The paper draws upon a year-long practitioner inquiry with adolescents who conducted auto-ethnographies as part of a research course in their urban public high school. Through ethnographic data collection, youth researched their own lives, cultures, and beliefs with the end goal of producing multimodal films that represented their embodied senses…

Postcode Criminals was the second phase of an international participatory community arts project challenging negative stereotypes of urban youth. Concerned with the impact of zero tolerance community policing strategies in the UK and USA, artists Joann Kushner and Dread Scott developed an art-based project with a social justice agenda. To give…

How can high-quality arts programs attract and retain low-income urban tweens? Drawing on hundreds of interviews with young people, their families, leaders of exemplary programs and others nationwide, this report offers some answers, including 10 principles for developing effective programming. An infographic illustrating key findings, a report…

The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) shows a civic knowledge gap similar to the achievement gap, showing urban youth struggling in particular. However, research has shown that urban youth can be civically engaged when they are involved in projects or organizing intended to improve community conditions, not simply absorbing civic…

The author of this document spent time as the Associate Artistic Director of The 52nd Street Project, a not-for-profit theater company dedicated to the creation and production of new plays for, and often by, kids between the ages of nine and eighteen that reside in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. Through a series of unique…

Throughout the first 157 years of The Children's Aid Society, the economy has cycled through highs and lows, some more severe than the recession individuals are still experiencing. And through them all, Children's Aid has remained strong. The society has always developed new and effective strategies to serve New York City's most vulnerable…

No child should be born into poverty, but as we know all too well, millions are. In New York City, nearly one out of every three children is poor. It is the city's highest rate of child poverty in three decades. Poverty is more complex than the lack of financial resources--the most vulnerable children often lack access to adequate food, shelter,…

Only 8 percent of children born into poverty graduate from college by the age of 25. Consider what that means for the estimated 500,000 New York City kids living in poverty. It is a fact: The better educated a person is, the better her chances of upward mobility. So when fewer than one in 10 children born into poverty reach their academic…

This study examines the association between trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among 157 help-seeking children (aged 8-17). Structured clinical interviews are carried out, and linear and logistic regression analyses are conducted to examine the relationship between PTSD and type of trauma exposure controlling for age, gender,…

In this article the authors explore the relationship between concepts of identity and the purpose, process, and products of youth media arts organizations. Since the explicit mission of these organizations is to work with adolescents to explore and represent identities, the authors develop our understanding of how organizations conceptualize…

This empirical study investigated three mechanisms of protection (preventive, compensatory, buffering) for two factors (emotional social support, sense of personal control) in the relationship between exposure to community violence and psychological distress among 947 diverse, older adolescents. Findings indicate that social support and sense of…

Studied when and how adolescent girls become involved in violent street crime as well as the explanatory factors for this criminal behavior. Subjects were 85 incarcerated women in New York City. Results suggest a need to better understand the impact of neighborhood, peer, and addiction factors in female adolescent criminal violence. (GLR)

A study of the aftercare services offered juvenile delinquents after residential placement was conducted in New York State. The emphasis was on the Juvenile Aftercare Services program, which serves the majority of youth being conditionally released into the community. Based on findings from the study involving interviews and site visits, the…

The authors provide examples of sports-based youth development programs and offer information about program mission and vision, program design and content, evaluation results, and program sustainability. The four sports-based youth development programs presented are Harlem RBI, Tenacity, Snowsports Outreach Society, and Hoops & Leaders…

The Brotherhood/Sister Sol helps young people develop into critical thinkers who are committed to themselves and to community change. In single-gender chapters throughout New York City, primarily in Washington Heights and Harlem, teenagers learn to embrace and embody the ideals of brotherhood and sisterhood and to appreciate their connections to…