The Lives And Times Of Urban Adolescents

Developmental psychologist Way interprets first-person accounts of what it means to be among the nearly 40 percent of poor and/or ethnic minority adolescents in the 1990s, drawing upon 71 interviews (protocols appended) with a sample of the 95-plus percent who do not meet the media stereotypes of destructive urban teens or superheroes. With relational themes clustered in conceptual matrices, and statistics belying perceptions of the degree of high-risk behavior among youth, she challenges the pathological pictures which emerge from quantitative studies representing them in preconceived categories. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

There are two groups of urban residents who, although quite unlike each other, can complement each others' needs. They are the frail elderly and low-income teenagers. This study is about Project MAIN: The frail elderly need help with grocery shopping, and low-income teenagers need an income-generating jobs program so that they may earn some money. The matching of needs in Project Main was an attempt to coordinate disparate community demographics in a mutually beneficial way

Urban teens of color are often portrayed as welfare mothers, drop outs, drug addicts, and both victims and perpetrators of the many kinds of violence which can characterize life in urban areas. Although urban youth often live in contexts which include poverty, unemployment, and discrimination, they also live with the everydayness of school, friends, sex, television, music, and other elements of teenage lives. Inner City Kids explores how a group of African American, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, and Haitian adolescents make meaning of and respond to living in an inner-city community. The book focuses on areas of particular concern to the youth, such as violence, educational opportunities, and a decaying and demoralizing urban environment characterized by trash, pollution, and abandoned houses. McIntyre's work with these teens draws upon participatory action research, which seeks to codevelop programs with study participants rather than for them.

Contents: Introduction, Review of Relevant Literature, Methodology, Results and Discussion, Summary and Conclusion.

The past decade brought forth a wave of excitement and promise for researchers and practitioners interested in community practice as an approach based on social justice principles and an embrace of community participatory actions. But, effective community practice is predicated on the availability and use of assessment methods that not only capture and report on conditions, but also simultaneously set the stage for social change efforts. This research, therefore, serves the dual purpose of generating knowledge and also being an integral part of social intervention. Research done in this way, however, requires new tools. Photovoice is one such tool - a form of visual ethnography that invites participants to represent their community or point of view through photographs, accompanied by narratives, to be shared with each other and with a broader community. Urban Youth and Photovoice focuses on the use of this method within urban settings and among adolescents and young adults - a group that is almost naturally drawn to the use of photography (especially digital and particularly in today's era of texting, facebook, and instagram) to showcase photovoice as an important qualitative research method for social workers and others in the social sciences, and providing readers with detailed theoretical and practical account of how to plan, implement, and evaluate the results of a photovoice project focused on urban youth.

Set against the backdrop of social change and globalization, this book presents the contents and contours of adolescence in contemporary urban India. Based on the trends derived from a series of mixed-method studies with adolescent girls and boys, and parents from urban upper middle class families, it explores adolescents’ and parents’ interpretations of the stage of adolescence, illustrates views on parenting, and discusses approaches to interpersonal disagreements to derive a framework of the parent-adolescent relationship. Drawing from the cultural-contextual perspective of human development, the book in its essence offers a culturally and contextually sensitive model of adolescence that is shaped along the central tenets of family interdependence, harmony, and sensitivity to parental concerns. Highlighted as well are aspects that have remained mostly unexplored, for example, adolescents’ capacity for empathy and perspective taking, and emerging issues of autonomy in a primarily relational culture. At a broader level, the book reflects upon the interplay of cultural continuity and change, and contributes to an understanding of globalizing influences on human development. Overall, the depiction of adolescent development captured in the book has significant implications for enhancing family relationships and fostering self-growth---elements that are crucial for positive youth development.The book will be of immense use to scholars in human development, psychology, and allied fields as well as to practitioners who work with adolescents.

‘On-road’ is a complex term used by young people to describe street-based subculture and a general way of being. Featuring the voices of young people, this collection explores how race, class and gender dynamics shape this aspect of youth culture. With young people on-road often becoming criminalised due to interlocking structural inequalities, this book looks beyond concerns about gangs and presents empirical research from scholars and activists who work with and study the social lives of young people. It addresses the concerns of practitioners, policy makers and scholars by analysing aspects and misinterpretations of the shifting realities of young people’s urban life.