Learning From Youth: Using Positive Outcomes to Evaluate Summer Youth Employment Programs
- 14 September 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Adolescent Research
- Vol. 38 (5), 876-910
- https://doi.org/10.1177/07435584211043295
Abstract
Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) help connect youth to opportunities for career exploration, skill development, and mentorship. Despite heightened investment in SYEPs, research regarding positive impacts is limited. Most of the common SYEP evaluation strategies are rooted in deficit thinking and focus on outcomes such as reducing violent crime, risk behaviors, gaps in unemployment, and increasing educational attainment. Despite recent shifts toward approaches that acknowledge structural oppression in adolescent research more broadly, evaluations of SYEPs often perpetuate a discourse of deficiency about marginalized communities by emphasizing disparities without acknowledging the systemic forces that create them. In this article, we utilize the Five Cs of Positive Youth Development to present an alternative set of outcomes identified from focus groups and surveys with youth ages 16 to 24 who participated in SummerWorks, a 10-week SYEP located in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Specifically, we find that SYEPs may help youth make the transition to adulthood, build community and increase their social capital, and access knowledge, resources, and opportunities. Through this approach, we hope to expand the literature on the impacts of SYEPs and encourage antiracist evaluation strategies that build on these findings and challenge deficit thinking.Keywords
Funding Information
- Ralph C. Wilson Foundation (RG-1807-05944)
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Evaluating youth development programs: Progress and promiseApplied Developmental Science, 2015
- The Effects of Youth Employment: Evidence from New York City Lotteries *The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2015
- Summer jobs reduce violence among disadvantaged youthScience, 2014
- Empowerment‐Based Positive Youth Development: A New Understanding of Healthy Development for African American YouthJournal of Research on Adolescence, 2013
- Supportive Non‐Parental Adults and Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning: Using Social Support as a Theoretical FrameworkAmerican Journal of Community Psychology, 2011
- Understanding ‘Marginal’ PerspectivesQualitative Social Work, 2009
- What Exactly Is a Youth Development Program? Answers From Research and PracticeApplied Developmental Science, 2003
- The Transition From Adolescence to Young Adulthood: A Theoretical PerspectiveThe Journal of School Nursing, 2001
- SOCIAL NETWORKS AND STATUS ATTAINMENTAnnual Review of Sociology, 1999
- Promoting Healthy Adolescents: Synthesis of Youth Development Program EvaluationsJournal of Research on Adolescence, 1998