Drug take-back system provides a legal, safe and eco-friendly avenue to appropriately dispose of unwanted medicines, contributing to both environmental sustainability and reducing medication misuse. This study designed and implemented a brief educational intervention, which took <1 min on average, to enhance awareness of community residents…

Despite modest increases in high school graduation rates for all students, disparities still exist for some groups, such as students of color and students from low-income families who face systemic challenges in accessing high-quality public schools. Third-party "school support" organizations like the Urban Assembly have long focused on…

Even before the COVID-19 crisis and its deep economic effects, over a million New Yorkers struggled with food insecurity--particularly in low-income communities of color. Because many families with children rely on meal programs provided to students during the school year, rates of food insecurity tend to increase sharply during the summer months.…

Language proficiency is identified as one of the most important factors for successful migrant integration. Japan has had a sizeable increase of migrants in the past few years, and these migrants needed to build their Japanese proficiency. Focusing on municipalities in the 23 Tokyo wards, we surveyed what types of Japanese as a Second Language…

The Growing Recruits for Urban Business (GRUB) is an urban agricultural education program in Lubbock, Texas with a focus on youth development. The mission of the program is to provide at-risk youth with the opportunity to learn technical agricultural skills and leadership skills through the management of a 5.5-acre farm. The purpose of this…

This article explores the pedagogy of an urban Sport for Development (SfD) initiative in Belgium through the voices of young people. We draw on the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire, and use qualitative research methods (i.e. observations, informal conversations, in-depth interviews and sharing circles) over a three-year period, to analyse the…

This study adds to the limited literature base on extracurricular debate by using doubly robust inverse probability treatment weighting to estimate the average treatment effect for the treated of preadolescent debate participation on a variety of academic and engagement outcomes among a 10-year longitudinal sample of Baltimore City Public School…

Opportunity Works was a three-year effort led by Jobs for the Future to help opportunity youth--young people ages 16 to 24 who are not in school or meaningfully employed--access postsecondary and career pathways. Based on the Back on Track framework, seven cities across the country undertook collective impact approaches with diverse partners to…

Regular participation in afterschool programs by elementary students in low income communities may lead to improved college and career readiness. This study found that students who had high levels of participation in the LA's BEST afterschool program over three years were five percent less likely to dropout and six percent more likely to complete…

This qualitative study draws on concepts from Self-Determination Theory (SDT) within a positive youth development framework to postulate that participants in an after-school program will derive a sense of enjoyment and challenge in program activities when they perceive that the program supports their psychological needs for competence, autonomy,…

The NYC Justice Corps aims to change the dynamic between justice system-involved young adults and the communities in which they live. At the heart of the program are community benefit projects -- from renovation and restoration projects to educational and arts initiatives -- designed and carried out by Corps members. Community benefit projects…

OrchKids has been offering free, year-round music-based programming to students across Baltimore for 10 years. In school year (SY) 2017-18, its out-of-school-time (OST) program was based in six schools and served over 1,000 children in pre-K through 10th grade. The primary goal of OrchKids is to expose students and their family members to music…

This paper examines the research design for an arts-based interfaith research project that is intended to build relationships between children from different faiths and to increase research participants' understandings of faiths other than their own. The project is funded as an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship called "Early Start…

This article explores what happens when school mentors and university faculty co-facilitate a cycle of action research with pre-service science teacher residents in an urban teacher residency. The voices of all three constituents describe the process of doing action research together in community and its impact on their practice. The pre-service…

As part of an ongoing, multi-million dollar Wallace Foundation initiative to improve and expand arts learning opportunities for young people, the Wallace Foundation, in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), developed the Youth Arts Initiative (YAI) to deliver otherwise inaccessible high-quality arts programs to low-income…