Youth civic engagement efforts have become common across the globe. With the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many have turned to civic engagement methodologies to create opportunities for young people to have a voice in decisions that affect them. With the dissemination of youth civic engagement practice, there is a need to evaluate these efforts to satisfy funders, stakeholders, and participants. As a social innovation, youth civic engagement efforts present unique issues to evaluation and invite innovative and participatory evaluation designs. This volume brings together experienced evaluators, evaluation and youth civic engagement scholars, and civic youth workers to inform evaluation designs for youth civic engagement practice and programs. The book uses the US Center for Disease Control's framework for evaluation process, and explores issues, questions, and choices an evaluator can make when designing an evaluation of youth civic engagement practices. The heart of the book includes case studies written by professional evaluators, evaluation and youth scholars, and youth workers to define issues for each stage and provide guidance for others who want to design a robust, rigorous, and responsive evaluation for youth civic engagement initiatives and practices. The final chapters of the book provide straightforward and clear guidance for beginning to intermediate evaluators when designing and conducting evaluation studies.

Youth civic engagement efforts have become common across the globe. With the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many have turned to civic engagement methodologies to create opportunities for young people to have a voice in decisions that affect them. With the dissemination of youth civic engagement practice, there is a need to evaluate these efforts to satisfy funders, stakeholders, and participants. As a social innovation, youth civic engagement efforts present unique issues to evaluation and invite innovative and participatory evaluation designs. This volume brings together experienced evaluators, evaluation and youth civic engagement scholars, and civic youth workers to inform evaluation designs for youth civic engagement practice and programs. The book uses the US Center for Disease Control's framework for evaluation process, and explores issues, questions, and choices an evaluator can make when designing an evaluation of youth civic engagement practices. The heart of the book includes case studies written by professional evaluators, evaluation and youth scholars, and youth workers to define issues for each stage and provide guidance for others who want to design a robust, rigorous, and responsive evaluation for youth civic engagement initiatives and practices. The final chapters of the book provide straightforward and clear guidance for beginning to intermediate evaluators when designing and conducting evaluation studies.

Engaging youth in civic life has become a central concern to a broad array of researchers in a variety of academic fields as well to policy makers and practitioners globally. This book is both international and multidisciplinary, consisting of three sections that respectively cover conceptual issues, developmental and educational topics, and methodological and measurement issues. Broad in its coverage of topics, this book supports scholars, philanthropists, business leaders, government officials, teachers, parents, and community practitioners in their drive to engage more young people in community and civic actions.

Young adulthood - ages approximately 18 to 26 - is a critical period of development with long-lasting implications for a person's economic security, health and well-being. Young adults are key contributors to the nation's workforce and military services and, since many are parents, to the healthy development of the next generation. Although 'millennials' have received attention in the popular media in recent years, young adults are too rarely treated as a distinct population in policy, programs, and research. Instead, they are often grouped with adolescents or, more often, with all adults. Currently, the nation is experiencing economic restructuring, widening inequality, a rapidly rising ratio of older adults, and an increasingly diverse population. The possible transformative effects of these features make focus on young adults especially important. A systematic approach to understanding and responding to the unique circumstances and needs of today's young adults can help to pave the way to a more productive and equitable tomorrow for young adults in particular and our society at large. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults describes what is meant by the term young adulthood, who young adults are, what they are doing, and what they need. This study recommends actions that nonprofit programs and federal, state, and local agencies can take to help young adults make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. According to this report, young adults should be considered as a separate group from adolescents and older adults. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults makes the case that increased efforts to improve high school and college graduate rates and education and workforce development systems that are more closely tied to high-demand economic sectors will help this age group achieve greater opportunity and success. The report also discusses the health status of young adults and makes recommendations to develop evidence-based practices for young adults for medical and behavioral health, including preventions. What happens during the young adult years has profound implications for the rest of the life course, and the stability and progress of society at large depends on how any cohort of young adults fares as a whole. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults will provide a roadmap to improving outcomes for this age group as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.

What exactly is civic and political participation? What factors influence young people’s participation? How can we encourage youth to actively participate in their own democracies? Youth Civic and Political Engagement takes a multidisciplinary approach to answering these key questions, incorporating research in the fields of psychology, sociology, political science and education to explore the issues affecting youth civic and political engagement. Drawing on evidence that has been obtained in many different national contexts, and through multinational studies, this book provides a theoretical synthesis of this large and diverse body of research, using an integrative multi-level ecological model of youth engagement to do so. It identifies unresolved issues in the field and offers numerous suggestions for future research. Youth Civic and Political Engagement is an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, youth workers, civil society activists, policymakers and politicians who wish to acquire an up-to-date understanding of the factors and processes that influence young people’s civic and political engagement, and how to promote youth engagement.

An analysis of the beneficial effects of community service on the political and moral identity of adolescents. It uses a case study from a predominantly black, urban high school in Washington, D.C., building on the work of Erik Erikson on the social and historical nature of identity development.

Empowered youth CAN and DO make a difference! Young people become empowered by their participation in the institutions and decisions that affect their lives—which in turn can lead to real positive change in the community. Youth Participation and Community Change presents leading authorities providing the latest research and effective approaches on how young people can be drawn to participate in organizations and communities. The diverse perspectives discuss youth participation in today’s society, the models and methods of its practice, the roles of youth and adults, and the future of youth participation and community in a diverse democracy. Approaches include those which promote participatory community-based research and evaluation, and involve youth groups in poor and racially segregated areas. The mainstream view of much of today’s youth is that of being victims of society rather than a being a possible positive influence on society as a whole. Youth Participation and Community Change seeks to shift the viewpoint from youth as being problems to empowering them to enact positive social change. The book explores community agency efforts to involve young people, and the process by which youth civic engagement promotes empowerment. Social work and public health approaches are examined, with cogent discussions on conceptual and theoretical issues. Empirically based case studies illustrate best practices and interdisciplinary work that draws upon psychology, sociology, social work, public health, education, and related academic disciplines and professional fields. Topics in Youth Participation and Community Change include: key dimensions of critical youth empowerment a case study of youth leadership development in Hawaii—the Sariling Gawa Youth Council the Lexington Youth Leadership Academy—a leadership development and community change program a new model for youth civic engagement in Hampton, Virginia three projects that engage urban youth in community change through participatory research youth engagement strategies and the benefits of youth participation in health research ten projects which used photovoice to represent, advocate, and enhance community health a participatory action research process with youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina the Growing Up in Cities project of UNESCO training students as facilitators for the Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES!) project four characteristics of engagement in the research literature and a school-community-university project differences in developmental outcomes among youth organizing, identity-support, and traditional youth development agencies Youth Participation and Community Change is thought-provoking, enlightening reading that is perfect for organizers, planners, policymakers, advocates, youth service workers, agency administrators, educators, students, and professionals in psychology, sociology, social work, urban planning, public policy, and public health.

The failure of current policy to address important quality of life issues for urban youth remains a substantial barrier to civic participation, educational equity, and healthy adulthood. This volume brings together the work of leading urban youth scholars to highlight the detrimental impact of zero tolerance policies on young people’s educational experience and well being. Inspired by the conviction that urban youth have the right to more equitable educational and social resources and political representation, Beyond Resistance! offers new insights into how to increase the effectiveness of youth development and education programs, and how to create responsive youth policies at the local, state, and federal level.

The Engaged University is a comprehensive empirical account of the global civic engagement movement in higher education. In universities around the world, something extraordinary is underway. Mobilizing their human and intellectual resources, institutions of higher education are directly tackling community problems – combating poverty, improving public health, and restoring environmental quality. This book documents and analyzes this exciting trend through studies of civic engagement and social responsibility at twenty institutions worldwide. This timely volume offers three special contributions to the literature on higher education policy and practice: a historical overview of the founding purposes of universities, which almost invariably included a context-specific element of social purpose, together with a survey of how these "founding" intentions have fared in different systems of higher education; a contemporary account of the policy and practice of universities – all over the world – seeking to re-engage with this social purpose; and an overview of generic issues which emerge for the "engaged university."

Take a cutting edge look at the civic engagement of young people. Increasingly recognized as an important feature of democratic functioning in communities, it has also become clear that the civic domain is indispensable as a context for understanding human development processes. This volume proposes the following central theses in relation to youth civic development: It is rooted in the realities of young people’s everyday lives. It is collectively constructed. It raises questions about the principles, values, and relationships that bind people together in societies. It raises questions about power and justice. Youth civic development pushes the field to focus on the social issues with which younger generations are grappling and the identities they are constructing—issues that also are shaped by structural inequalities and by the collective actions of youth. The volume builds on themes of agency and assets from the field of positive youth development and points to ways that the critical analysis and engagement of young people in their society can contribute to social change. This is the 134th volume in this series. Its mission is to provide scientific and scholarly presentations on cutting edge issues and concepts in child and adolescent development. Each volume focuses on a specific new direction or research topic and is edited by experts on that topic.