones that recognize them as agents. Working with Taylor’s ideas, I discuss a Childhood Ethics ontological approach to understanding children and childhood. Specifically, I: (a) draw on Taylor’s critique of naturalistic approaches to the human sciences to highlight problems that underlie universalist claims about all childhoods; (b) relate Taylor’s articulation of human agency, centered on strong evaluation and human linguistic capacity, to the Philosophy of Childhood and Childhood Studies to address current questions regarding our understanding of agency within childhood; and (c) describe a hermeneutic ontology that can inform the development of empirical research, policy-making and practices that relate to children. I close with an outline of priority questions that can orient future investigations within this area of inquiry.
This article reports on a study that investigated the effectiveness of one out-of-school activity: “China Club”. China Club, an initiative of Scotland’s National Centre for Languages and the Confucius Institute for Scotland’s Schools, was established with the central aim of teaching Mandarin language and Chinese culture to young people from a secondary school in the West of Scotland. The article explores the success of China Club against criteria established in 2007 by Durlak and Weissberg to ascertain programme success, that is, how well the programme is: sequenced; active; focused; explicit (SAFE). We took an ethnographic case study approach, complemented by interviews with pupils, teachers and those leading the programme to investigate the effectiveness of China Club. We argue that the China Club has all the elements of a SAFE programme. Further, we suggest that more than these four factors are necessary if an out-of-school initiative is to move successfully beyond academic skills development to the personal and social growth of the individuals involved. We conclude that initiatives must also foster and include the opportunity for the development of effective relationships (R).
Children need to develop a variety of skill sets to optimize their development and manage toxic stress. Research demonstrates that developmentally appropriate play with parents and peers is a singular opportunity to promote the social-emotional, cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills that build executive function and a prosocial brain. Furthermore, play supports the formation of the safe, stable, and nurturing relationships with all caregivers that children need to thrive.
Play is not frivolous: it enhances brain structure and function and promotes executive function (ie, the process of learning, rather than the content), which allow us to pursue goals and ignore distractions.
When play and safe, stable, nurturing relationships are missing in a child’s life, toxic stress can disrupt the development of executive function and the learning of prosocial behavior; in the presence of childhood adversity, play becomes even more important. The mutual joy and shared communication and attunement (harmonious serve and return interactions) that parents and children can experience during play regulate the body’s stress response. This clinical report provides pediatric providers with the information they need to promote the benefits of play and and to write a prescription for play at well visits to complement reach out and read. At a time when early childhood programs are pressured to add more didactic components and less playful learning, pediatricians can play an important role in emphasizing the role of a balanced curriculum that includes the importance of playful learning for the promotion of healthy child development.
There is developing evidence that more effective means for preventing violence should involve social development programs for youths. A focused ethnographic study was conducted over 8 months in a social development program situated in Montreal (Quebec, Canada), aimed at providing support to youths who have been exposed to violence as actors, recipients, or witnesses. The study included participant observation, interviews with youths and staff members, and a review of documents, to examine how the program operates socially and how these social processes affect youths favorably and unfavourably. Youths’ experiences with the program were meaningful by permitting them to examine and reflect on who they are, what they have experienced and how to “connect” with others. The safe social space that was created by the youths and coordinators allowed for this meaningful engagement with the program, which led to outcomes that could go beyond the program itself and affected youths’ relationships with others, their self-perception, as well as their mental wellbeing. The program contributed to help manage some of the difficulties youths were facing.
Across a number of countries, play-based learning is the mandated pedagogy in early years’ curricula.
However, a lack of consensus remains both in research and practice regarding the value and role
of play in children’s learning. This scoping review analyses 168 articles addressing play-based learning
for 4–5 year old children divided into three categories: research on play for developmental learning,
research on play for academic learning and factors influencing play in kindergarten classrooms.
Much of the research endorsed play as fulfilling an important role in early learning. However, two
disparate perspectives concerning the role of play for developmental versus academic learning
demonstrate different orientations towards the value and potential benefits of play. Research
focused on developmental learning endorsed the use of free play and a passive teacher role, while
research focused on academic learning endorsed teacher-directed and mutually directed play where
the teacher fulfills an active play role. A similar lack of consensus was found among research with
educators regarding the role and benefits of play. These findings indicate a need to move away from
a binary stance regarding play and towards an integration of perspectives and practices, with different
types of play perceived as complementary rather than incompatible.
Although the literature has focused on quantitative outcome data regarding dating violence prevention programs, this article focuses on qualitative feedback from students who have gone through a dating violence prevention program. Research suggests that multiple session violence prevention programs help decrease attitudes among youth that accept dating violence as a means to resolve conflict. These dating violence prevention programs are found to be effective when administered in high school health classes. However, girls and boys have rarely been asked about their experiences participating in multiple session dating violence prevention programs. Participants (n=273, 162 females and 111 males) in this study were asked about their experiences through open-ended, semi-structured questions. Participants were mostly high school sophomores that generally identified as racial and ethnic minorities (65.6%) and had a mean age of 15.64 (SD=.807). Emerging themes included presenter and environmental factors, specific skills to reduce violence, self-awareness, and an awareness of a culture of violence. Recommendations are provided for delivering dating violence and other youth prevention programming in high schools.
This special issue highlights the theoretical and methodological contributions of positive youth development (PYD), and how the field could be further deepened and revitalized by more purposeful inclusion of qualitative methods throughout its studies. Specifically, pairing PYD with qualitative methods allows it to respond more directly to the following critiques of developmental psychology from which it developed: that it is largely deficit-based, that it focuses solely on the individual instead of interaction with context, and that it overemphasizes outcomes and overlooks processes of development. Each article in this issue employs qualitative methods to address one or more of these critiques by exploring topics such as mentoring, adolescent relationships, relationship processes, schooling experiences, and participation. As emphasized by each contributor in this issue, qualitative methods hold particular promise for privileging youth voice and excavating new possibilities for PYD grounded in youth perspective. The articles in this issue offer PYD and other developmental researchers an avenue for opening their inquiry to include qualitative methods, by highlighting how they advance our understanding of effective youth development.
Using selected, contemporaneous illustrations from the reflective journal of a doctoral student undertaking data analysis for the first time, this article examines the relationship between journaling as a learning process when undertaking computer-assisted qualitative data analysis and establishing quality and validity in interpretative phenomenological analysis. The writing of the journal is shown both to enact some potential validity criteria (e.g. in producing an audit trail) whilst also recording and reflectively prompting the process of learning, interpretation and bracketing, thus evidencing transparency. By using a journal inside the software package and alongside the stages of the interpret-ative phenomenological analysis, analysis within the software package, it is argued that quality and validity become dynamic, not static constructs. These constructs are intimately linked to the researcher-learning-process and permit a critical stance to be taken.
The capacity of children to act as agents is being increasingly recognized and has important implications for health research and practice. However, there are various discrepancies in how children's agency is defined in the literature. The aim of this analysis was to examine the concept of children's agency within the health-related literature, using Rodgers evolutionary method. The following questions were addressed: How did the concept of agency become associated with children in the health-related literature? What are the sociocultural and legal contexts that surround the concept of children's agency? What is the meaning of children's agency? Forty-five articles were included in the analysis. An inductive approach was used to identify the attributes of children's agency as well as the temporal, disciplinary, and paradigmatic trends in its conceptualization. The concept of children's agency first appeared in the health literature in the 1980s and was defined as an ability children could gradually develop. Later on, children's agency was used to refer to the capacity of all children to influence their own and others' health-care needs and is now increasingly used to refer to children as active agents who reflect on and construct their social worlds.
Purpose:
The current research used latent class analysis to uncover groups of youth with specific victimization profiles and identify factors that are associated with membership in each victimization group.
Methods:
This study used data from National Survey of Children Exposure to Violence II. Random digit dialing and address-based sampling were used to obtain a nationally representative sample of 2,312 youth ages 10-17 years. Phone interviews, averaging 55 minutes in length, were conducted with caregivers to obtain both consent and background information and then with youths themselves.
Results:
Six groups of youth emerged: (1) nonvictims (26.4%), (2) home victims (8.4%), (3) school victims (20.8%), (4) home and school victims (21.3%), (5) community victims (5.4%), and (6) polyvictims (17.8%). Polyvictims were likely to have been victimized in multiple settings by multiple perpetrators and experienced the most serious aggravating characteristics, including incidents involving a weapon, injury, or a sexual component. Youth in the polyvictim class experienced the highest number of different victimizations types in the past year and had the most problematic profile in other ways, including greater likelihood of living in disordered communities, high probabilities of engaging in delinquency of all types, elevated lifetime adversity, low levels of family support, and the highest trauma symptom scores.
Conclusions:
The study supports the contention that a core basis of the particularly damaging effects of polyvictimization is the experience of victimization across multiple domains of the child's life.
Scholars conventionally find play difficult to define because the concept is com- plex and ambiguous. The author proffers a definition of play that takes into con- sideration its dynamic character, posits six basic elements of play (anticipation, surprise, pleasure, understanding, strength, and poise), and explores some of their emotional, physical, and intellectual dimensions. He argues for a play ethos that recognizes play is evolution based and developmentally beneficial. He insists, how- ever, that, at its most elemental, play always promises fun. In this context, any activity that lacks these six elements, he contends, will not fully qualify as play. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
The present study uses longitudinal data from the Pathways to Desistance project to investigate the extent to which trajectories of violent youth offending are affected by exposure to community violence. Latent class growth analysis was used to identify groups that followed distinctive patterns of self-reported violent offending and exposure to violence over time. Multinominal regression was used to identify factors that distinguished membership in the trajectory subgroups. The results indicate that youth who had more chronic and direct exposure to community violence were more likely to remain mired in violent criminal behavior, independent of other known risk factors.
This study examined factors that influenced the use of skills taught in a school-based universal violence prevention program. Interviews were conducted with 91 students from two urban schools (83% were African American and 12% multiracial) and 50 students from a nearby county school (52% were White, 32% African American, and 12% multiracial). About half the sample (54%) was male. All had been in sixth grade classrooms where the Second Step (Committee for Children, 1997b) violence prevention curriculum had been implemented earlier in the school year or in the preceding school year. Qualitative analysis of interview transcripts suggested that participants' use of intervention skills was influenced by their beliefs and values, perceived relevance and effectiveness of the skill, issues related to enacting the behavior, and contextual factors. These findings highlight the need for a more intensive and comprehensive effort to address barriers and supports that influence the relevance and impact of school-based violence prevention programs.
Copyright © 2015 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Although shame is one of the most primitive and universal of human emotions, it is often still considered a taboo topic among researchers, practitioners, and clients. This paper presents the empirical foundation for shame resilience theory--a new theory for understanding shame and its impact on women. Using grounded theory methodology, 215 women were interviewed to determine why and how women experience shame and to identify the various processes and strategies women use to develop shame resilience. The article describes the major theoretical categories, including acknowledged vulnerability, critical awareness, and mutually empathic relationships, and introduces the concept of "speaking shame." Practice implications are explored, including the importance of psychoeducational group work in building shame resilience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract)
In this paper, we suggest that the ability and opportunity to play affords children a natural resource to meet intellectual and emotional challenge. Analysis of case studies focusing on interventions with children caught in the bombing of Beirut, children abandoned to the state system in Romania, and the street children in Rio de Janeiro and Cali is used to support this view. When resources are in deficit, challenge is more likely to become adversity. The impact of adversity is particular to context, but comparison across contexts also shows connections between children’s disparate experiences. Analysis confirms that given the opportunity, children interact with and influence their environment through play and that this process provides a resource to meet the challenge of adversity.
With the purpose of contributing to the research and discussion about youth work as a contextual, interpersonal process of human interaction, it is suggested that youth work is like a modern dance that works best when youth workers are present, in sync with youth development rhythms for trusting and growing and making meaning in an atmosphere that supports their interactions. The article includes a brief definition of youth work, a method of reflective practice, and descriptions of the four themes—presence, rhythmic interaction, meaning making, and atmosphere. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 33: 21–29, 2005.
This chapter, which documents lessons from a collaborative project involving researchers, youth service organizations, and a private grant-making foundation, notes the challenge of changing deeply rooted attitudes and behaviors.
This article summarizes the current state of efforts to develop programs to reduce youth violence. It begins with an overview of research related to the causes and consequences of youth violence, and describes the variety of prevention strategies that have been developed to reduce youth violence within the context of a grid model that classifies prevention strategies according to four dimensions: (a) the level of social system they attempt to change, (b) the extent to which they focus on individuals at different levels of risk, (c) the developmental stage of the participants, and (d) the goals of the program. The grid model provides a context for describing three programs that have been systematically evaluated and found to have some degree of effectiveness. The article concludes with a discussion of lessons learned and areas in need of further study.
Background. Observation is used in research in two ways – structured and unstructured. Which of these methods to choose depends on the research question but will be defined predominantly by the paradigm underlying each study. Positivistic research generally uses structured observation and interpretist/naturalistic paradigms use unstructured observation. This paper is concerned with unstructured observation.
Aim. To discuss the importance of unstructured observation as a research method and to examine critically the problems associated with both access and field notes.
Application to nursing. Although unstructured observation has been used in nursing research, it is less favoured than the interview. Furthermore, although some of the dilemmas concerned with observation such as the role of the researcher, covert research and informed consent have received attention in the nursing literature, other aspects remain relatively unexplored. In particular little has been written concerning access to the field and field notes. Both of these aspects have practical and theoretical considerations that require the attention of the researcher. This omission may partly explain nurses' apparent reluctance to use unstructured observation in their studies. This paper seeks to redress this situation.
Participant observation strategies may be particularly effective for research involving children and their families in health care settings. These techniques, commonly used in ethnography and grounded theory, can elicit data and foster insights more readily than other research approaches, such as structured interviews or quantitative methods. This article outlines recommendations for the ethical conduct of participant observation in pediatric health care settings. This involves a brief overview of the significant contributions that participant observation can bring to our understanding of children and families in health care settings; an examination of the elements of participant observation that are necessary conditions for its effective conduct; an outline of contemporary ethical norms in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States for research in pediatric health care settings; and a discussion of how participant observation research should be operationalized in order to comply with these norms.