We provide an overview of diverse forms of youth participation, with a focus on youth participato... more We provide an overview of diverse forms of youth participation, with a focus on youth participatory action research (YPAR) and its synergies with life course intervention research to promote healthier development for young people and across the life span. We analyze why YPAR matters for research, practice, and policies related to the systems and settings in which young people develop. We also illustrate how young people perform YPAR work to improve the developmental responsiveness and equity of school and health systems, including descriptions of an innovative youth-led health center in Rwanda and a long-standing and evolving integration of YPAR into public high schools in the United States. We then briefly consider the adult capacities needed to do this work well, given that YPAR challenges typical youth-adult power relationships and broader assumptions about who can generate expert knowledge. We consider the alignment and potential challenges for integration of life course intervention research as well as YPAR and next steps for research and practice at this intersection.
Journal of prevention and health promotion, Apr 1, 2022
Bullying is a persistent problem in schools today, with developmental and socioemotional conseque... more Bullying is a persistent problem in schools today, with developmental and socioemotional consequences. Multi-tiered interventions, such as School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SW-PBIS), have been developed to decrease bullying by improving school climate. However, effects of SW-PBIS are stronger in elementary school than middle and high school, and effects are weaker for marginalized student groups. Aligning SW-PBIS with adolescent developmental needs and promoting systems change through youth participatory action research (YPAR) may improve the developmental fit of SW-PBIS for middle and high school students and strengthen its equity impact. In YPAR, youth conduct research on areas that are important to them and take data-driven action to improve their lives. In this paper, we utilize a qualitative instrumental multiple case study approach to identify similarities between YPAR and SW-PBIS and the value added of YPAR to SW-PBIS implementation. The two cases are from school districts chosen for their unique implementation of YPAR with SW-PBIS in middle and high schools. We used a general inductive approach to analyze field notes, documents, and interviews with school and district staff. We found that YPAR enhanced SW-PBIS implementation at the middle and high school level through alignment with adolescent developmental needs. Youth participatory action research also promoted equity through youth-led or youth–adult partnered assessment and data-driven decision-making, providing YPAR with the opportunity to improve the challenges SW-PBIS faces in decreasing disproportionality in academic outcomes for marginalized students. We provided examples to integrate YPAR with SW-PBIS at Tiers One through three.
Community partnerships are vital for the co-production, implementation, and dissemination of prac... more Community partnerships are vital for the co-production, implementation, and dissemination of practice- and policy-relevant research to advance public psychology. Particularly in "Research 1" universities, the institutional infrastructure, culture, and criteria for faculty advancement are often a mismatch for impactful community-partnered research. Past and current efforts by psychologists and others at the University of California (UC) seek to promote partnerships, infrastructure, and practices for faculty development and advancement that align excellence and impact in scholarship with advancing the public mission of the UC and its campuses. Here, we delineate "partnered" public scholarship and provide an overview of mismatch between this scholarship and university structures. We then describe unique features of the UC and three cases of interdisciplinary partnerships to advance educational equity that illustrate how distinctive campuses and units engaged resources, deployed diverse strategies, and succeeded as well as failed to address challenges related to (a) how partnered scholarship is enacted, (b) supports to sustain the initiatives, and (c) faculty evaluation. We then consider lessons learned, implications, and ethical issues related to public psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
The prevalence and impact of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenome... more The prevalence and impact of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomenon a matter of vital importance. Prior research has examined associations between problematic patterns of parents' emotion reactivity and regulation and child maltreatment and maltreatment risk. However, the strength and specificity of these relationships is not yet clear. To address this, we conducted a systematic literature search of four databases from inception through February 2021 to identify studies that reported these relationships. Our resulting meta-analysis of maltreatment involved parents of children who are up to 18 years of age (k = 46, encompassing 6669 parents). Our focus was the magnitude of the difference in levels of emotion reactivity and regulation between parents who maltreat or are at risk of maltreating and parents who do not maltreat their children or are not at risk of maltreating their children. As expected, results from meta-analyses using robust variance estimation indicated significantly higher problems with reactivity and regulation in maltreating parents / parents at risk (r = 0.40, k = 140; 95% CI [0.34, 0.45]), indicating that maltreating / at risk parents were more likely to have overall worse measures of reactivity and regulation. In comparison to non-maltreating parents, maltreating / at risk parents experience more negative emotions, display more negative emotion behavior, and are more dysregulated. These effects were fairly stable with little to no remaining heterogeneity. The current review concludes with a theoretical framework outlining the role of emotion reactivity and regulation in multiple risk factors of maltreatment, aiming to guide future study in this area.
The many adverse effects of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomen... more The many adverse effects of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomenon a matter of vital importance. Although the relationship between maltreatment and problematic emotion reactivity and regulation has been studied, the strength and specificity of these associations are not yet clear. We examine the magnitude of the maltreatment—child‐emotion reactivity/regulation link. Studies with substantiated maltreatment involving children aged up to 18 were included, along with a smaller number of longitudinal studies (58 papers reviewed, encompassing more than 11,900 children). In comparison to nonmaltreated children, maltreated children experience more negative emotions, behave in a manner indicative of more negative emotion, and display emotion dysregulation. We outline several theoretical implications of our results.
In light of the increasing global population of young people, practitioners and policy makers fac... more In light of the increasing global population of young people, practitioners and policy makers face formidable challenges in promoting positive youth development and the successful transition to adulthood. Youth participatory research is one promising and rapidly growing approach for generating evidence to inform policy and intervention strategies to best serve youth populations. Here, we consider how developmental science contributes to our understanding about the benefits—for youth, as well as for programs and policies—of engaging youth at different developmental stages in research. We link insights from developmental science to evidence from youth-engaged research to determine where the most fruitful developmental matches may occur. We can maximize the benefits for youth and simultaneously improve research projects when developmental needs, capacities, priorities, and constraints of youth in various stages are thoughtfully considered.
Over the last two decades, there has been attention to promoting meaningful youth "engagement," "... more Over the last two decades, there has been attention to promoting meaningful youth "engagement," "participation" and "voice" in adolescent health [1−3]. UN and other investments in reports, network-building, and meetings like the Bali Global Youth forum raised the visibility of youth engagement as a priority, sharing principles, examples, and challenges across diverse contexts [2,4 −14]. Recently, the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing provided an overview of youth engagement and health, including barriers to meaningful engagement [15]. Despite extensive theoretical, ethical, and practice work on youth engagement, particularly in the domain of sexual/reproductive health, we need more systematic evidence about fundamental process and outcome questions. Rigorous practice-based evidence [16], enabled by sustained research-practice partnerships [17], is vital for generating a knowledge base to guide the field. Here, we seek to provide further clarity in this underdeveloped research area, highlighting distinctions among youth participation approaches, and propose a research agenda moving forward.
In this article, I review youth‐led participatory action research (YPAR) as an innovative equity‐... more In this article, I review youth‐led participatory action research (YPAR) as an innovative equity‐focused approach to promote adolescent health and well‐being. YPAR draws on the expertise of adolescents as they conduct research and improve conditions that support healthy development. Specifically, I explain the core principles and processes of YPAR, provide examples, discuss theoretical and empirical support for the effects of YPAR at many levels, and identify areas for research.
Background: Sleep plays an important role in cognitive and emotional function and is an essential... more Background: Sleep plays an important role in cognitive and emotional function and is an essential determinant of health and well-being. Sleeping less is associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms (DS) during adolescence, but the causal direction of this association is not clear. It is also not clear whether the association of DS and sleep is consistent in adolescence and young adulthood. This study uses national longitudinal data to assess prospective effects of sleep and DS from adolescence through young adulthood. Methods: Data were from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a four-wave nationally representative longitudinal study from adolescence through young adulthood. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate a cross-lag model testing the directionality of the association of sleep quantity (hours of sleep per night) and DS (measured using a brief version of the Centers for Epidemiological Studies-Depression–CES-D—scale) across four waves. Four...
Prior research highlights the mismatch between adolescents' growing capacities for autonomy a... more Prior research highlights the mismatch between adolescents' growing capacities for autonomy and the limited opportunities for influence in U.S. secondary schools. Youth‐led participatory research (YPAR), an approach in which young people research and advocate for change on problems of concern to them, could increase students' autonomy in secondary schools. This qualitative study of YPAR examined whether and how the intervention meaningfully affected the interactions and roles of students and adults in two distinctive urban high school settings, identifying concepts for further empirical investigation. Results suggested that YPAR enabled processes of student professionalization that led to novel student‐adult “collegial” interactions, expansion of domains of student influence, and diversification of students with opportunities to influence policies and practices across these two schools.
Decreasing access to competitive foods in schools has produced only modest effects on adolescents... more Decreasing access to competitive foods in schools has produced only modest effects on adolescents' eating patterns. This qualitative case study investigated persistent barriers to healthful eating among students attending an ethnically diverse middle school in a working-class urban neighborhood that had banned on campus competitive food sales. Participant observations, semi-structured interviews and document reviews were conducted. Unappealing school lunches and easily accessible unhealthful foods, combined with peer and family influences, increased the appeal of unhealthy foods. Areas for further inquiry into strategies to improve urban middle school students' school and neighborhood food environments are discussed.
Youth‐Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a social justice‐focused approach for promoting... more Youth‐Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a social justice‐focused approach for promoting social change and positive youth development in which youth conduct systematic research and actions to improve their schools and communities. Although YPAR is oriented to generating research for action, with evidence‐based recommendations often aimed at influencing adults with power over settings and systems that shape youths’ lives, we have little understanding of how YPAR evidence influences the thinking and/or actions of adult policymakers or practitioners. In general, the participatory research field lacks a theoretically informed “use of research evidence” lens, while the use of evidence field lacks consideration of the special case and implications of participatory research. To start to address these gaps, this paper presents a conceptual linkage across these two fields and then provides six illustrative case examples across diverse geographic, policy, and programmatic contexts to...
We provide an overview of diverse forms of youth participation, with a focus on youth participato... more We provide an overview of diverse forms of youth participation, with a focus on youth participatory action research (YPAR) and its synergies with life course intervention research to promote healthier development for young people and across the life span. We analyze why YPAR matters for research, practice, and policies related to the systems and settings in which young people develop. We also illustrate how young people perform YPAR work to improve the developmental responsiveness and equity of school and health systems, including descriptions of an innovative youth-led health center in Rwanda and a long-standing and evolving integration of YPAR into public high schools in the United States. We then briefly consider the adult capacities needed to do this work well, given that YPAR challenges typical youth-adult power relationships and broader assumptions about who can generate expert knowledge. We consider the alignment and potential challenges for integration of life course intervention research as well as YPAR and next steps for research and practice at this intersection.
Journal of prevention and health promotion, Apr 1, 2022
Bullying is a persistent problem in schools today, with developmental and socioemotional conseque... more Bullying is a persistent problem in schools today, with developmental and socioemotional consequences. Multi-tiered interventions, such as School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SW-PBIS), have been developed to decrease bullying by improving school climate. However, effects of SW-PBIS are stronger in elementary school than middle and high school, and effects are weaker for marginalized student groups. Aligning SW-PBIS with adolescent developmental needs and promoting systems change through youth participatory action research (YPAR) may improve the developmental fit of SW-PBIS for middle and high school students and strengthen its equity impact. In YPAR, youth conduct research on areas that are important to them and take data-driven action to improve their lives. In this paper, we utilize a qualitative instrumental multiple case study approach to identify similarities between YPAR and SW-PBIS and the value added of YPAR to SW-PBIS implementation. The two cases are from school districts chosen for their unique implementation of YPAR with SW-PBIS in middle and high schools. We used a general inductive approach to analyze field notes, documents, and interviews with school and district staff. We found that YPAR enhanced SW-PBIS implementation at the middle and high school level through alignment with adolescent developmental needs. Youth participatory action research also promoted equity through youth-led or youth–adult partnered assessment and data-driven decision-making, providing YPAR with the opportunity to improve the challenges SW-PBIS faces in decreasing disproportionality in academic outcomes for marginalized students. We provided examples to integrate YPAR with SW-PBIS at Tiers One through three.
Community partnerships are vital for the co-production, implementation, and dissemination of prac... more Community partnerships are vital for the co-production, implementation, and dissemination of practice- and policy-relevant research to advance public psychology. Particularly in "Research 1" universities, the institutional infrastructure, culture, and criteria for faculty advancement are often a mismatch for impactful community-partnered research. Past and current efforts by psychologists and others at the University of California (UC) seek to promote partnerships, infrastructure, and practices for faculty development and advancement that align excellence and impact in scholarship with advancing the public mission of the UC and its campuses. Here, we delineate "partnered" public scholarship and provide an overview of mismatch between this scholarship and university structures. We then describe unique features of the UC and three cases of interdisciplinary partnerships to advance educational equity that illustrate how distinctive campuses and units engaged resources, deployed diverse strategies, and succeeded as well as failed to address challenges related to (a) how partnered scholarship is enacted, (b) supports to sustain the initiatives, and (c) faculty evaluation. We then consider lessons learned, implications, and ethical issues related to public psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
The prevalence and impact of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenome... more The prevalence and impact of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomenon a matter of vital importance. Prior research has examined associations between problematic patterns of parents' emotion reactivity and regulation and child maltreatment and maltreatment risk. However, the strength and specificity of these relationships is not yet clear. To address this, we conducted a systematic literature search of four databases from inception through February 2021 to identify studies that reported these relationships. Our resulting meta-analysis of maltreatment involved parents of children who are up to 18 years of age (k = 46, encompassing 6669 parents). Our focus was the magnitude of the difference in levels of emotion reactivity and regulation between parents who maltreat or are at risk of maltreating and parents who do not maltreat their children or are not at risk of maltreating their children. As expected, results from meta-analyses using robust variance estimation indicated significantly higher problems with reactivity and regulation in maltreating parents / parents at risk (r = 0.40, k = 140; 95% CI [0.34, 0.45]), indicating that maltreating / at risk parents were more likely to have overall worse measures of reactivity and regulation. In comparison to non-maltreating parents, maltreating / at risk parents experience more negative emotions, display more negative emotion behavior, and are more dysregulated. These effects were fairly stable with little to no remaining heterogeneity. The current review concludes with a theoretical framework outlining the role of emotion reactivity and regulation in multiple risk factors of maltreatment, aiming to guide future study in this area.
The many adverse effects of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomen... more The many adverse effects of child maltreatment make the scientific investigation of this phenomenon a matter of vital importance. Although the relationship between maltreatment and problematic emotion reactivity and regulation has been studied, the strength and specificity of these associations are not yet clear. We examine the magnitude of the maltreatment—child‐emotion reactivity/regulation link. Studies with substantiated maltreatment involving children aged up to 18 were included, along with a smaller number of longitudinal studies (58 papers reviewed, encompassing more than 11,900 children). In comparison to nonmaltreated children, maltreated children experience more negative emotions, behave in a manner indicative of more negative emotion, and display emotion dysregulation. We outline several theoretical implications of our results.
In light of the increasing global population of young people, practitioners and policy makers fac... more In light of the increasing global population of young people, practitioners and policy makers face formidable challenges in promoting positive youth development and the successful transition to adulthood. Youth participatory research is one promising and rapidly growing approach for generating evidence to inform policy and intervention strategies to best serve youth populations. Here, we consider how developmental science contributes to our understanding about the benefits—for youth, as well as for programs and policies—of engaging youth at different developmental stages in research. We link insights from developmental science to evidence from youth-engaged research to determine where the most fruitful developmental matches may occur. We can maximize the benefits for youth and simultaneously improve research projects when developmental needs, capacities, priorities, and constraints of youth in various stages are thoughtfully considered.
Over the last two decades, there has been attention to promoting meaningful youth "engagement," "... more Over the last two decades, there has been attention to promoting meaningful youth "engagement," "participation" and "voice" in adolescent health [1−3]. UN and other investments in reports, network-building, and meetings like the Bali Global Youth forum raised the visibility of youth engagement as a priority, sharing principles, examples, and challenges across diverse contexts [2,4 −14]. Recently, the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing provided an overview of youth engagement and health, including barriers to meaningful engagement [15]. Despite extensive theoretical, ethical, and practice work on youth engagement, particularly in the domain of sexual/reproductive health, we need more systematic evidence about fundamental process and outcome questions. Rigorous practice-based evidence [16], enabled by sustained research-practice partnerships [17], is vital for generating a knowledge base to guide the field. Here, we seek to provide further clarity in this underdeveloped research area, highlighting distinctions among youth participation approaches, and propose a research agenda moving forward.
In this article, I review youth‐led participatory action research (YPAR) as an innovative equity‐... more In this article, I review youth‐led participatory action research (YPAR) as an innovative equity‐focused approach to promote adolescent health and well‐being. YPAR draws on the expertise of adolescents as they conduct research and improve conditions that support healthy development. Specifically, I explain the core principles and processes of YPAR, provide examples, discuss theoretical and empirical support for the effects of YPAR at many levels, and identify areas for research.
Background: Sleep plays an important role in cognitive and emotional function and is an essential... more Background: Sleep plays an important role in cognitive and emotional function and is an essential determinant of health and well-being. Sleeping less is associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms (DS) during adolescence, but the causal direction of this association is not clear. It is also not clear whether the association of DS and sleep is consistent in adolescence and young adulthood. This study uses national longitudinal data to assess prospective effects of sleep and DS from adolescence through young adulthood. Methods: Data were from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a four-wave nationally representative longitudinal study from adolescence through young adulthood. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate a cross-lag model testing the directionality of the association of sleep quantity (hours of sleep per night) and DS (measured using a brief version of the Centers for Epidemiological Studies-Depression–CES-D—scale) across four waves. Four...
Prior research highlights the mismatch between adolescents' growing capacities for autonomy a... more Prior research highlights the mismatch between adolescents' growing capacities for autonomy and the limited opportunities for influence in U.S. secondary schools. Youth‐led participatory research (YPAR), an approach in which young people research and advocate for change on problems of concern to them, could increase students' autonomy in secondary schools. This qualitative study of YPAR examined whether and how the intervention meaningfully affected the interactions and roles of students and adults in two distinctive urban high school settings, identifying concepts for further empirical investigation. Results suggested that YPAR enabled processes of student professionalization that led to novel student‐adult “collegial” interactions, expansion of domains of student influence, and diversification of students with opportunities to influence policies and practices across these two schools.
Decreasing access to competitive foods in schools has produced only modest effects on adolescents... more Decreasing access to competitive foods in schools has produced only modest effects on adolescents' eating patterns. This qualitative case study investigated persistent barriers to healthful eating among students attending an ethnically diverse middle school in a working-class urban neighborhood that had banned on campus competitive food sales. Participant observations, semi-structured interviews and document reviews were conducted. Unappealing school lunches and easily accessible unhealthful foods, combined with peer and family influences, increased the appeal of unhealthy foods. Areas for further inquiry into strategies to improve urban middle school students' school and neighborhood food environments are discussed.
Youth‐Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a social justice‐focused approach for promoting... more Youth‐Led Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is a social justice‐focused approach for promoting social change and positive youth development in which youth conduct systematic research and actions to improve their schools and communities. Although YPAR is oriented to generating research for action, with evidence‐based recommendations often aimed at influencing adults with power over settings and systems that shape youths’ lives, we have little understanding of how YPAR evidence influences the thinking and/or actions of adult policymakers or practitioners. In general, the participatory research field lacks a theoretically informed “use of research evidence” lens, while the use of evidence field lacks consideration of the special case and implications of participatory research. To start to address these gaps, this paper presents a conceptual linkage across these two fields and then provides six illustrative case examples across diverse geographic, policy, and programmatic contexts to...
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