Opportunities for Positive Youth Development: The Organized Activity Participation and Educational Outcomes of Adolescents in Adoptive, Foster, and Kinship Care

Youth’s structured (e.g., sports) and unstructured (e.g., socializing) activities are key contexts for positive development. Both behavioral participation (e.g., frequency) and elements of psychological engagement (e.g., enjoyment, challenge) in programs and activities have been linked to components of youth development. We tested a model in which both psychological engagement and behavioral participation in activities predicted overall positive youth development in older adolescent and emerging adult samples (Sample 1, n = 235, mean age = 18.7 years, SD = 1.4 years, 67.7% female; Sample 2, n = 186, mean age = 20.0 years, SD = 2.1 years, 68.8% female). In the first known study to include behavioral participation and multidimensional psychological engagement in predicting the Five Cs of positive youth development, we found that greater psychological engagement, but not behavioral participation, was related to higher positive youth development across samples and different activity types. Findings suggest that promoting youth’s psychological engagement in programs and other activities, rather than just their physical presence, may be advantageous for strengthening positive youth development.

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Organized Activity Participation and Relational Aggression: The Role of Positive Youth Development

Violence and Victims ◽

10.1891/0886-6708.33.1.91 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 91-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Andria B. Eisman ◽

Sarah A. Stoddard ◽

José A. Bauermeister ◽

Cleopatra H. Caldwell ◽

Marc A. Zimmerman

Keyword(s):

Relational Aggression ◽

Youth Development ◽

Positive Youth Development ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Early Adolescents ◽

Well Being ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Activity Participation ◽

Related Factors ◽

Reduce Risk

Relational aggression among early adolescents is a pervasive problem that negatively influences the health and well-being of youth. Strength-based approaches such as positive youth development (PYD) are a promising way to reduce risk of detrimental outcomes such as relational aggression. Participation in organized activities is a key way that youth build assets related to PYD. Yet, few researchers have examined empirically assets related to PYD as a mechanism by which organized activity participation may help reduce risk of relational aggression. In this study, we used structural equation modeling to investigate if assets associated with PYD mediate the relationship between organized activity participation and relational aggression using survey data from a diverse, school-based sample of early adolescents (N = 196; mean age = 12.39 years; SD = 0.52; 60% female; 45% African American, 27% White, 21% multiracial, and 7% other, 71% economically disadvantaged). We tested 2 competing models, 1 with decomposed PYD factors and 1 with an integrated PYD factor. Our results suggest that PYD better fit as an integrated versus decomposed construct, providing support for the notion that youth benefit most from assets related to PYD when they operate collectively. Our results also provide support for PYD-related factors as a mechanism by which participation may reduce risk of relational aggression. Limitations of this study, and implications for prevention are discussed.

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