Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Rural Parent's Experiences Of Stress And Resilience During The Covid-19 Pandemic And School Closure, Emily Wilson, Jungwon Eum, Yuenjung Joo, Martinique A. Sealy, Jentry Stoneman Barrett, Gwen C. Nugent, Joan M. Carraher, Angela G. Hinrichs

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated social and economic disruptions, resulting in cascading effects on the health and well- being of global citizens. However, little research has focused on how COVID-19 has affected rural regions, despite rurality being a critical factor for understanding community impact and response to the pandemic. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of rural Nebraskan parents with young children during the COVID-19 pandemic and school shutdown, and the strategies they used to support their families during that time. We conducted individual and group interviews with 22 white, non-Hispanic mothers living in rural …

The Lived Experiences And Perceptions Of Young Adults Who Have Transitioned Out Of State Or Other Care, Linda Rose Ross

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractOver 20,000 young adults are released from state care annually and 100,000 young adults are released from justice centers. Past studies have revealed that young adults 18-24 years of age transitioning out of care are not prepared for independent living and may face many adversities. The problem is that young adults have difficulties finding permanent housing once emancipated from state care, their biological homes, or juvenile justice centers. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of young adults 18-24 years of age and how their experiences and life skills helped on their journey to acquire …

Learning Loss Among Adolescent Girls During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Rural Bangladesh, Sajeda Amin, Md. Irfan Hossain, Sigma Ainul

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Poor learning remains a central challenge in Bangladesh despite considerable progress in advancing schooling access and reducing gender gaps in education. The learning crisis is feared to have been exacerbated during extended school closures and limited alternative opportunities for schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. This brief summarizes findings on learning loss among adolescent girls during the pandemic in rural Bangladesh.

Adolescent Girls And Covid-19: Mapping The Evidence On Interventions, Sarah Blake, Miriam Temin, Tara Abularrage, Nihal Said

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

With the COVID-19 crisis continuing to evolve, evidence on the effectiveness of short-term emergency-oriented responses and long-term mitigation strategies is expanding but still limited. There are, and will continue to be, substantial evidence gaps on programming to address risk across outcomes of importance to adolescent girls. More evidence is needed to slow the risks posed by the pandemic for this subpopulation, which can help guide gender- and age-responsive prevention and impact mitigation investments. Evidence from approaches delivered in other unstable contexts may offer important lessons for decision-making in the current context. Recognizing this, the Population Council conducted a structured review …

Getting Girls Back To School In Kenya: The 4ts ('Trace, Track, Talk And Return') Initiative Implementation Report, George Odwe, Chi-Chi Undie, Ann Gachoya, Truphena Kirongo, Fredrick Kiiru, Jane Njogu

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Covid-19 pandemic led to devastating economic and social disruptions globally including in the education sector. The pandemic disrupted access to both sexual and reproductive health services and safe spaces. As a result, many girls faced vulnerabilities that inhibited access to basic education, including risks of child marriage, early pregnancy, gender-based violence, female genital mutilation/cutting, sexual exploitation, and child labor. The negative impact of Covid-19 on girls' education underscores the need for interventions addressing the effect on school re-entry and retention. Kenya has a favorable policy environment for supporting retention within, and re-entry into, schools for vulnerable girls. Notable core …

More Than Brides Alliance—Marriage: No Child’S Play, Endline Evaluation Brief, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This brief summarizes key results from the endline evaluation of the More than Brides Alliance (MTBA) project “Marriage: No Child’s Play” (MNCP) in India, Malawi, Mali, and Niger. The MTBA consists of partners Save the Children Netherlands, Simavi, Oxfam Novib, and the Population Council, along with 25 local implementing partners. The MNCP project—which took place from 2016 to 2020—aimed at being holistic and targeting pathways to child marriage on multiple levels simultaneously, treating communities as either having the full MNCP package or no intervention. The Population Council’s MNCP evaluation was designed to estimate program impact and trends among girls at …

Leaders Of The New School: Exploring The Origins Of Leadership Qualities In First Generation Black Male College Students, Rahjaun J. Gordon

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This qualitative study explored the origin of leadership qualities in Black male first generation college student leaders at a Predominately White Institution. The participants were identified as student leaders in various leadership roles on their college campus. The study explores the participants pre-college experience to identify any influences, primarily in their family, peer relationships, and communities to identify how their leadership qualities formed and originated. Analysis of 12 individual interviews highlighted 5 themes: 1) leadership qualities defined and utilized, 2) self-awareness, 3) family influences, 4) mentorship, 5) the importance of exposure. This work has implications for the exploration of the …

Learning About Healthy Relationships And Sexuality For Adults With Disabilities, Vanessa Karjack

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Many adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities receive little to no sex education; as a result, they often struggle to have fulfilling and healthy relationships, experience limitations in physical interactions, and are at risk of being taken advantage of by others. Sommaro et al. (2019) explained that individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) and developmental disabilities (DD) are often placed into one of two categories: they are treated as either eternal children or sexual deviants. These ideas are based on old knowledge and are known to be inaccurate. However, current systems of care struggle to move forward from these notions. A …

Endline Results Brief: What Works To Improve Outcomes For Kenya's Adolescent Girls?, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Adolescent Girls Initiative–Kenya is a study that evaluates the long-term impact of a multisectoral intervention targeted at adolescent girls aged 11 to 15 years from Kibera and rural Wajir. The intervention consists of four components: a community-based violence-prevention program, an education conditional cash transfer (CCT), health-focused girls-empowerment clubs, and wealth creation for girls via financial education and savings. A random selection of 6,000 girls were exposed to different components of the intervention. Key results, noted in this brief, are: conditional cash transfers are a key driver of improvement in education outcomes, and of delaying sexual debut and pregnancy in …

The Adolescent Girls Initiative-Kenya—Executive Summary: Two-Year Follow Up Results, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In Kenya, early pregnancy is a challenge for girls that often has immediate effects on their educational opportunities, future implications for their social, health, and economic outcomes, and immediate and ongoing negative impacts on their children. Early pregnancy is an outcome shaped by a myriad of issues affecting an adolescent girl’s life—including community norms on gender roles, violence, and the social value of girls; barriers to formal education; household poverty; lack of economic independence; experience of violence; and social isolation. For girls to achieve well-being in early and late adolescence, no single-sector intervention—whether it be education, health, wealth creation, or …

Connecting Families And Continued Learning Through Covid-19, Michael C. O'Neal, Tameka Tribble, Michelle Rice

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

For 20+ years in Savannah, Georgia, Parent University has successfully enhanced the ability of families to create an environment in which learning thrives for both children and parents. When the pandemic closed schools and disrupted normal programming, Parent University immediately pivoted to online programming to continue connecting families with relevant education, resources and support throughout this time of need. The pandemic also exposed a huge gap in technology and education. Therefore, Parent University is working to close that gap with our new Tech College at Parent University.

School Recess And Changes To Children's Play Opportunities In New York City, Keyonna Hayes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The policy, No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 in US public schools was designed to improve how children learn and test in schools, but it has resulted in the decline or removal of recess from most schools. This thesis examines two important issues. The first issue is to assess the play opportunities that public elementary schools offer to children, in terms of both the time available for recess and the quality of the spaces and resources for play during recess. The second issue is to learn, alongside the question of the quality of school recess, how parents’ work …

Building Assets Toolkit: Developing Positive Benchmarks For Adolescent Girls—Instruction Guide [Arabic], Judith Bruce, Sarah Engebretsen, Kimberly Glazer

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

English Summary:
The Building Assets Toolkit is an approach for developing programs for specific segments of girls that will prepare them to better face the challenges of growing up. It will help program managers understand the needs of the girls in their community, engage stakeholders at different levels and with different viewpoints, and build concrete and meaningful programming for adolescent girls. The toolkit contains all the materials needed to help make a preliminary assessment of the assets a girl should acquire and the age by which she should acquire them. This document contains the Building Assets Toolkit’s List of …

Building Assets Toolkit: Developing Positive Benchmarks For Adolescent Girls—Asset Cards [Arabic], Judith Bruce, Sarah Engebretsen, Kimberly Glazer

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

[In Arabic] The Building Assets Toolkit is an approach for developing programs for specific segments of girls that will prepare them to better face the challenges of growing up. It will help program managers understand the needs of the girls in their community, engage stakeholders at different levels and with different viewpoints, and build concrete and meaningful programming for adolescent girls.

This document contains the Building Assets Toolkit’s Asset Cards (110), set of Age Cards (age 6 to 20), and Program Planning Worksheet (sample provided). The Age Cards are to be printed out and placed according to the instructions. The …

The Practical Applications Of Video Games Beyond Entertainment, Jack Martin

School of Professional Studies

Much of the attention directed toward video games is focused on their role as entertainment. However, researchers have found that video games can have other, more practical uses for society. This thesis is designed to examine three specific examples of the practical applications of video games: video games in education, video games as accessible technology, and the social uses of video games. This project is based on pre-existing research conducted by professionals studying the aforementioned subtopics. Anecdotal stories from educators, people with disabilities, and developers are also discussed. The thesis explores specific examples of video games being used practically, and …

Abriendo Oportunidades Strengthens Government Education Programming For Indigenous Adolescent Girls In Guatemala, Population Council

Research Utilization and Impact Briefs

For over 15 years, Abriendo Oportunidades has partnered with national and local authorities to improve educational prospects for indigenous girls. In Guatemala, evidence and ongoing technical assistance have helped to strengthen and expand the Ministry of Education’s alternative education programs for adolescents, ensuring they are responsive to the needs of indigenous rural communities.

Building Assets For Humanitarian Settings, Women's Refugee Commission, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This document is the Women’s Refugee Commission and the Population Council’s adaptation of the Building Assets Toolkit and its core activity, the Asset Exercise, for use in humanitarian contexts. An asset-building exercise is a thoughtful way to build intentional program content for girls to determine what assets they need in order to survive and thrive. This is particularly important for programs intended to reach the poorest girls in the poorest communities based on sound evidence on the reality of their lives. The Council’s Building Assets Toolkit is rooted in this exercise, helping practitioners, policymakers, and advocates build tailored, meaningful, …

Learning To Leave: Filipino Families And The Making Of The Global Filipino Nurse, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This chapter investigates how this process of reconfiguring the “social” plays out in the context of the Philippines’ labor export system and pervasive culture of emigration. Focusing on the case of Filipino nursing graduates seeking to work overseas, this chapter discusses how the success of the Philippines’ labor-brokering process relies on individuals who can take on the responsibility of transforming themselves, mainly through education and training, into desirable workers for future employers. While the migration literature had largely framed emigration as an individual aspiration and project, this chapter demonstrates how families subsidize the Philippine state’s labor export system by taking …

Adapting The Asset Exercise For Humanitarian Contexts, Women's Refugee Commission, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

As a guiding program theory, asset-building centers on the idea that skills, knowledge, relationships, and concrete resources can all constitute assets, or “stores of value,” that girls can, in turn, mobilize to make healthy choices, seek support, navigate institutions, and access entitlements. This approach is inherently multisectoral, rooted in a commitment to prioritize understanding of and respond to the diversity of girls’ needs, capacities, and experiences. The Asset Exercise operationalizes the concept of “asset-building” into concrete terms. The exercise consists of a deck of 100 “asset cards,” and eight “age cards.” Asset cards reflect both intrinsic qualities, concrete knowledge, and …

Keeping Girls In Schools To Reduce Child Marriage In Rural Bangladesh—Research Brief And Baseline Highlights, Sigma Ainul, Md. Noorunnabi Talukder, Md. Irfan Hossain, Forhana Rahman Noor, Iqbal Ehsan, Sajeda Amin, Ubaidur Rob

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Bangladesh has made considerable progress in improving access to education at all levels for the last two decades. Despite these impressive gains, Bangladesh continues to face challenges of student dropout at the secondary level. Girls drop out of school earlier than boys because of child marriage. Targeted policies and interventions designed to improve mainstream educational attainment and decrease child marriage may be the effective and sustainable way to address both issues. The Population Council implemented the project “Keeping Girls in Schools to Reduce Child Marriage in Rural Bangladesh.” An intervention research study, the project tests a life-skills and tutoring support …

Positive Communication Across The Lifespan: Early Childhood Aces To Vias, Adam Pyecha

College of Arts and Letters Posters

Felitti et al., (1985; 1998) developed Adverse Childhood Experiences test (ACEs), after researching adults suffering from obesity and addictive overeating. Positive correlations were linked with traumatic childhood experiences, such as severe physical, sexual and mental abuse with those participants struggling with obesity. ACEs is widely accepted in the field of psychology, proving individuals with higher ACEs scores indicate higher probability for mental illness and high risk deviant like substance abuse and felony crime. Identifying students with high ACEs before entering grade school may give educators and institutions the ability positively alter character and behavior outcomes of these victimized children. Nicholson, …

Time To Play: The Relationship Between Time Spent Playing And Educational Outcomes In Peru, Jasmine Davidson

Economics Honors Projects

Every day, children around the world are playing. There has been plenty of research on the importance of different kinds of play, but very little on the importance of the quantity of play. Understanding the relationship between educational outcomes and the amount of time spent playing would allow parents to better structure their children’s time and would settle the debate between psychologists and economists on whether play has inherent value for a child’s future outcomes. I focus on Peru because conducting this research in a developing country context broadens the current research mostly focused on high-income countries. Using child-level, longitudinal …

Navigating School Choice With Racial/Economic Privilege, Lisa A. Gooden

Presentations and Speeches

A presentation created for parents/caregivers navigating school choice in Kansas City. Includes a discussion on critical consciousness, disparities in Kansas City schools, school choice, school assessment, White cultural supremacy norms, the benefits of integrated schools to students and communities, and strategies for families choosing integrated schools.

Associations Between Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting And Early/Child Marriage: A Multi-Country Dhs/Mics Analysis, Jamlick Karumbi, David Gathara

Reproductive Health

Over the last several decades, global efforts to end female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) have intensified through the combined efforts of international and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), governments, and religious and civil society groups. Evidence of the wider impacts of FGM/C and interventions for its abandonment is small but emerging. The practice of FGM/C has frequently been linked to a girl’s marriageability and is thought to be associated with child marriage, either directly, as a cause of early/child marriage, or vice versa, or indirectly, resulting from common causes. Evidence of the relationships between these two practices to inform programming and policy for …

Keeping Girls In Schools To Reduce Child Marriage In Rural Bangladesh—Program Brief, Population Council

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

For the last two decades, Bangladesh has made considerable progress in improving access to education at all levels. Despite these gains, the country continues to face challenges from student dropout at the secondary level. Girls drop out of school earlier than boys because of child marriage. Targeted policies and interventions designed to improve educational attainment and decrease child marriage may be an effective and sustainable way to address both issues. The Population Council implemented an intervention research study to test a life-skills and tutoring support model to reduce school dropout among secondary-school girls and enhance livelihood skills for unmarried girls …

Soldiers To Scientists: Military Service, Gender, And Stem Degree Earning, Christina Steidl, Regina E. Werum, Sela R. Harcey, Jacob Absalon, Alice Millermacphee

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The authors use 2014–2018 data from the American Community Survey to answer two questions: To what extent is military service associated with higher rates of earning a bachelor’s degree in a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field (vs. a non-STEM field)? To what extent is this relationship gendered? The findings suggest that military service is associated with higher odds of completing a STEM degree and that this association is particularly strong for female veterans. Comparison across multiple STEM definitions suggests that military service does not simply channel women into traditionally female-dominated STEM fields. Instead, the findings show the biggest …

Why Does The Importance Of Education For Health Differ Across The United States?, Blakelee R. Kemp, Jennifer Karas Montez

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The positive association between educational attainment and adult health (“the gradient”) is stronger in some areas of the United States than in others. Explanations for the geographic pattern have not been rigorously investigated. Grounded in a contextual and life-course perspective, the aim of this study is to assess childhood circumstances (e.g., childhood health, compulsory schooling laws) and adult circumstances (e.g., wealth, lifestyles, economic policies) as potential explanations. Using data on U.S.-born adults aged 50 to 59 years at baseline (n = 13,095) and followed for up to 16 years across the 1998 to 2014 waves of the Health and Retirement …

Soldiers To Scientists: Military Service, Gender, And Stem Degree Earning, Christina Steidl, Regina E. Werum, Sela R. Harcey, Jacob Absalon, Alice Millermacphee

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The authors use 2014–2018 data from the American Community Survey to answer two questions: To what extent is military service associated with higher rates of earning a bachelor’s degree in a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field (vs. a non-STEM field)? To what extent is this relationship gendered? The findings suggest that military service is associated with higher odds of completing a STEM degree and that this association is particularly strong for female veterans. Comparison across multiple STEM definitions suggests that military service does not simply channel women into traditionally female-dominated STEM fields. Instead, the findings show the biggest …

Connections: Social Media And Parents Raising Children With Profound Multiple Disabilities, Amy Ann Terra

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Parenting plays an important role in many adult lives. Parenting a child with profound multiple disabilities results in a distinct parenting experience. This qualitative phenomenological study examined the role of social media in the lives of parents raising children with profound multiple disabilities. Five parents raising children with profound multiple disabilities were interviewed, and resulting themes were identified.

Consistent with previous research, parents described the initial adaptation to their child’s disability-related needs as the most challenging period of their parenting to date. Adaptation was followed by an acclimation to a new normal of their parenting experience. Parents described moving from …

Delivering Results In Girls' Education: How To Evaluate What Works, What Doesn't, And What We Don't Know, Stephanie Psaki

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Girls around the world face daunting challenges when it comes to enrolling in primary school, completing secondary school, and gaining the basic knowledge and skills they need to be empowered, healthy, and productive adults. Many governments and organizations have risen to meet that challenge through policies and programs designed to remove common barriers to girls’ education. But as the number of actors in this space grows, and resources to address these challenges remain scarce, it is essential to ensure that investments are targeted toward the most effective policies and programs. This brief lays out the basics of program evaluation. The …