How adolescents come to see themselves as more responsible through participation in youth programs.

Full Abstract

This qualitative study was aimed at developing theory about the process underlying the development of responsibility grounded in accounts of youth who reported experiencing this change. A total of 108 high-school-aged (M = 16.5) youth from 11 programs were interviewed about their experiences within the program, and 24 reported becoming more responsible through their participation. The youth's accounts suggested that this process was driven largely by successfully fulfilling program expectations. This process was driven by youth's adherence to their commitments and their consideration of the consequences of their actions on others. Youth mentioned changes in responsibility most frequently in three programs, which appeared to differ from the remaining programs in having more structure and placing greater ownership and accountability on youth.

Author information

Author/s: Wood, Dustin (D); Larson, Reed W (RW); Brown, Jane R (JR);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA. dwood(-atsign-)wfu.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Child development (Child Dev), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2009 Jan-Feb; vol 80 (issue 1) : pp 295-309

Dates: Created 2009/02/24; Completed 2009/06/09;

PMID: 19236407, status: MEDLINE (last retrieved date: 6/9/2009)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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