While mental health issues have always been part of the landscape of youth work, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought them into sharp relief. For nearly 30 years, The Clubhouse Network has provided young people from low-income communities with a safe out-of-school setting in which to explore, experiment, and express themselves through technology. In…

Frederick Jackson Turner's "frontier thesis," described the frontier as the lifeblood of American ideals and warned that the frontier's closing would mean the factors that once enabled America to prosper could no longer be relied on in the century ahead. Boy scouting was shaped by a similar nostalgia for the vanishing frontier as well as…

Camp remains a powerful experience for youth of any age, but special care must be taken to ensure camps are supportive of diverse audiences. This article describes the process by which 4-H camp organizers created a welcoming and affirming camp for teen dependents of active duty, retired, or veteran military personnel, especially those campers who…

This article examines findings from a Scottish Social Innovation Fund project carried out in an after-school club known as "The Studio." Researchers worked alongside artists to engage young people situated within their communities to challenge xenophobic discourses through the creation of positive narratives developed through story and…

This paper looks at a specific set of corporate images, namely photographs of apprentices of the Luxembourg steel conglomerate ARBED, and analyses how young workers are depicted in these images. The paper draws on a collection of 2251 glass-plate negatives (re)presenting ARBED's industrial cosmos, including its vocational school the Institut Emile…

This paper presents data from the first six-months of an ongoing speculative design project in which youth and researchers co-created a videogame club, and later an eSports team, in an urban youth centre in Montréal, Québec. It describes how process philosophy informed researchers' approach to speculative design, allowing youth and researchers to…

Southeast Pennsylvania 4-H Extension educators identified a need for professional development in order to further develop current urban 4-H programs. The expectation was that increased awareness and knowledge would lead to increased skills competency in planning, implementing, and evaluating urban 4-H youth development programs. An interstate…

This article examines tensions and developments in youth work following the Albemarle Report in 1960, which sought to revive the flagging youth service. It uses oral history interviews with former youth workers and club members in London and Liverpool, archival research looking at the documents of voluntary youth clubs and associations in London…

Contemporary youth development requires a new approach to involving youth in more active, engaging, and influential leadership roles. Teens and youth program professionals recognize the need young leaders have for more mentorship and accountability from adults to grow into their leadership potential. This paper specifically addresses how youth…

This paper examines the differences and challenges encountered when trying to create informal blended (virtual and hands-on) engineering design STEM activities. It contrasts the creation of STEM activities for formal and informal learning environments, stressing that the differences extend far beyond the length of the activity or depth of any…

This article reflects on the ways in which socially engaged arts practices can contribute to reconceptualizing the contemporary modern dance technique class as a powerful site of social change. Specifically, the author considers how incorporating socially engaged practices into pedagogical models has the potential to foster responsible citizenship…

This paper reports on the significance of social capital in relation to education, exploring its relevance to teachers and other professionals as well as among young people. It draws on aspects of five case studies undertaken by the Schools and Social Capital Network, within the Applied Educational Research Scheme in Scotland. These case studies…

This paper documents the multiplicative benefits from an experiential extracurricular activity--i.e., participation in a Model United Nations (MUN) Club. Management instructors are encouraged to sponsor such activities to give leadership training to students. The benefits are especially rich in liberal-arts institutions, like Park University,…

This article addresses practices of textual appropriation in computer games made by young people. By focusing on how young people's production work makes reference to popular media texts, it examines the basis on which such work claims to be legible as a game text: how it claims to be literate in the context of an after-school game-making club.…

Research has shown that engaging families through youth development and after-school programs may benefit children. This paper extends knowledge in this arena, describing a set of strategies for implementing family-strengthening activities in youth development settings. The paper reports findings from a pilot evaluation of the Boys & Girls Clubs…