Publication year
2009
Citation Title
How adolescents come to see themselves as more responsible through participation in youth programs.
Journal Name
Child Development
Journal Volume
80
Issue Number
1
Page Numbers
295-309
DOI
10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01260.x
Summary
The process underlying youth's development of responsibility was examined through an in-depth qualitative study. High-school aged youth and their leaders were interviewed over several months about their experiences in youth programs and what facilitated the process of development of responsibility. Youth's accounts suggested that this process was driven largely by successfully fulfilling program expectations.
Key Findings
Youth regularly attributed their increased sense of responsibility to fulfilling demands and expectations. These included expectations they had met, obligations they had fulfilled, and challenging circumstances where they had acted in a dependable way.
In three programs where leaders cultivated youth's experience of agency over their work, youth mentioned changes in responsibility most frequently. For example, leaders expressed that it was essential that youth experience "artistic control" of their work and told the youth, "You have your ideas, follow through. This is your work."
In program where youth were more likely to talk about responsibility, the task, time, and role demands were unambiguous and clearly defined.
Implications for Military Professionals
Encourage military-connected youth to participate in high-quality youth programming
Provide military-connected youth and their families resources on youth programs in the community
Implications for Program Leaders
Provide clear expectations that lay out the task, time, and role demands for military-connected youth participants
Engage military-connected youth in classes that encourage them to take ownership of projects that engage them in challenging roles and tasks
Implications for Policy Makers
Recommend collaboration between DoD programs and local community organizations to support highquality youth programming
Continue efforts with each military branch to support military-connected youth programming
Methods
The 11 youth programs included in the study had diverse foci, including the arts, leadership, and service programs; however, they all had a reputation for being high-quality.
The data collection consisted of 648 interviews of youth and adult leaders along with 159 site observations.
Analyses entailed coding and evaluating youth's descriptions of the most salient changes they experienced through program involvement and what may have facilitated this change.
Participants
Youth were selected, with input from the leaders, to be representative of program participants in ethnicity, gender, and length of prior participation in the program.
Research included 8-12 youth in each program, for a total of 108 youth interviewed across programs.
The sample included 59 girls and 49 boys, with a mean age of 16.5 and approximately equal numbers of youth identifying as White (n=36), Black (n=32), Hispanic (n=32), Biracial (n=6), and Asian-American (n=2).
Limitations
This study only included youth participating in high-quality programs; therefore, results should be interpreted within these parameters.
While diverse demographics and length of time in the program were used in the selection of participants, it is not clear what other criteria were given to leaders as they selected youth. Selection could have been biased towards youth who leaders see as models in their program.
In three of the programs youth were paid about minimum wage for participation in the program, which could have influenced the results of the study.
Avenues for Future Research
Examine a broader population of youth and programs, utilizing quantitative behavioral measures of responsibility and repeated assessments
Obtain assessments of responsible behavior from other contexts of military-connected youth's lives (e.g., at home, in class, or in future jobs) which would deepen the understanding around which changes in youth programs transfer to behavior in other settings
Broaden the scope through a representative sample of military-connected youth, which would help to evaluate the generality of the process described in this research
Focus
Civilian
Target Population
Population Focus
Abstract
This qualitative study was aimed at developing theory about the process underlying the development of responsibility grounded in accounts of youth who reported experiencing this change. A total of 108 high-school-aged (M = 16.5) youth from 11 programs were interviewed about their experiences within the program, and 24 reported becoming more responsible through their participation. The youth’s accounts suggested that this process was driven largely by successfully fulfilling program expectations. This process was driven by youth’s adherence to their commitments and their consideration of the consequences of their actions on others. Youth mentioned changes in responsibility most frequently in three programs, which appeared to differ from the remaining programs in having more structure and placing greater ownership and accountability on youth.
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