National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Summary
Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 1996. Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences: Challenges and Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5511.
×

Introduction

Concerns about the increasing involvement of many adolescents in high-risk behaviors have prompted a search for strategies and approaches that can guide youth away from unhealthy and unsafe practices and engage them in becoming productive members of society. This search has revealed many uncertainties in understanding how teenagers negotiate critical transitions, such as from school-to-work and from child to parent, the formation of self-identity, and the selection of life options. In situations in which communities must struggle with the problems of poverty, crime, drugs, and other negative influences, some youth are able to connect with social and economic networks that can help them become successful and productive adults. Others never gain access to or turn away from such networks.

In seeking to explain these variations in adolescent development, researchers have focused traditionally on personal characteristics, family relationships, and peer friendships. Such lines of inquiry suggest that these factors interact across multiple dimensions to influence youth outcomes. More recently, research scholars have noted that social settings represent a whole new area that has largely been ignored in traditional scholarship. The recent emphasis on social settings in youth development research has stimulated new lines of research inquiry and research methods designed to explore how individual, family, and peer relationships and outcomes are influenced by factors such as physical environment, economic opportunity structures, and ethnic and social networks, especially in urban areas characterized by concentrated poverty. Scholars are investigating relationships between types and density of social interactions, youth perceptions of positive and negative influences within their social and physical environments,

Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 1996. Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences: Challenges and Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5511.
×

and ways in which these relationships and perceptions are associated with the emergence of problem behaviors within communities (such as crime, gangs, substance abuse, child maltreatment, and teenage pregnancy). Although this field of study is relatively young and lacks well-established theories and comprehensive data sets, research on social setting factors and adolescent development has significant implications for the design and evaluation of programs that serve youth.

An emphasis on social settings compels service providers to move beyond a perspective that focuses on the deficits of today's youth (such as delinquency, drug use, teenage pregnancy, and violence) and to examine the density and quality of social interactions as well as demographic features and economic measures in assessing a community's resources. The emphasis on social context has stimulated a new agenda for program development and evaluation, one that stresses the importance of knowing how, when, and where adolescents interact with their families, peers, and unrelated adults in settings such as home, employment, recreation, and education.

Research on social settings has spurred interest in describing and explaining how the diverse strategies used by youth, families, neighborhoods, and ethnic groups reflect their efforts to deal with conditions of instability, adversity, limited resources, and social change. The emerging research has also called attention to the importance of understanding how youth themselves perceive assets and deficits within their social settings, including their perceptions of schooling, appropriate peers, and reference groups. Finally, the research on social settings has highlighted the need to integrate the youth development research literature with other research on community development and community organization (in the fields of economics, urban studies, anthropology, and sociology, for example) so that knowledge can inform efforts to build communities that are supportive and protective of their youth and families.

For these reasons, the Board on Children, Youth, and Families was asked by the Administration for Children and Families to convene a Committee on Youth Development to determine the need for an ongoing review of the research base that could contribute to a broad range of governmental and private foundation youth initiatives. The committee was asked specifically to examine research that could inform the development of comprehensive, community-wide initiatives intended to improve the life trajectories of at-risk youth in economically poor areas.

Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 1996. Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences: Challenges and Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5511.
×
Page 3
Suggested Citation:"Introduction." National Research Council. 1996. Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences: Challenges and Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5511.
×
Page 4
Next: The Charge to the Committee »
Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences: Challenges and Opportunities Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $21.00 Buy Ebook | $16.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

On January 25, 1996, the Committee on Youth Development of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families convened a workshop to examine the implications of research on social settings for the design and evaluation of programs that serve youth. The January workshop provided an opportunity for the committee to examine the strengths and limitations of existing research on interactions between social settings and adolescent development. This research has drawn attention to the importance of understanding how, when, and where adolescents interact with their families, peers, and unrelated adults in settings such as home, school, places of work, and recreational sites. This workshop builds on previous work of the National Research Council and reiterates its support for integrating studies of social settings into more traditional research on individual characteristics, family functioning, and peer relationships in seeking to describe and explain adolescent behavior and youth outcomes.

Not only does this report examine the strengths and limitations of research on social settings and adolescence and identify important research questions that deserve further study in developing this field, but it also explores alternative methods by which the findings of research on social settings could be better integrated into the development of youth programs and services. Specific themes include the impact of social settings on differences in developmental pathways, role expectations, and youth identity and decision-making skills, as well as factors that contribute to variations in community context.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!