Role of Program STAFF
Larson, R. & Angus, R. (2011). Pursuing paradox: The role of adults in creating empowering settings for youth. Prepared for M. Aber, K. Maton, & E. Seidman (Eds.). Empowerment settings and voices for social change (pp. 65-93). New York: Oxford.
Advisors of youth programs navigate the paradox of trying to provide direction while allowing youth to make decisions and learn from their actions. This article examines what differentiates advisors who are effective in facilitating youth’s development of empowerment skills (specifically strategic thinking). We found these advisors exercised an art of “leading from behind” in which they provided judicious support- when and if needed – in ways that maintained youth’s experience of agency and facilitated their cycles of learning.
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Walker, K. (2010). The multiple roles that youth development program leaders adopt with youth. Youth & society, 20(10), 1-21.
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Larson, R. & Walker, K. (2010). Dilemmas of practice: Challenges to program quality encountered by youth program leaders. American Journal of Community Psychology.45, 338-349.
To create and sustain high quality youth development programs, it is important to understand the challenging situations and dilemmas that emerge in program leaders' daily work with youth.
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Larson, R.W., Rickman, A.N., Gibbons, C.M., & Walker, K.C. (2009). Practitioner expertise: Creating quality within the daily tumble of events in youth settings. In N.Yohalem, R. Granger, & K. Pittman (Eds.). New Directions for Youth Development, No 121, 71-88. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Walker,
K. & Larson, R. (Winter 2006). The dilemmas of youth work: Balancing the professional with the personal. New Directions for Youth Development, No 112, 109-118.
Youth workers encounter numerous dilemmas in their daily practice, including
situations that create tension between relating to youth in a professional versus a personal way.
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Walker,
K. & Larson, R. (February, 2006). Adult-driven youth programs: An oxymoron?. The Prevention Researcher, 13 (1),
17-20.
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Larson, R., Walker, K.,
& Pearce, N. (2005). A comparison of youth-driven and adult-driven
youth programs: Balancing inputs from youth and adults. Journal of Community Psychology, 33, 57-74.
Contrasts the unfolding of events and experiences in two youth-led and
two adult-led programs: What types of environments do they provide for
youth development? What developmental processes does each
facilitate? What are the vulnerabilities of each and what strategies do
adult leaders do to make each successful?
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Larson, R., & Walker, K.
(2005).
Processes of positive development: Classic theories. In. P. Witt & L. Caldwell (Eds.). Recreation and youth development (pp.131-148). State College,
PA: Venture Publishing.
Uses examples from research to demonstrate how five classic theories of developmental science (e.g.,
Learning theory, Piaget, Attachment theories) provide concepts of positive
development that can be applied in youth development programs.
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Walker,
K. & Larson, R. (Spring, 2004). Life on the ground: Balancing
youth ownership with adult input. Evaluation Exchange, 10 (1),
p. 8.
A
short essay discussing the daily dilemmas faced by adult leaders of youth
programs.
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Developmental Processes, GENERAL
Larson, R. (2000). Toward a psychology of positive youth development. American Psychologist, Vol. 55, No.1, 170-183.
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Larson, R. W, Perry, S. C., Kang, H., & Walker, K. C. (2011). Understanding the Development in Youth Development Programs: Looking To the Future. Journal of Youth Development, 6 (3), 155-167.
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Larson, R. W. (2011). Adolescents' conscious processes of developing regulation: Learning to appraise challenges. In R. M. Lerner, J. V. Lerner, E. P. Bowers, S. Lewin-Bizan, S. Gestsdottir, & J. B. Urban (Eds.). Thriving in childhood and adolescence: The role of self regulation processes: New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. No. 134. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Larson, R. (2006). Positive youth development, willful adolescents, and mentoring. Journal of community psychology, 34, 677-689.
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Larson, R., &
Walker, K. (2006). Learning about the "real world" in an
urban arts program. Journal of Adolescent Research 21, 244-268.
To make the transition into adulthood youth must learn to function in
the complex and unpredictable "real worlds" of adult life.
This intensive case study of an urban arts program identifies the types of
experiences and leader support that facilitate developmental processes.
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Larson, R., &
Wood, D. (2006). Positive development. In. L.R. Sherrod (Ed.). Youth activism: An international encyclopedia, Vol. 2 (pp.
479-485). Westport, CT:
Greenwood Publishing.
Uses the example of one youth activism program to demonstrate how such
programs can be rich contexts for young people to engage in different
forms of self-development.
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Larson, R.,
Jarrett, R., Hansen, D., Pearce, N., Sullivan, P., Walker, K., Watkins,
N., & Wood, D., (2004). Organized youth activities as contexts for
positive development (pp. 540-560). In Linley, A. & Joseph, S. (Eds.), Positive Psychology in Practice: From Research to Application. New
York: Wiley.
Preliminary findings of the research show how youth programs promote
development in five domains of growth and how adult leaders helped provide
conditions for youth to engage in these processes of growth.
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Note:
Copyright laws prohibit use of this materials beyond personal
research. All further use of this material other than for personal
research is subject to the permission of the publisher
DEVELOPMENT OF INITIATIVE, STRATEGIC THINKING, AND RESPONSIBILITY
Larson, R. & Angus, R. (2011). Pursuing paradox: The role of adults in creating empowering settings for youth. Prepared for M. Aber, K. Maton, & E. Seidman (Eds.). Empowerment settings and voices for social change (pp. 65-93). New York: Oxford.
Advisors of youth programs navigate the paradox of trying to provide direction while allowing youth to make decisions and learn from their actions. This article examines what differentiates advisors who are effective in facilitating youth’s development of empowerment skills (specifically strategic thinking). We found these advisors exercised an art of “leading from behind” in which they provided judicious support- when and if needed – in ways that maintained youth’s experience of agency and facilitated their cycles of learning.
Click here to view a PDF version of this
article
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Larson, R.W. & Angus, R.M. (2011). Adolescents' development of skills for agency in youth programs: Learning to think strategically. Child Development, 82, 277-294.
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Wood, D., Larson, R.W., & Brown, J. (2009). How adolescents come to see themselves as more responsible through participation in youth programs. Child Development, 80, 295-309.
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Larson, R.,
Hansen, D., & Walker, K. (2005). Everybody's gotta give:
Adolescents’ development of initiative and teamwork within a youth program. In. Mahoney, J., Larson, R., & Eccles, J. (Eds.). Organized activities as contexts of development: Extracurricular
activities, after-school and community programs (pp. 159-184). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Research on an FFA program reveals a process of developmental change
through which youth gained abilities to plan and organize work toward
long-term goals. The study also shows the techniques used by the
adult advisors to keep youth engaged in this process.
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Larson,
R. & Hansen, D. (2005). The development of strategic thinking: Learning to impact humans systems in a youth activism program. Human
Development, 48, 327-349.
Elucidates
the development of advanced skills in strategic thought and action within
a youth activism program in which young people worked for social change.
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EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Larson, R. W. & Brown, J. R. (2007). Emotional development in adolescence: What can be learned from a high school theater program. Child Development, 78(4), 1083-1099.
Progress in understanding adolescent emotional development requires close examination of emotional experience in context, and to do this the authors drew on qualitative data collected over the course of a high school theater production. Participants’ accounts of experiences in this setting demonstrated their capacity to actively extract emotional knowledge and develop strategies for managing emotions. These accounts suggested that youth’s repeated ‘hot’ experience of unfolding emotional episodes in the setting provided material for this active process of learning. Youth also learned by drawing on and internalizing the ‘emotion culture’ of the setting which provided concepts, strategies, and “tools” for managing emotional episodes.
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article
TEAMWORK DEVELOPMENT
Larson, R. W., Jensen, L., Kang, H., Griffith, A. & Rompala, V. (in press). Peer Groups as a Crucible of Positive Value Development in a Global World. In G. Trommsdorff & X. Chen (Eds.) Values, Religion, and Culture in Adolescent Development. New York: Cambridge University Press.
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Larson, R. (2007). From "I" to "We": Development of the
capacity for teamwork in youth programs. In R. Lerner & R. Silbereisen
(Eds.). Approaches to positive youth development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
This article examines how youth overcome egocentric barriers and
develop skills for working collaboratively with peers.
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SOCIAL CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT
Sullivan, P.J. & Larson, R.W. (2010). Connecting youth to high resource adults: Lessons from effective youth programs. Journal of Adolescent Research. 25 (1), 99-123.
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Jarrett, R.L.,
Sullivan, P.J., & Watkins, N.D. (2005). Developing social capital through
participation in organized youth programs: Qualitative insights from three
programs. Journal of Community Psychology,33, 41-55.
How three youth programs overcame the generational divide and
facilitated youth's formation of connections with resource-rich community
adults. Findings show the processes whereby youth gained
social capital, the types of social capital they gained, and the role of
the programs in facilitating this process.
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BRIDGING DIFFERENCE
Watkins, N. D., Larson, R.,
& Sullivan, P. J.(2007). Bridging intergroup difference in a community youth program. American Behavioral Scientist , 51, 380-402.
This paper presents a theoretical explaination for how a youth activism program promotes the bridging of differences among racial groups and people of different sexual orientations.
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MOTIVATION
Larson, R. W. & Dawes, N. P. (in press). Cultivating intrinsic motivation in american youth programs: The expertise of youth practitioners. In M. Csikszentmihalyi (Ed.) Education and Youth Development in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Contributions from Positive Psychology. New York: Springer.
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Dawes, N. P., & Larson, R.W. (2011). How youth get engaged: Grounded-theory research on motivational development in organized youth programs. Developmental Psychology. 47(1), 259-269.
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Larson, R.W. & Rusk, N. (2011). Intrinsic Motivation and Positive Development. In R. M. Lerner, J.V. Lerner, & J.B. Benson (Eds). Advances in Child Development and Behavior: Positive Youth Development (pp. 89-130). Oxford, UK: Elsevier.
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Pearce,
N. & Larson, R. (2006). The process of motivational change in a
civic activism organization. Applied Developmental Science,10, 121-131.
Describes stages of change whereby unmotivated youth become engaged in
the activities of a youth activism program, including the role of peers
and the adult leader in facilitating this motivational change.
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YOUTH PROGRAMS AND FAMILIES
Larson, R.W., Pearce, N., Sullivan, P.J., and Jarrett, R.L.(2006). Participation in youth programs as a catalyst for negotiation of family autonomy with connection. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
This study shows how youth's participation in programs provided a favorable pathway of opportunities for the development of autonomy development within adolescent-parent relationships while maintaining positive connections with their families.
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OTHER PAPERS
Watkins,
N. (2003, June). Bridging difference in a rural youth program: Hicks,
punks, and the in-crowd. Paper presented at the 9th Biennial Conference on
Community Research and Action, Las Vegas, New Mexico Highlands University.
Click
here to view a PDF version of this paper
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Pearce,
N. (2003, June). Roads to empowerment for a youth in a program for diverse
teens. Paper presented at the 9th Biennial Conference on Community
Research and Action, Las Vegas, New Mexico Highlands University.
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here to view a PDF version of this paper
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Dworkin,
J. & Larson,
R. (2006). Adolescents' Negative Experiences in Organized Youth
Activities. Journal of Youth Development, 1(3).
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article
YES PUBLICATIONS
Hansen,
D., Larson, R, & Dworkin, J. (2003).What adolescents learn in
organized youth activities: A survey of self-reported developmental
experiences. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 13 (1), 25-56.
This research inventoried adolescents' reports on
different developmental and negative experiences in organized youth
activities, including extracurricular and community-based activities. High school students experiences' were assessed using a newly
developed instrument, the Youth Experiences Survey (YES). These youth
reported higher rates of learning experiences in youth activities than in
two other major contexts of their lives. Youth activities were associated
with experiences related to initiative, identity exploration and
reflection, emotional learning, developing teamwork skills, and forming
ties with community members. The findings also suggest that different
youth activities offer distinct patterns of learning experiences. Service,
faith-based, community, and vocational activities were reported to be
frequent contexts for experiences related to identity, prosocial norms,
and links to adults. Sports were a frequent context for those related to
identity work and emotional development.
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Note:
Copyright laws prohibit use of this materials beyond personal
research. All further use of this material other than for personal
research is subject to the permission of the publisher.
________________________________________________
Larson,
R., Hansen, D., & Moneta, G. (2006). Differing profiles of
developmental experiences across types of organized youth activities. Developmental
Psychology, 42 (5), 849-863.
This study inventoried the types of developmental and negative experiences that youth encounter in different categories of extracurricular and community-based organized activities. A representative sample of 2,280 11th graders from 19 diverse high schools responded to a computer-administered protocol. Youth in faith-based activities reported higher rates of experiences related to identity, emotional regulation, and interpersonal development in comparison to other activities. Sports and arts programs stood out as providing more experiences related to development of initiative, although sports was also related to high stress. Service activities were associated with experiences related to development of teamwork, positive relationships, and social capital. Youth reported all of these positive developmental experiences to occur significantly more often in youth programs than during school classes.
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article
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Hansen, D. & Larson, R. (2007). Amplifiers of developmental and negative experiences in organized activities: Dosage, motivation, lead roles, and adult-youth ratios. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28, 360-374.
This study evaluated four sets of factors hypothesized to amplify adolescents’ developmental and negative experience in organized youth activities. A representative sample of 1,822 eleventh grade students from 19 high schools completed the computer-administered Youth Experience Survey. Findings indicated that amount of time, motivation, holding a lead role, and the ratio of adults-to-youth were independently related to students’ reports of developmental experience in an organized activity. These variables accounted for substantially more variance (23%) in reported developmental experiences than type of activity (3%); and they had only modest relationships with youths’ negative experiences (2% of total variance). The findings suggest, among other things, that the developmental benefits of participation in different organized activities could be enhanced if youth were motivated by enjoyment and had lead roles more often.
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article
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