Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences: Challenges and Opportunities (1996)
Chapter: Front Matter
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Preface
Today's youth live and develop in a society that offers tremendous choices and challenges during the formative period of adolescence. The adolescent's environment is shaped profoundly by the presence or absence of many different factors, including family resources, community services, and educational and employment opportunities. In the past few decades, a body of social and behavioral research has emerged that seeks to explain why some adolescents successfully navigate their social settings, while others who are similarly situated adopt "risky" lifestyles characterized by drug use, unprotected sexual behavior, dropping out of school, delinquency, gang membership, and violence. During the same period, community leaders have experimented with a wide variety of approaches designed to improve the quality of life for all community residents, including the creation of social settings that are supportive of youth—schools, recreation centers, job training programs, and others.
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has contributed to these efforts by sponsoring community-based programs to enhance social and economic opportunities for adolescents as they develop to adulthood. At the request of ACF, the Committee on Youth Development of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families (which operates under the joint auspices of the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine) convened a one-day workshop in January 1996. Chaired by Jomills Braddock, professor of sociology at the University of Miami, the committee developed the workshop to review the research literature on social settings and youth development, as well as selected experiences with community youth service programs. Meeting participants included research scientists, service pro-
viders, and representatives of public and private agencies that seek to improve outcomes for youth. The purpose of the workshop, titled "Youth Development and Neighborhood Influences," was to focus attention on what is known about environmental influences that interact with youth characteristics, family factors, and peer influences to foster or inhibit successful outcomes for adolescents. Consideration was also given to subsequent activities that would foster fledgling collaborations among those who develop, fund, and study initiatives aimed at improving youth outcomes.
Based on the workshop discussions, this report represents an exploratory effort to describe the processes by which communities and families interact during periods of adolescent development. This report also represents an important step in the evolution of the work of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families. It builds on the recommendations made in Losing Generations (National Research Council, 1993) and observations noted in Violence in Urban America (National Research Council, 1994). This project provides an important resource for the formation of the board's new Forum on Adolescence, which will continue to broaden the board's scope of work into the teenage years. In seeking to combine the worlds of science, policy, and practice, the board aims to extend the emerging portfolio of research and program efforts that are focused on adolescent behavior and, in particular, to improve existing relationships between those who study how adolescents interact with their communities and those who are engaged in efforts to improve youth outcomes.
Many individuals have contributed to this report of the Committee on Youth Development. The report benefitted enormously from the insightful comments provided by the workshop participants, who are listed at the end of this volume. The committee expresses its deep appreciation to them.
The contributions of Rosemary Chalk, staff director of the committee, and Karen Autrey, project assistant, are particularly appreciated. Other staff members who contributed to this report include Deborah Phillips, director of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, and Anne Bridgman, program officer for communications. We also acknowledge the contributions of Janet Overton, whose editing improved the report.
This report was funded by the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We are grateful to Ann Rosewater, Howard Rolston, and Hossein Faris within ACF for their support and thoughtful contribution to this effort. We appreciate ACF engaging the board to help chart new approaches in the field of youth development that will encourage bold thinking about the directions this relatively young field should take.
SHELDON H. WHITE, CHAIR
BOARD ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES
