Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Alternative Education Programs: Program And Student Characteristics, Regina M. Foley, Lang-Sze Pang

Special Topics, General

Alternative education programs are often viewed as individualized opportunities designed to meet the educational needs for youth identified as at-risk for school failure. Increasingly, these programs have been identified as programs for disruptive youth who have been referred from traditional schools. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of the administrative structures and physical facilities of alternative education programs and to describe the student population and educational services being offered to youth attending such programs. The findings suggest programs appear to be largely site-based programs, often operating in physical facilities with limited access to academic suppm1s. The …

Three-Year Longitudinal Service-Learning Research Study: Preliminary Findings, Frank D. Aquila, L. Richard Bradley, Jennifer Dodd, Charlotte Jones-Ward

Service Learning, General

Using an experimental design, this study examines the contributions of service-learning to decreased at-risk behaviors, student cognitive, social, and personal development, and academic achievement over a three-year period. During the pilot phase and Years One and Two, teachers and students from eleven different Ohio schools have been surveyed. Preliminary findings are presented.

Topic Bibliography On Resiliency And "At Risk" Youth Topic Bibliography, Robin Vue Benson, Robert D. Shumer, Ann Treacy, Michelle Kamenov, Andrea Roufs

Bibliographies

This publication is the result of a comprehensive review of the literature on resiliency and at-risk youth. Some of the most frequently asked questions at the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse are geared toward service-learning as it relates to working with at-risk youth. Often the questions are about research on impacts of service-learning on at-risk youth, or about materials that have been developed to help start service-learning programs for at-risk youth. Information on program examples and national organizations is also in demand. The purpose of this bibliography is to direct you to some of the most reliable, innovative, and popular resources currently …

Using Hypermedia And Multimedia To Promote Project-Based Learning Of At-Risk High School Students, Tracy Carr, Asha K. Jitendra

Special Topics, General

The term at-risk in this article refers to those students who are in danger of dropping out of school (Rodriguez, 199i). Often, these students have low self-esteem resulting from persistently low academic achievement. One possible reason for academic failure is a mismatch between the student's needs and the curricular expectations. Consequently, it is important to plan to meet individual student needs appropriately and minimize the rate of dropouts. Planning more appropriately requires individualization of goals and curricula.

Service Strategies And Programs To Help Incarcerated Youth: A Training Program For Volunteers, Teresita Bolivar

Special Topics, General

For more than thirty years, AmeriCorps*VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) members have been serving disadvantaged communities. The program is dedicated to increasing the capability of people to improve the conditions of their lives.

Foster Grandparents are part of the National Senior Service Corps, a network of more than a half-million seniors who are making a difference as volunteers. Since 1965 the Foster Grandparents Program has tapped the experience, skills, talents, interests and creativity of seniors age 55 and older. They serve 20 hours a week in: schools, hospitals, day care centers, homes for abused and abandoned children, Head Start, …

The Progress Of Education Reform 1999-2001: Youth Violence, Suzanne Weiss

Special Topics, General

Three strategies to stem the tide of youth violence: Prenatal and infant care; small schools; and service-learning.

The Use Of Service Learning To Promote Understanding Of Gang-Related Issues Faced By Adolescents, Patrice Paul, Kathy Sexton-Radek, Janina Adickas, Bridget Fousek

School K-12

Service learning provides an opportunity for college students to experience classroom curriculum in a real-life setting. In addition, service learning provides the community with services otherwise not available. Such a program has been designed to assist with reduction of violence in the schools while simultaneously allowing college students to experience, hands-on, the people and issues they are studying. In this program, students in an adolescent development course were trained in a six-week group intervention aimed at building skills for positive communication, resolving differences, and preventing violence. A specific protocol involving skill-building exercises, role-plays, discussion. and at-home assignments was followed. Specific …

Service-Learning: An Education Strategy For Preventing School Violence, Carol Kinsley

Special Topics, General

Recent headlines provide ample testimony of dramatic, heart-stopping incidents of youth violence - at every socioeconomic level, in every age group, and across rural, suburban and urban areas. What were once seen as isolated outbursts have multiplied in such a way that they no longer can be thought of as random incidents.

Many factors underlie violent behavior in schools. Easy access to guns, violent movies and video games, poor and even destructive parenting, social upheaval in schools, minority status and, not least, violence in the home arc all potential "enablers" of violent behavior on the part of students. But these …

Organizational Context And Young Adult Education In An Urban Service Corps, Robert A. Pence

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

As a medium-sized, state-supported youth corps, the Wisconsin Conservation Corps (WCC) is an established institutional expression of a service corps model that has potential to address some of the educational and economic needs of marginalized young adults from "at-risk" environments. The WCC is a "second chance" work experience program that attempts to prepare 18 to 25 year-old unemployed young adults for employment or continuing education while they complete useful conservation work throughout the state. It is largely a white, male, rural-based program that maintains some crews in the black and Hispanic urban core of Milwaukee. This case study critically examines …

"Promoting Peace And Preventing Violence" Lions-Quest Skills For Action, Rich Cairn

Special Topics, General

Students at Bishop Ford Catholic Central High School in Brooklyn, New York have completed several violence-prevention service projects as part of their participation in the Skills for Action program. Seniors facilitated eight-week sessions to orient freshmen, including conflict resolution and role playing.

Partners: The Shared Service Experience, Big Brothers/Big Sisters Of America

Special Topics, General

Partners: The Shared Service Experience documents Big Brothers/ Big Sisters of America's (BB/BSA's) first national initiative designed to encourage Big Brother-Little Brother and Big Sister-Little Sister pairs to become partners in community service. Big Brothers/Big Sisters (BB/BS) agencies, and the volunteers they rely on to provide service to children and youth, can have a far-reaching positive effect on local communities. The key is to educate adults and youth about the individual and societal benefits of community service activities. This gives the "Littles" an opportunity to take on "Big" roles by contributing to their neighborhoods.

Topic Bibliography On Resiliency And "At Risk" Youth, Robin Vue Benson, Robert D. Shumer

Bibliographies

The sources listed on the following pages are in response to requests for information on service-learning connections to issues of resiliency and "at-risk" youth. They were obtained primarily by conducting searches of the ERIC database on CD-ROM. Broad topics were chosen for a comprehensive selection of references. These included: At-Risk, Citizenship, Service, Resiliency, Community Involvement, Drop Outs, etc. With several hundred records identified, only those with the closest relevance to the topic are included here. Where a source is available through EDRS, an ERIC number is included. In addition, references from several service-learning bibliographies are included. The search for more …

Teaching Courage: Service Learning At Pathway School, Michelle D. Ioele, Anne L. Dolan

School K-12

Troubled children are rarely afforded the opportunity to view themselves as valuable and worthy. Because they are often in the role of care-recipients, they are not challenged to be, nor do they see themselves as capable of being, caregivers. Although many child and youth programs seek to provide these opportunities, a systematic and effective program for doing so has been lacking.

Promoting Youth Development: Strengthening The Role Of Youth Service And Community Organizations, Karen J. Pittman

School K-12

Concern about youth problems is escalating. The volume of task forces, reports, initiatives, coalitions and media specials confirm that there is broad agreement that too many youth are "at risk."

A Study Of The Impact Of Educational Reform On At-Risk Students In Texas, Texas Education Agency

School K-12

This report was prepared by the Texas Education Agency's Division of Program Evaluation in an effort to provide preliminary information about the impact of educational reform on at-risk students in Texas.

Using Law-Related Education As An Intervention With "High-Risk" Youth, Drake Buzzell

Special Topics, General

During these times of scarce resources, policymakers are increasingly devoting more attention to areas where they feel they can make the greatest impact. Many local and state policy discussions are focusing on the relationship of "high-risk" youth, crime, and drug abuse Policymakers as well as social service program directors are particularly interested in the factors contributing to the likelihood that a young person will abuse alcohol or other drugs, and engage in delinquent behavior. We have known for some time that there is a significant correlation between these two behaviors. What is perhaps ironic is that we are back to …

Preliminary Review Of Research In Service Learning, James Krug, Richard J. Kraft

Special Topics, General

The following cursory review is taken from the Literature Review on Service Learning conducted by Mr. James Krug (1991) at the University of Colorado. Mr. Krug's research has been on the effects of service learning on four groups of high school young people: at-risk youth in a special program, student assistants (primarily minority) within the school, nature guides, and tutors at a primary school. Preliminary results indicate that, while all the experimental groups gained on measures of potency, activity involvement in the community, self-concept and other factors, the statistically significant growth at the .01 and .05 levels was found almost …

Community-Based Learning: A Study Of A Model Dropout Prevention Program, Robert D. Shumer

School K-12

Dropout prevention is a major concern of school districts throughout the country. In Los Angeles it is estimated that 39% of students fail to graduate from high school. Nationwide, the rate is not too much different, especially in inner city communities where large numbers of Hispanic and African-American youth attend school. While dropout rates have been traditionally high for decades, people continue to ask, why? Many billions of dollars have been spent trying to answer this question and many programs have been developed which attempt to address some of these problems. No one has come up with a comprehensive answer …

Youth Service: From Youth As Problems To Youth As Resources, Bonnie Benard

School K-12

New Paradigm "Youth as problems, or youth as resources? Communities with problems or communities with resources?" These opening sentences to Reaching Out. a recent book on establishing community service programs for youth, encapsulate a critical issue I see confronting anyone relating to or working with young people, whether as parents, teachers, community folk, or prevention advocates and other helping professionals: the framework or perspective from which we view youth in our society today. Whether we view youth as problems or as resources determines not only our expectations for our youth and our actions towards them, but also the type of …

Fostering Intergenerational Relatiollships For At-Risk Youth, Marc Freedman

Intergenerational

Many at-risk youth are growing up isolated from the range of caring and consistent adult relationships so important for navigating the treacherous course from adolescence to adulthood. An accumulation of research from the social sciences suggests that adult relationships-provided not only by parents. but by grandparents, neighbors and other interested elders-are a common factor among resilient children, who achieve success despite growing up under disadvantaged and stressful circumstances. An important. and not often addressed, question for social programs and policy is whether the circumstances of more at-risk youth could be improved through efforts designed to provide greater access to helping …

Reciprocity: A Major Paradigm Shift, John A. Calhoun

Special Topics, General

It is not news to the youth-serving community that something new is afoot regarding how we think about and work with youth.

Well known is the stir on the national level: President Bush's YES initiative; numerous pieces of congressional legislation whose proposals range from school-based programs through conservation and urban corps to mandated national service. Locally, projects of various sorts are springing up in schools, youth-serving agencies and in other organizations whose functions impinge on youth.

Not so well known-or fully understood-is a key notion that could well be lost amid the legitimate clamor and enthusiasm for the concept, namely, …

Violence, Youth And A Way Out, John A. Calhoun

Special Topics, General

It is a conviction shared by those who care for young people and their families that violence among youth has reached intolerable levels and that a response is demanded. The homicide statistics are chilling: In 1986, four to five people under age 18 were murdered per day, 10 percent more than in 1985. Equally chilling, three to four people under 18 were arrested for murder every day, a seven percent increase over 1985.

Helping The Community: An Untapped Resource For Troubled Children, Alec J. Allen, Martin L. Mitchell

Special Topics, General

All too often adults have cornered the market on helping. They work within voluntary organizations and church groups to meet the needs of the community. for many this service continues within their jobs as educators and social service providers. Occasionally a place is cast aside for youth to participate. The challenge becomes how to involve troubled youth in helping others to reap the benefits popularized in the phrase "It is more blessed to give than to receive." If there is strength to be derived from.giving, then let us be creative in sharing these opportunities with those who have more to …