Using case study methodology, this article analyzes the collaborative writing of three adolescent girls, one Latina and two Black, composing a group poem in an after-school spoken word poetry team. Drawing from literature on distributed cognition and embodiment, we found that participants utilized a system of writing techniques "on the…

Textual consumption in digital spaces has come under scrutiny by educators who worry about youth's surface-level comprehension of such texts as well as the polarizing nature of online discourse. This paper synthesizes affective concepts of critical witness and glimmers of care to explore two cases in which adolescent writers in digital OST…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) impacts approximately 1 in 44 children in the United States. Common characteristics of ASD are marked deficits in communication and social connectedness. As autistic children approach adolescence, there is a lack of interventions available to them. Mentoring can provide adolescents with a relationship that…

Community-based youth-serving organizations are often seen by participants and their families as safe and supportive environments with no stigma attached to participation. Many children attend community-based afterschool programs five days a week. In such an environment, trusted adults can consistently monitor the moods and behaviors of…

As communities grapple with the harmful, inequitable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which have been particularly hard on low-income and marginalized youth, renewed attention has been directed toward how out-of-school time (OST) programs can help youth reconnect and re-engage. In this article, the results of a systematic literature review on the…

The benefit of participating in Out-of-School Time (OST) arts programs has been widely documented in studies that often reflect impact over short timeframes. Youth arts organisations often bear extraordinary claims about the impact of programs, and the value they hold especially in the lives of those who face difficult social circumstances. This…

After-school programs can provide important contexts for youths' development and well-being. While these programs have the potential to serve as an anchor for refugee youth, previous research cites challenges with their access and engagement with them. Drawing on the Positive Youth Development Framework, which offers a lens on how after-school…

Youth purpose was investigated using a two-phase embedded design with youth participating in Scouts BSA (N = 3,943), ages 9-20 (M = 14.0, SD = 1.9). Participating Scouts were mostly White (91%) and male (98%). In Phase 1, we conducted a two-step cluster analysis on Scouts' survey responses to three purpose dimensions (personal meaning,…

This article takes up three interrelated elements of Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy into an initial conceptual framework for moral education and explores a practical application of this framework to a lesson plan. The three elements are moral vocabulary, moral perception, and the quality of our states of consciousness. The framework constituted…

In light of the proven benefits of high-quality afterschool STEM programming for teens, the author worked with colleagues at University of Maryland Extension to institute the Pollinator Ambassador program. The program was launched through a county-based 4-H program at a partner site in a community outside Washington, DC. Following the 4-H Thriving…

Police brutality--including the incidents that mobilized collective outrage and action across the world during the summer of 2020--has negatively impacted the psychological health of Black youth for generations. Police harassment is a persistent form of racial discrimination that Black youth frequently navigate (Brunson, 2007), and particularly as…

This dissertation utilized a qualitative collective case study (Stake, 1995) to examine four Black adolescent girls' science identities within the context of an afterschool science program featuring a culturally sustaining science curriculum. Employing a qualitative research design, the study utilized semi-structured interviews, video…

As esports continue to gain popularity and various types of esports programs are implemented in high schools across the United States, it becomes more and more important for school administrators and decision-makers to understand the potential benefits of these programs. One of the things which need to consider is the impact these programs have on…

Background: Social-emotional learning (SEL) and physical activity (PA) are beneficial for adolescent development. This review aims to describe educational programs that promote SEL and PA simultaneously among adolescents. Methods: A search was conducted using electronic databases in 2023 (eg, PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, ERIC) eliciting 5226…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine tensions around play, performance and artmaking as becoming in the mix of expected and taken-for-granted discourses implicit in an after-school ceramics makerspace (Perry and Medina, 2011). The authors look closely at one adolescent girl's embodied performance to see how it ruptures the scripts for compliant…