The Youth Development Handbook

Coming of Age in American Communities

Stephen F Hamilton, Mary Agnes Hamilton, Stephen F. Hamilton, Mary Agnes Hamilton

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780761988724, 9780761926344
• eBook ISBN: 9781506319926
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie du développement

"In recent years, the fields of psychology and human development have focused growing attention on issues of positive youth development. . . . This volume provides a tool that can be used by researchers, practitioners, and policy makers alike to build collective efforts to enhance the well-being of youth. . . . Professor Hamilton is one of the most respected scholars in the country. There is no doubt in my mind that this volume will not only make a significant contribution in the field, but more important, that it is a volume that will be utilized across disciplines and professions."

—Francisco A. Villarruel, Michigan State University

"The conceptualization and comprehensiveness are excellent. The book also deals with a newly emerging and exciting field and hence is at the forefront of research, policy, and practice. . . . a useful resource."

—Lonnie Sherrod, Fordham University

"Both timely and potentially very useful…nothing nearly as inclusive as this youth development handbook now exists."

—John Kretzmann, Northwestern University

"A handbook like this is a good idea because of the interest in communities and colleges in this topic and because of the number of programs being developed targeted at adolescents. . . . I believe the book will serve as a useful reference for scholars, policy makers, and program development specialists. . . . There are no other comparable resources that focus on exemplary programs and community development issues."

—Philip Newman, University of Rhode Island

 

What are the types of environments in which youth thrive? How do we cultivate such environments to promote optimal development and positive behavior in youth? The Youth Development Handbook: Coming of Age in American Communities provides youth and development practitioners access to current theory and research in the field of youth development, including illustrations of good practice, original case studies, and a contextual approach to such topics as youth participation and diversity.

 

Because youth practitioners typically identify themselves with one or more contexts, such as youth-serving organizations or faith-based organizations, editors Stephen F. Hamilton and Mary Agnes Hamilton have arranged the book so that each chapter explores the application of youth development principles to its context, drawing on current research. Part I of the book is organized around contexts in which adolescents grow up, such as schools, workplaces, families, peer groups, youth-serving organizations, faith-based organizations, recreation groups, juvenile courts, health clinics, neighborhoods, and cyberspace. Part II addresses broader issues such as evaluation, funding, and community-wide initiatives and the concluding chapter identifies themes that cut across contexts, including mentoring, universal vs. targeted approaches, and evidence-based practice.

 

Features of this volume:

• Chapters written expressly for the book by established scholars committed to learning from the field and making research useful to practitioners in everyday life.

• Rather than a "how-to" guide, the book is a source of information and ideas for use in planning programs, training practitioners, and understanding the perspectives of partners in community collaborations.

• Original case studies provide illustrations of good practice in working with youth to optimize growth and development in varied settings such as the family, school, youth organizations, and workplaces.
• Serves as both a useful reference and as a "state of the art" account of youth development as a field.

 

The Youth Development Handbook is designed for scholars and researchers in applied developmental science as well as practitioners and policy makers who implement youth development initiatives. The book is also recommended for use in graduate courses on youth development in the fields of Psychology, Human Development & Family Studies, and Education.

1

Principles for Youth Development

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Stephen F. Hamilton, Mary Agnes Hamilton, and Karen Pittman

The term youth development is used in at least three different ways, referring to a natural process of development, principles, and practices. All three are important, and they are logically related.¹

1. A natural process. Youth development has traditionally and is still most widely used to mean a natural process: the growing capacity of a young person to understand and act on the environment. In this usage, it is identical to child or adolescent development. Human development is the natural unfolding of the potential inherent in the human organism in relation to the challenges and supports of the physical and social environment. Development lasts as long as life. Optimal development in youth enables individuals to lead a healthy, satisfying, and productive life, as youth and later as adults, because they gain the competence to earn a living, to engage in civic activities, to nurture others, and to participate in social relations and cultural activities. Youth sometimes includes childhood and adolescence, but the field of youth development emphasizes adolescence, roughly the second decade of life. This age range is the primary target of this book. Both heredity and environment influence the natural unfolding. People can actively shape their own development through the choices they make and interpretations they place on their experiences.

2. Principles. In the 1990s, the term youth development came to be applied to a set of principles, a philosophy or approach emphasizing active support for the growing capacity of young people by individuals, organizations, and institutions, especially at the community level. The youth development approach is rooted in a commitment to enabling all young people to thrive. This simple statement combines two principles: universality or inclusiveness (all youth) and a positive orientation building on strengths (thriving). Youth development arose as a counterbalance to the emphasis in problem prevention and treatment programs on categorizing youth according to their deficits and trying to remedy them. The contrast between a youth development approach and approaches designed to prevent or treat specific kinds of problems among groups of youth identified as being at high risk is somewhat analogous to that between public health and medical treatment (see Chapter 5 on health care). As in the health field, sharp debates and rivalries are often dulled in practice, where, in reality, a blend of both approaches is needed. If all youth are to thrive, some of them need prevention and treatment. Additional principles will be discussed below, notably that youth development occurs in the context of healthy relationships and challenging activities that endure and change over time and that youth are fully engaged participants, not just recipients.

3. Practices. The third use of the term youth development is to describe a range of practices in programs, organizations, and initiatives. Youth development in this sense refers to the application of the principles (Number 2) to a planned set of practices, or activities, that foster the developmental process (Number 1) in young people. The distinction between principles and practices is especially useful when considering the various settings or contexts in which young people spend time, which is the theme of Part I in this volume. Development takes place in families, neighborhoods, youth organizations, faith-based organizations, schools, and a multitude of other places, including cyberspace. Although the specific practices that adults use to create and sustain such opportunities differ across settings, the principles are consistent.

In our terminology, programs, organizations, and initiatives are sequentially larger aggregations of practices. A program may be short-term or long-term. It may involve large or small numbers of youth. It is usually embedded in or sponsored by an organization. An organization is more enduring and has multiple components. Organizations typically engage youth in a range of different programs. For example, a youth in the East Oakland Youth Development Center (see Chapter 2 on youth organizations) might enroll in their arts, employment, and/or physical development programs. By initiative, we mean a multifaceted collaborative effort to enlist the broadest possible set of people and organizations in making communities more conducive to youth development. Two initiatives, Beacons and New Futures Initiatives, are treated in the chapter on communities.

Youth development has also gained prominence as a movement (Pittman, Irby, & Ferber, 2000) serving as a unifying theme for a wide range of discussions and actions aimed at shaping policy as well as practice. Policy, a fourth “P,” refers to a course of action adopted by an organization, especially a government. Youth development principles have informed policy at all levels of government (local, state, and national) and in a variety of different sectors or departments that include a focus on young people. We treat the policy arena throughout the volume because it is relevant to all chapters.

We turn now to youth development as a process, followed by a discussion of the theoretical basis for some of the key youth development principles. We address practices only briefly in this introduction, because the chapters in Part I illustrate effective youth development practices across the range of settings youth inhabit.

The Process and Goals of Youth Development

Development is a process, not a goal. People continue to develop throughout their lifetimes. Therefore, promoting youth development is an enduring, overarching purpose, not a goal that is ever finally achieved. John Dewey (1938) captured this quality by noting that the purpose of development is to enable a person to continue to develop. Viewing development in this way complicates the identification of goals. Rather than setting out concise measurable behaviors, developmental goals identify domains for growth. Progress, as opposed to attainment, is the key (Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972).

This circular quality of development makes it difficult to separate goals from methods for achieving goals. Goals and methods, ends and means, and process and product are intertwined. Because goal setting is such an important part of program planning, we will refer to developmental goals, recognizing that even though such goals are not always amenable to measurable outcomes or behavioral objectives, they can provide a helpful framework to guide action.

Human qualities that we wish to promote can be described in multiple ways. A simple formulation is that development leads to the “Five Cs”: competence, character, connections, confidence, and contribution (listed as caring and/or compassion in other formulations) (Pittman, Irby, Tolman, Yohalem, & Ferber, 2002). Competence includes knowledge and skills that enable a person to function more effectively to understand and act on the environment. Competence enables a person to accomplish what he or she intends, provided external circumstances are favorable, or to adapt to circumstances to achieve as much as possible. Character is what makes a person intend to do what is just, right, and good. Connections refer to social relations, especially with adults, but also with peers and with younger children. Confidence is the assuredness a person needs to act effectively. It enables a person to demonstrate and build competence and character in challenging situations. Contribution means that a person uses these other attributes not only for self-centered purposes but also to give to others.

Notice that none of these developmental goals has an upper limit. One is never perfectly competent or of such high character that no further progress is needed. However, it is possible to get out of balance, especially with connections and confidence. We denigrate as a “social butterfly” a person who cares too much about superficial connections, especially when that person seems to sacrifice character, adopting whatever opinions or behaviors are popular. When confidence outruns competence, danger looms. We think of the “Five Cs” as logically linked. Competence and character are central. Young people gain competence and character by being connected with others, especially caring adults, and their competence and character in turn help them form new connections. Confidence flows from competence, and the two mutually reinforce each other. Finally, contributions demonstrate one’s character and provide an outlet for competence. (These connections are discussed further in the chapter on work and service.)

The “Five Cs” briefly summarize the goals of youth development. They are useful as a quick mental checklist when thinking about what a particular program, organization, or initiative offers to youth. They can provide a focus for community-wide initiatives. However, each is broad enough to pose challenges when it comes to designing and evaluating programs. Programs might try to enhance the competence of young people in a multitude of ways and across a range of contexts or settings, making it difficult to know when progress occurs and what led to it. For program-planning purposes, a longer, finer-grained analysis of the goals of development is needed.

The Committee on Community-Level Programs for Youth, convened by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, has provided an authoritative summation of the critical domains of youth development, adopting the terminology of personal and social assets (See Table 1.1). They categorized these assets as physical, intellectual, psychological and emotional, and social development.²

Table 1.1 Personal and Social Assets That Facilitate Positive Youth Development

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Physical Development Good health habits Good health risk management skills Intellectual Development Knowledge of essential life skills Knowledge of essential vocational skills School success Rational habits of mind—critical thinking and reasoning skills In-depth knowledge of more than one culture Good decision-making skills Knowledge of skills needed to navigate through multiple cultural contexts Psychological and Emotional Development Good mental health, including positive self-regard Good emotional self-regulation skills Good coping skills Good conflict resolution skills Mastery motivation and positive achievement motivation Confidence in one’s personal efficacy “Planfulness”—planning for the future and future life events Sense of personal autonomy/responsibility for self Optimism coupled with realism Coherent and positive personal and social identity Prosocial and culturally sensitive values Spirituality or a sense of a “larger” purpose in life Strong moral character A commitment to good use of time Social Development Connectedness—perceived good relationships and trust with parents, peers, and some other adults Sense of social place/integration—being connected and valued by larger social networks Attachment to prosocial/conventional institutions, such as school, church, nonschool youth programs Ability to navigate in multiple cultural contexts Commitment to civic engagement

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SOURCE: National Research Council and Institute of Medicine (2002, Box 3-1, pp. 74-75). Reprinted with permission from Community Programs to Promote Youth Development. ©2002 by the National Academy of Sciences, courtesy of the National Academies Press, Washington, DC.

Note that the term asset allows for the same ambiguity we have attributed to developmental goals. Assets are both desirable in themselves (think of cash and real estate) and useful in obtaining other desirable things that may themselves also be assets (buying artwork with cash, using real estate to secure a loan).

If one adds promote or increase to each of the assets listed in the box, they serve well as a list of goals for youth development. The formulation by the Committee on Community-Level Programs for Youth of the key domains of youth development and the implied goals associated with each has several strengths. First, it represents a distillation of available research by distinguished scholars on the qualities of people who succeed by most standards. Second, it provides far more specific targets for youth development than the preceding abbreviated sets of goals. This fuller compilation aids both the design of programs and their evaluation. Third, this list is detailed enough that it distinguishes among and explicates some goals that are at best implicit in the briefer lists, notably, physical and mental health; knowledge, skills, and values that open one to multiple cultures; emotional self-regulation; and spirituality.

On the other hand, a long, detailed set of goals may not necessarily help rally large numbers of people behind a community initiative or serve as a quick reminder of what programs are trying to accomplish. Thus, choosing which list of developmental goals to use depends on how it will be used rather than which one is “correct.” The point of presenting both the “Five Cs” and the personal and social assets identified by the Committee on Community-Level Programs for Youth is precisely that they do not conflict. The second expands on and adds detail to the first. The longer list can provide a framework for helping different youth development programs and organizations identify both their unique contributions and the goals they share with others.

The term developmental assets is most closely associated with the Search Institute (Benson, 19...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: What Is Youth Development?
• 1. Principles for Youth Development
• Part I. Processes and Practices in Youth Development Contexts
• Part II. Action Steps
• Name Index
• Subject Index
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors