Internal and External Developmental Assets Among African American Male Gang Members

Abstract

The presence of individual and ecological assets for positive development was assessed through data derived from individual interviews with 45 African American adolescent male members of inner-city Detroit gangsand50 African American adolescent males living in the same communities but involved in community-based organizations (CBOs) aimed at promoting positive youth development.The CBO youth had higher levels of both domains of assets. However, all gang members possessed at least one asset, and 15.6% of the gang youth had a total mean asset score that was above the total mean asset score of the CBO youth. In turn, the asset scores for the former group were significantly more likely to be correlated than was the case for the later group. The implications of these findings are discussed in regard to the idea that all youth possess the potential for positive development and to the nature of policies and programs pertinent to enhancing the life chances of diverse youth.

Organized Community Activity Participation and the Dynamic Roles of Neighborhood Violence and Gender among Latino Adolescents

“…Witnessing violence is likely a byproduct of residing in a neighborhood that hosts high levels of violence (e.g., Fauth et al., ; Kennedy & Ceballo, ; Vargas, ). Although research shows that adolescents in violent neighborhoods find ways to avoid being victimized in order to access community resources (Rasmussen et al., ; Taylor et al., ), our findings reveal that this may, nonetheless, elevate their likelihood of witnessing and experiencing violence. This is important because witnessing violence, in turn, has been associated with negative mental health outcomes, such as posttraumatic stress disorder and externalizing symptoms, and may be worse for Latino youth relative to adolescents from different ethnic groups (Fowler, Tompsett, Braciszewski, Jacques‐Tiura, & Baltes, ; Hardaway et al., ; Javdani et al., ; Rasmussen et al., ).…”

“…It is important to note the complementary nature of these findings afforded by the mixed‐methods design of this study. Previous research finds both that adolescents find ways to navigate their neighborhood and avoid violence (Taylor et al., ), as well as that participating in organized community activities in neighborhoods with high levels of violence is associated with witnessing more violence (Kennedy & Ceballo, ). Expanding previous research by examining these processes for girls and boys and by examining the location of violence yielded interesting and parallel experiences for youth in the same neighborhood.…”

“…The few studies on this topic have presented mixed results on the question of whether youth participation in organized community activities is positively or negatively associated with witnessing more violence. On the one hand, youth who are active in organized community activities may have developed skills for navigating their neighborhood that allows them to avoid violence when attending local community centers (Taylor et al., ). Conversely, a comparative study of neighborhoods that varied by levels of violence revealed that participation in community‐based clubs was related with poor wellbeing only in violent neighborhoods, for an ethnically (African American, Latino, and White) and socioeconomically diverse sample (Fauth et al., ).…”

Positive Youth Development

“…To test these ideas, Taylor and colleagues (Taylor et al, 2002a(Taylor et al, , 2002b(Taylor et al, , 2004 launched a qualitative study of the pathways to positive development among African American adolescent male gang members. The differences between gang and nongang adolescents are underscored in the literature, but findings also point to the comparability in family, teacher, and peer resources for positive development between at least some gang members (e.g., about 20%; Patton, 1998 ) and their nongang counterparts.…”

“…Based on both the experiences of practitioners and on reviews of the adolescent development literature (Eccles & Gootman, 2002 ;Lerner, 2004 a, b;Roth & Brooks -Gunn, 2003b ), " Five Cs " -competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring -were hypothesized as a way of conceptualizing PYD (and of integrating all the separate indicators of it, such as academic achievement or self -esteem). These five Cs were linked to the positive outcomes of youth development programs reported by Roth and Brooks -Gunn ( 2003a ).…”