A Participatory Youth Empowerment Model and Qualitative Analysis of Student Voices on Power and Violence Prevention.

Adolescent;Youth Participation;Empowerment;Power;Voice;Violence Prevention;Public Health;Health Sciences;Health Behavior & Health Education

Wong, Naima T.Parker, Edith A. ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Adolescent;    Youth Participation;    Empowerment;    Power;    Voice;    Violence Prevention;    Public Health;    Health Sciences;    Health Behavior & Health Education;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/60732/wongn_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

The unifying theme of this dissertation is youth voice and violence prevention.Youth voice can be described as young people taking an active role in sharing their perspectives on assets, problems, and potential solutions.To examine youth voice and violence prevention, the research is organized into three papers.In the first paper, I review literature on youth violence, positive youth development, empowerment, and participation.Rooted in the evidence-base, I propose the TYPE Pyramid, a typology of five types of youth participation using a positive youth development and empowerment framework.The pyramid structure of the typology suggests that egalitarian youth-adult partnerships that encourage youth participation are optimal. In the second paper, I argue that the social positioning of youth, perceptions of power and the power youth may attribute to violence can play an integral role motivating some youth towards or against violence.To investigate youth perceptions of power, views on their social positions and its potential association with youth violence, I examined essays written by students in Flint, Michigan as part of a national violence prevention essay contest.Students were asked to respond to three questions: 1) How has youth violence affected my life?2) What are the causes of youth violence? and 3) What can I do about youth violence.I used modified grounded theory methods to construct a conceptual model of power and violence.The students’ experiences suggested that specific environmental stressors such as lack of opportunity, stigma and physical surroundings caused youth to either posture for power, internalize their conditions or be resilient.Pathways to power, powerlessness and empowerment are outlined in the model.Lastly, I examined the same essays for youth-identified strategies on youth violence prevention.I evaluated youth responses to the third question they were asked to respond: What can I do about youth violence?These responses were then compared and contrasted with violence prevention research and efforts in the field deemed as best practices.This paper aimed to contribute a youth-centered point of view to the violence prevention discourse.