Dilemmas of Youth Practice

1. Dilemmas of Youth Practice Reed Larson Kate Walker The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign http://web.aces.uiuc.edu/youthdev/ Funded by the W.T. Grant Foundation

2. Dealing with a youth's violence Jackie had a history of violent behavior and she often dominated group discussions with lurid accounts of fights she had been in. For example, she described getting beat up and stalked in her community, and showed her stitches from being thrown against a wall by another girl. Lynn, the program leader, was concerned about the effect of these stories on the group, yet also saw the program as the one place in Jackie’s life where she has positive female relationships. Indeed, in a research interview, Jackie described the program as helping her learn to “think before she acts” and try to “lead my life positively”. Lynn wants to figure out how tomaintain a constructive environment in the group meetings, while providing conditions for Jackie’s development.

3. Dilemmas of Practice

4. Schwandt (2003): Across applied professions, practice is “carried out on a rough ground of paradox and contingency, ambiguity and fragmentation”.

6. Features of Positive Developmental Settings (NRC, 2002) • Physical and Psychological Safety • Appropriate Structure • Supportive Relationships • Opportunities to Belong • Positive Social Norms • Support for Efficacy and Mattering • Opportunities for Skill Building • Integration of Family, School, and Community Efforts

7. Limits of Current Research & Research Approaches • Doesn’t address how to achieve these features on the “rough ground” of daily practice

8. Limits of Current Research & Research Approaches • Doesn’t address how to achieve these features on the “rough ground” of daily practice • The linear algebra of current quantitative approaches is not fitted to the calculus of daily practice

10. Competing World Views 1) Scientific/Theoretical: - general abstract principles that can be applied across contexts 2) Pragmatic: - the idiosyncrasy of individual contexts, situations and events

11. Research Objectives • Survey the “dilemma situations” encountered in youth work. • Understand how skilled practitioners respond to these situations. • Develop training modules that deal with dilemmas of practice • Evaluate the effectiveness of the training.

12. Research Objectives • Survey the “dilemma situations” encountered in youth work. • Understand how skilled practitioners respond to these situations.

13. Reed Larson, Principal Investigator Robin Jarrett, Co-Principal Investigator David Hansen, Co-Principal Investigator Kate Walker, Project Director The Youth Development Experience (TYDE)Understanding the “development” in youth development Nickki Pearce Patrick Sullivan Natasha Watkins Dustin Wood Jenell Kelly Rachel Angus Aimee Rickman Colleen Gibbons Phil Hoffman Chidori Harris

14. TYDE: A Study of Youth Development in 12 Programs for H.S.-aged Teens

15. 12 programs • Studied over 2-9 months

16. The Data • 113 youth (37 African American, 36 White, 32 Latino/a): 661 interviews • 25 program leaders: 125 interviews • 167 site observations

17. Topics of Investigation • Developmental Processes • Developing Initiative • Emotional Development • Acquiring Social Capital • Learning Teamwork • Becoming Motivated • Intercultural Competence • Developing Responsibility • Negotiating Family “Autonomy with Connection” • The Role of Adult Leaders See our web site for articles

18. Dilemma Data Base Operational Definition: “Challenges, dilemmas, situations and incidents that the leaders faced. …any situation that requires deliberation on the part of the leaders, or where different leaders might have responded in different ways. Some may involve long term struggles; others brief situations.”

19. Unit of Analysis: Dilemma Situation Leader Response Outcome

20. Categories of Dilemma I. Supporting Youth’s Work in Program Activities II. Cultivating Norms and Enforcing Rules III. Youth’s Personalities and Relationships IV. Reconciling the Organizational System with Youth Development V. Interfacing with External Worlds [Ethical, Social-Cultural]

21. I. Supporting Youth’s Work in Program Activities

22. Dilemma 136: Youth are falling behind in planning a daycamp, but don’t know it The youth in a leadership program were in charge of planning a summer daycamp for 4th graders. They had worked side-by-side with Mr. Baker, the advisor, in planning the camp in prior years. So he decided they were ready to take control. He told them it would be “their camp”—and they relished the challenge. However, once the topics for the camp were chosen, many youth acted as though the task of planning it was done. Some lost interest as the work of preparation turned out to be less fun that spinning out ideas. The group seemed unable to take things to the next step of planning activities. When some youth suggested ideas, conflicts emerged. The 4th graders were registered and the dates for the camp were approaching. Until now, Mr. Baker had let youth work through things on their own, but he saw that there were many details that youth had not thought through.

23. I. Supporting Youth’s Work in Program Activities A. Scaffolding, guiding and directing youth’s work B. Getting and keeping youth motivated

24. Other scaffolding, guiding, and directing dilemmas: • Youth missing deadlines. • Not doing what needed to be done. • Overstepping their authority. • Setting out in directions that were at odds with what the leader thought they should do.

25. Common underlying tensions in scaffolding dilemmas 1) How to provide guidance and oversight without undercutting youth’s experience of ownership of the work. 2) Tensions between process and product: Should an advisor who is a professional filmmaker, do final editing of youth’s video so it will really impress parents, funders, and the youth themselves.

26. b. Getting and keeping youth motivated 1) General motivation • The leader of an activism program with African American youth decided that ethnic inequities in city transportation would be a good focal issue but asked: “How do you grab them? how do you turn them on? how do you push them to the next level?” • In a theater production, youth started out highly motivated, but their enthusiasm waned as they got into the “real grinding work”. • In several cases advisors wanted youth to take on new leadership responsibilities, but youth were reticent; they had become accustomed to advisors doing the planning and didn’t see a need for a change.

27. B. Getting and keeping youth motivated 2) Dealing with youth’s lack of confidence: overcoming shyness or insecurity that interfered with a youth taking a role, such as directing a video, recording a song, or contributing to discussions. 3) Remotivating youth after negative experiences, for example, after losing a competition or having their public murals vandalized.

28. I. Conclusion Underlying tension between: Trying to facilitate youth’s learning Wanting the initiative for this learning to come from the youth

29. II. Cultivating Norms and Enforcing Rules

30. II. Cultivating Norms and Enforcing Rules a. Addressing youth’s violations of rules and expectations b. Cultivating group norms c. Maintaining consistency in adults behavior toward youth

31. b. Cultivating group norms In a program composed of African Americans, for example, youth routinely used the word “Nigger” in reference to each other. But a new program leader felt it was wrong for them to casually “bandy about” this epithet, once employed as an instrument of hurt and oppression. The youth, however, felt strongly that the program was their space, and that their generation was reclaiming the word as part of Hip Hop culture.

32. c. Maintaining consistency in adults behavior toward youth 1. Issues of Fairness, -- including cases were the leader was a parent of a youth. 2. Personal vs. Professional (Walker & Larson, 2006) -- Example: In a consciousness raising group, youth asked the advisor about her personal experiences, including her teenage sexual behavior. The leader had to decide when sharing information would help create rapport and teach, vs. breaching professional boundaries.

33. III. Youth’s Personalities and Relationships

34. III. Youth’s Personalities and Relationships A. Youths’ personalities, personal problems, and unique limits or needs. B. Youth-youth relationships and group dynamics.

35. IV. Reconciling the Organizational System with Youth Development

36. IV. Reconciling the Organizational System with Youth Development A. Top-down policies, directives, and bureaucratic requirements. B. Organizational demands on staff. C. Staff relationships and conflicts.

37. The CEO mandates a topic for youth’s CD, which the youth don’t like The CEO of an urban youth agency decided that the theme for a CD that youth were to make would be on the youth’s role models. She felt that a CD on this topic would impress the agency’s stakeholders. But most of the 20 young people who had signed up for the program insisted that they didn’t have any personal role models and balked at working on the project.

38. IV. Reconciling the Organizational System with Youth Development A. Top-down policies, directives, and bureaucratic requirements. B. Organizational demands on staff. C. Staff relationships and conflicts.

39. V. Interfacing with External Worlds

40. V. Interfacing with External Worlds A. Youth’s outside lives, including their families. -- Immigrant parents oppose daughter’s participation -- Parent makes scene -- Families’ poverty. B. Community and community institutions.

41. B. Community and community institutions. • Youth became angry at a newswoman they were interviewing, because they felt she had written a racist story, and shouted insults at her. • The leader had prepared a youth for a job interview with pre-employments tests, mock interviews, and making sure he had the right clothes. But she was concerned that his hair (which she described as “a wannabe Afro pulled back in a pony tail”) would alienate the employer.

42. Summary: The Ecology of Dilemmas

43. Leaders’ Responses to Dilemmas

44. 1. Youth-Centered a. Engaged with Youth b. Turned Dilemmas into Opportunities for Youth’s Development c. Incorporated Youth into the Solution d. Advocated for Youth

45. a. Engaged with Youth After angry program members shouted insults at the newswoman, that program leader held a debriefing session with all the youth to gather their views on what happened. This provided an opportunity for the youth who had shouted to more calmly describe what made them angry, and also a chance for other youth to say how they were “embarrassed” by this behavior.

46. b. Turned Dilemmas into Opportunities for Youth’s Development “If you’re going to be at the table on community issues, if you’re going to be at the table in the college classroom, you’re going to hear things far worse than this… There’ll be people that say things you can’t believe came out of their mouth, and how do you interact with them? How do you back up your opinion, represent yourself, and represent what you think?”

47. c. Incorporated Youth into the Solution

48. d. Advocated for Youth • In the situation where Lydia’s parents wanted her to quit the program because youth “were having too much fun,” the leader talked to the parents and persuaded them that the program was a valuable experience for her. • When youth rejected a joint project that program leaders had developed with another agency, the leaders honored the youths’ decision and backed out of the project, even though it damaged their relationship with that agency.

49. Qualifications: • Not all responses were youth-centered. • Not all responses were successful.

50. 2. BalancingMultiple Considerations Addressing, accommodating, negotiating, reconciling, integrating.