Youth Work in Croatia: Collecting Pieces for a Mosaic

This article explores the historical development of youth work in Croatia. By drawing from available data and personal experience, we describe three key phases of youth work development in a post-conflict country: (a) the period of the early 1990s as a “direct peace building" youth work; (b) the rise of nonformal education during the mid and late 1990s; and (c) the growth of a networked youth sector and its focus on youth policy advocacy starting in 2000. In addition, we refer to today's context, particularly because of its project-management orientation. Such categorization highlights various practices that we consider to represent youth work in a specific and contested national framework. Work with young people with fewer opportunities is being presented as a case, building on our observation that contemporary youth work continues to be embedded in civil society development and nonformal education, facing challenges of funding-driven discourse and unsystematic support.     

Can the global South take over the baton? What cosmopolitanism in ‘unlikely’ places means for future world order

As the West’s centrality fades, the global South may have a decisive influence in shaping future world order. Will that future see a retreat from globalisation to hard-edged particularisms? Or will the emerging post-Westphalian global society let the global South take over the baton of cosmopolitan institution building in its own way? This article draws on a multi-country survey of educated youth to find promising signs of imagined common ground with other countries. It suggests the flavours of cosmopolitan integration that the global South is likely to support in coming decades.     

Carnal teachings: raunch aesthetics as queer feminist pedagogies in Yo! Majesty's hip hop practice

This essay puts forward a notion of “raunch aesthetics,” theorizing raunch as an aesthetic, performative, and vernacular practice: an explicit mode of sexual expression that transgresses norms of privacy and respectability. Raunch aesthetics describe creative practices that often blend humor and sexual explicitness to launch cultural critiques, generate pleasure for minority audiences, and affirm queer lives. The author activates her formulation of raunch in analyzing Yo! Majesty, a hip hop group comprised of black female emcees who openly describe their sexual desire for women, and explores how the queer youth of color she works with have responded to their music. Working beyond the unexamined moralisms that give critiques of raunch culture their legitimacy, the author argues that Yo! Majesty's raunch aesthetics transmit queer and feminist teachings. While celebrating carnal pleasures, these artists critique heterosexism, subvert narratives about the incompatibility of belief in Christ and queer sexualities, and trouble notions concerning the emancipation of coming out of the closet and declaring a stable homosexual identity. In demonstrating how raunch aesthetics generate consciousness raising, the author discusses how her youth participants critically read and consume hip hop while negotiating unwieldy meanings of sexuality and gender presentation.     

A Profile of Violent Offenders in Spanish Prisons

In Europe, it is relatively uncommon to find studies that investigate the criminal profiles of violent offenders, especially infrequent are those that pay special attention to offenders’ mental health/substance use disorders and histories of violence during childhood. The current research explores whether inmates who are incarcerated for violent offenses (n = 536) in Spain are different in terms of the aforementioned factors as compared to inmates incarcerated for non-violent offenses (n = 536). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that violent offenders, as compared to their non-violent counterparts, were more likely to be younger, younger at the time of their first arrest, single, use alcohol, receive treatment in prison for anxiety or schizophrenia, and report physical abuse during childhood.     

A Model for Female-Perpetrated Domestic Violence

Child abuse often coexists with intimate partner violence. However, limited studies incorporate both phenomena in a single study. Moreover, the examination of female-on-male violence is an important development. Hence, an intrinsic case study of domestic violence is presented to provide insights regarding the nature and impact of female-perpetrated violence. The research approach was qualitative and demonstrated that a model for abusive behavior seems to be similar for both sexes. The data revealed theoretical trends such as the reality of an intergenerational transmission of violence into adulthood, as well as abusive partners presenting with borderline traits.     

网络低俗文化对青少年价值观的负面影响及解决对策

当今社会的网络低俗文化不仅会淡化社会教育所取得的积极成果,还会使青少年已初步形成的良好品德、兴趣与需要结构发生变异,价值取向出现错位。文章分析了目前网络低俗文化对青少年的影响及泛滥的原因,探讨了抵制网络低俗文化的对策。     

“I’m totally transariffic”: Exploring how Transgender and Gender-expansive Youth and Young Adults Make Sense of their Challenges and Successes

As transgender and gender-expansive (TGE) youth and young adults (YYA) navigate challenging environments, they often seek spaces for safety and acceptance. This study explores ways in which a group of TGE YYA who were engaged with a community-based service organization make sense of their experiences, challenges, and successes in ways that illuminate the factors and processes associated with resilience. Secondary data analysis was conducted on qualitative responses from 85 TGE YYA ages 13–24. The themes that emerged provide insight into the ways community-based programs and providers can understand and support the resilience of TGE YYA.     

Connecting research and practice: Perspectives on the role of manualized programs in youth work

While there is a strong movement in favor of the use of manual-based programs in the arena of social care, there is a view that such programs are not applicable in the more fluid setting of youth work, which operates informally, using dynamic and organic methods. A critical pedagogical approach to youth work engages young people by encouraging them to become inquisitive, to question why things are the way they are and to pose problems through which they can learn. For some, manualized or evidence-based programs are not seen as having a role in such contexts. However, to date, the international debate in relation to this issue has been limited by an absence of published studies focusing specifically on strategies to implement evidence-informed practice in youth work contexts. This article aims to address this gap in the literature. The Irish national youth organization Foróige, which works with more than 56,000 young people in Ireland on an annual basis, has developed a range of manualized evidence-informed resources to support its youth work over recent years. Drawing on research findings from a range of studies conducted with youth workers focusing on implementation of these resources, the article explores the benefits and tensions associated with the use of program manuals in a youth work context. The findings suggest that such resources have a valuable role to play in youth work if designed in collaboration with youth workers, showing respect for core youth work values and allowing for flexibility and adaptability in implementation.     

Examining Space–Time Interaction in City-Level Homicide Data: Crack Markets and the Diffusion of Guns Among Youth

This paper examines the linkage between crack market activity and gunhomicide suggested by Blumstein (1995), who argues that the arrival ofcrack stimulated an increased availability of guns among juveniles. Thisgreater availability of guns, the argument continues, is responsible for thesharp upswing in juvenile homicide experienced in the United States in themid-1980s. Using city-level data on crack arrests and gun-related juvenilehomicide, we fit a change-point version of the Bass (1969) model ofinnovation diffusion. We find that, in most large American cities, thediffusion process for crack cocaine experienced an onset of dramatic growththat was followed by a similar, slightly slower growth in gun homicidescommitted by juveniles. We further use cluster analysis to find that thespatial patterning of the two processes is similar, starting on the East andWest Coasts and working their way toward other regions of the nation. Gunuse in homicide among slightly older offenders (ages 18–24) alsoexperienced a change at roughly the same time as the juveniles, but the rateof diffusion was considerably milder than for the younger group; offendersages 25 or older generally show no growth in gun-related homicide whatsoever. In addition, there is no detectable surge in juvenile nongun homicide activity. Based on these findings, we conclude that the crack cocaine markets–gun availability linkage is highly plausible, and we suggest directions for future research in clarifying the dynamics of the late-1980s surge in juvenile homicide.     

Youth Development Outcomes of the Camp Experience: Evidence for Multidimensional Growth

Three thousand, three hundred and ninety-five families, whose child attended one of 80 different day or resident summer camps for at least one week, completed customized questionnaires that measured growth from precamp to postcamp in four domains: Positive Identity, Social Skills, Physical & Thinking Skills, and Positive Values & Spirituality. Parents, children, and camp staff reported significant positive change in these four domains; more than would be expected by maturation alone. Most gains were maintained or showed additional growth six months later. Few of the camp's structural elements correlated with growth, nor did striking gender, age, or ethnicity differences emerge. The study highlights the particular strengths of camp as an educational institution and social movement and suggests that different variations of summer camp can provide potent developmental experiences. Christopher A. Thurber is full-time faculty at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1997. His major research interests include homesickness, youth camping, and developmental psychopathology. Margery M. Scanlin is the Executive Officer for Research at the American Camp Association in Martinsville, Indiana. She received her EdD from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, in 1982. Her major research interests include youth development outcomes, program improvement in youth organizations, and organizational aspects of effective camps. Leslie Scheuler Whitaker is a Senior Associate with Philliber Research Associates in St. Louis, Missouri. She received her PhD in social science research from Washington University in St. Louis in 2000. Her primary research areas include youth development, arts education, and program evaluation. Karla A. Henderson is a professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism at North Carolina State University. She received her PhD in education from the University of Minnesota in 1979 and is currently a member of the American Camp Association Board of Directors. Her research interests include leisure behavior theory, camping and outdoor education, and gender and diversity issues.