Adolescence is a developmental stage marked by crystallization in individuals’ sense of identity (Erikson, 1994; Harter, 1999). Research on positive youth development stresses the ways in which thriving trajectories during adolescence contribute to positive lifelong outcomes (Lerner & Overton, 2008; Scales, Benson, & Roehlkepartain, 2011) A symbolic interactionism perspective (Mead,...
The Producing for the Future project engaged thirty low-income youth in gardening and nutrition education, microenterprise activities, and participatory research during the 2011 and 2012 growing seasons. The intervention aimed to support community protective factors, build positive youth development, and enhance health outcomes through promoting skill-building and mentorship. The mixedmethods...
Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) provide disadvantaged youth
jobs and employment experiences. These federally funded programs meet a practical
need to help adolescents earn money and have positive summer activities. In addition,
federal administrators have implemented program requirements designed to give youth
relevant training for future employment.
One federal requirement...
Families of remarriage constitute a growing number of
American families. The spiraling divorce rate of the 1970s
was accompanied by a concomitant increase in the number of
remarriages. Forty percent of American families today
contain at least one spouse that has been previously
married, thus studying relationships within families of...
Every year thousands of families experience a major
life-changing event when they are torn from their
homeland and become refugees. Little is known about how
the refugee experience impacts the family and how members
perceive it affects their sense of family identity. The
construct of family identity as proposed by...
Parenting education is a process of providing information to parents on the
challenges of parenting, services available for families, and ideas on how to interact with
children. The federal Even Start family literacy program, designed to increase the
educational opportunities of parents and children, has a strong parenting education
component....
In recent years interorganizational collaboration has increasingly been emphasized as an important step for addressing inefficiencies in the delivery of human services. Among the many benefits of collaboration described by human service authors are the creation of a more consumer-friendly service system, more efficient use of available resources, and avoiding...
The Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996 brought several changes to the welfare system. Among these changes are lifetime limits for receiving welfare benefits, and work requirements intended to foster economic self-sufficiency in welfare recipients. In the past few years, it has been acknowledged that there are challenges...
Families stay connected over time through the intergenerational transmission of legacies. Legacies help family members to articulate family identity, learn more about family history, and provide succeeding generations with information about family culture and ethnicity. This qualitative study examines how older mothers transmit family meanings, history, and culture to family...
This study used a mixed method approach (quantitative and qualitative) to examine the commonalities and differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic participants of the Even Start Family Literacy Program. Using a life course perspective, this study examined the educational background and life history of Hispanic and non-Hispanic participants, their reasons and...