Youth Society

Recent reports describe alarming trends of adolescent drug use and a lack of treatment for substance use disorder symptoms. Early efforts in adolescent treatment relied on adult models that may not have considered the unique needs of adolescents. Recently, there has been an increased emphasis in developing intervention models designed specifically for adolescents. This article provides descriptions of current approaches to adolescent substance abuse treatment and summaries of research assessing the effectiveness of these models.

This study carefully examined compensating, mediating, and moderating effects of positive school climate on the relationship of socioeconomic status (SES) and achievement in a nationally representative sample of ethnocultural minority Arabic speaking students in Israel ( N = 21,873). Positive school climate was predominantly influential in schools with vulnerable ethnic groups and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Narrower achievement gaps among students with different personal SES backgrounds were achieved in schools with positive climates. Results suggest improving school climate can increase students’ academic opportunities and offer special benefits for students from less advantaged backgrounds. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.

The healing process of restorative justice might contribute to the treatment of sub­ stance abuse because it can deliver the love and caring to motivate holistic change in a life. Restorative justice is about repairing injustice, and there are important ways that substance abuse is implicated in the generation of injustice. Some case studies illustrate how (a) a restorative approach to substance abuse can catalyze confrontation of a profound community injustice and (b) confronting injustice can help tackle sub­stance abuse. At present, most restorative justice programs fail to achieve either dy­namic, sweeping substance abuse under the carpet. Criminalization of the harm caused by substance abuse (e.g., burglary to support a heroin habit) may be an effective way of reducing substance abuse when it is used to trigger well-designed restorative processes. The research and development needed to test this hypothesis is outlined.

Recent research has identified a discreet set of subjective markers that are seen as characterizing the transition to adulthood. The current study challenges this coherence by examining the disparity and variability in young people’s selec-tion of such criteria. Four sentence-completion cues corresponding to four dif-ferent contexts in which adult status might be contested were given to 156 British 16- to 17-year-olds. Their qualitative responses were analyzed to explore patterns whilst capturing some of their richness and diversity. An aston-ishing amount of variability emerged, both within and between cued contexts. The implications of this variability for how the transition to adulthood is expe-rienced are explored. The argument is made that markers of the transition to adulthood are not merely reflective of the bio–psycho–social development of young people. Rather, adulthood here is seen as an essentially contested con-cept, located within the discursive interactional environmen...

There is significant disagreement among researchers as to the appropriate conceptual and operational definitions of gang membership. One of the key issues involves the validity of allowing respondents to identify themselves as gang members. This research examines the construct validity of gang membership by examining the relationship between various methods of operationalizing gang membership and delinquent involvement. The results demonstrate that there are important consequences to the method utilized to measure gang membership. Individuals reporting membership in organized gangs were far more likely to report that their gangs possess the characteristics typically associated with traditional street gangs. Likewise, the respondent's self-identification had a strong impact on both the group's and the individual's criminal behavior. Overwhelmingly, persons who considered themselves to be members of an organized gang were more apt to engage in all types of delinquent activ...

... 2005; Burman, 2000, 2004; Burman, Batcehlor & Brown, 2001; Merten, 1997; Mikel-Brown, 2003; Putallaz & Bierman, 2004; Remillar, 2005; Sikes, 1997; Steffensmeier, Schwartz, Shong, & Ackerman, 2005). Yet unlike much of the popular culture focus on “the crisis of mean girls ...

In present-day societies, the extent to which young people still participate in civic life is an important matter of concern. The claim of a generational "decline" in civic engagement has been contested, and interchanged with the notion of a "replacement" of traditional engagement by new types of participation, and the emergence of the "monitorial citizen" who participates in more individualized ways. Concurrently, this study explored the assumption of a "pluralization" of involvement, advancing a new concept: the "civic omnivore," characterized by an expanded civic repertoire. Drawing data from a sample of 1,493 Belgian and Dutch university students, we identify five repertoires of participation such as, disengaged students, classical volunteers, humanitarian citizens, monitorial citizens, and civic omnivores. Our findings support the pluralization thesis, by showing that young citizens are not exclusively engaged in new monitorial ...

Abstract There is limited understanding of risk and protective factors associated with depression among African American adolescents living in impoverished, urban settings. A cross-sectional study was conducted to identify a range of risk and protective factors ...

The article analyzes the social construction of youth violence in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador on the one hand, and the related security policies of the three states, on the other. In each country, there is an idiosyncratic way of constructing youth violence and juvenile delinquency. Also, each country has its own manner of reaction to those problems. In El Salvador youths are socially constructed as a threat to security, and the state implements predominantly repressive policies to protect citizens against that threat. In Nicaragua and Costa Rica, where the social discourse on youth violence is less prominent, the state’s policies are neither very accentuated nor very coherent, whether in terms of repressive or nonrepressive measures. There are strong relationships and mutual influences between the public’s fear (or disregard) of youth violence and the state’s policies to reduce it.

This mixed-methods longitudinal project investigates the association between student perceptions of their schools and themselves. Findings from the first two waves of data analysis with 894 middle and high school students in a midsized Great Lakes city reveal similarities and differences between the grade levels (7th-10th) and their perceptions of their schools. Although 7th-grade students enter middle school with the most positive feelings about their schools, they lose this feeling of euphoria by the end of their academic year. In contrast, the 10th-grade females are the most positive of all students, recognizing school characteristics which assist with their self-efficacy. Results from quantitative analyses indicate that student attitudes toward school and a sense of school connectedness are linked to both self-esteem and academic self-efficacy.

Despite their growing popularity, quantitative studies of school-based mentoring (SBM) programs for youth have showed considerable variation in mentoring benefits, including negative effects of mentoring. We investigated the initial 3 months of one school’s SBM program, delivered by teachers and compulsory for all first- and second-year high school students ( N = 103). Students who reported higher quality of mentoring environment (QME) tended to report greater school engagement. No such association was found for grades. In addition, higher QME was associated with greater perceived benefits of discussing personal themes but not of academic themes. Evidence of personal benefit, but absence of evidence for academic benefit, was consistent with reported effects in other SBM programs. Protégé expectations, but not gender or initial school engagement, were associated with QME, suggesting self-fulfilling prophecy as a mediator of effects. We discuss the implications of this for managing SB...

This study examines high school students’ perceptions of school closed-circuit television systems (CCTVs). It draws on interviews conducted with 83 adolescents recruited from 10th- to 12th-grade classes at 39 Israeli schools. The findings indicate that students’ perceptions of CCTVs are embedded in their overall opinions about their school, particularly concerning relationships and trust between students and educators. The various metaphors that students used to describe their relational position regarding school CCTVs highlight that surveillance has become part of the organizational–educational experience. The findings also show that students’ scrutiny of school CCTVs reflects a conflict between privacy and security concerns. Students resolve this conflict by resorting to various balances, which echo general constitutional principles but were also anchored in the students’ personal schooling experiences. While building on Nissenbaum’s framework of contextual integrity for assessing...

The aim of this article is to identify the main mechanisms leading to the NEET status in Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria. It does so by highlighting the differences amongst them and verifying how place of residence effectively affects the connected propensity to this status after having controlled for many personal characteristics through a series of probit models. Furthermore, multiple correspondence analyses produce profound understanding of the NEET phenomenon and associated determinants. The results highlight the need to plan support actions tailored to specific NEET characteristics. Whilst the degree of urbanization impacts upon the NEET status throughout Romania and Bulgaria, Italy shows a strong divide between the North and the South. However, in all three countries there is a need to improve the education system and stimulate higher levels of education as the main measure of NEET prevention.

This study examines high school students’ perceptions of school closed-circuit television systems (CCTVs). It draws on interviews conducted with 83 adolescents recruited from 10th- to 12th-grade classes at 39 Israeli schools. The findings indicate that students’ perceptions of CCTVs are embedded in their overall opinions about their school, particularly concerning relationships and trust between students and educators. The various metaphors that students used to describe their relational position regarding school CCTVs highlight that surveillance has become part of the organizational–educational experience. The findings also show that students’ scrutiny of school CCTVs reflects a conflict between privacy and security concerns. Students resolve this conflict by resorting to various balances, which echo general constitutional principles but were also anchored in the students’ personal schooling experiences. While building on Nissenbaum’s framework of contextual integrity for assessing...