Gangs have spread throughout the entire sector of society, and what was once viewed as an inner-city problem can now be found everywhere, including suburbia. This guide for teenagers, their families, and impacted communities addresses the youth gang issue in understandable, manageable terms. Quotes from teens themselves provide valuable insight into the problems that can cause kids to join gangs: absent parents, the need for excitement or to belong to a group, following in the footsteps of family members who are involved in gangs. These factors and others are explored (including an examination of the workings of the adolescent mind), and sound solutions are suggested to help kids resist gang membership.

Four distinct sections bring into focus the topic of youth gangs and ways to prevent kids from joining them. Part I describes many basic issues and needs all teens and pre-teens have in common and how these relate to gangs. Part II addresses how and why certain young people enter and sometimes exit gang alliances. Part III focuses on how several integral components of the teen's life and community can work together to resolve youths' involvement with gangs. Part IV analyzes the critical influence of families and the teens themselves as they approach important life choices. Wiener's unique approach includes suggestions and comments from the young people themselves to try to bridge the gap between themselves and the adults in their lives.

Teenage Runaways: Broken Hearts and "Bad Attitudes" uncovers the perspectives of actual teenage runaways to help professionals, parents, and youths understand the widespread social problem of "last resort" behavior. You'll learn the real reasons teenagers run away, and you'll hear the anguished voices of the teenage runaways themselves, shattering the myth that only bad kids runaway.Teenage Runaways deflates popular misconceptions that runaways are incorrigible delinquents who want to leave home, that they make impulsive decisions to leave their families, and that they wish to never return. Reporting on a qualitative study of 26 runaways in a shelter in New England, this book reveals that many teenaged runaways leave home in search of safety and freedom from what they consider abusive treatment, whether physical, sexual, or emotional. In Teenage Runaways, you will discover valuable information about who these children are, why they are running away, and what you can do to help. Specifically, you will read about: why teenagers say they run away running away as "last resort behavior" what the experience of running away is like hope and desire for reconciliation with parents and family running away as a dynamic emotional experience for youths which reflects changes in their social bonds with peers, family, and adults in the educational, legal, and medical systems "emotional capital" from a heavily regulated authoritative environment Teenage Runaways provides you with a new understanding of teens in trouble to assist you in providing services to this needy and vulnerable population. First-hand accounts reveal the emotional motivations behind decisions to run away, such as 14 years-old Isabel who gives a painful account of what severe physical and sexual abuse feels like to an adolescent victim. Amy, also 14, tells her story of living with a mother who was extremely strict and betrayed her.

There is no denying that friendship, however narrow or broad the definition, is dynamic and highly responsive to socio-cultural and environmental factors. Urban Youth Friendships and Community Practice highlights the greater importance of friendships in circumstances where youth have been marginalized and have limited access to instrumental resources that restrict geographical mobility or curtail their movement to limited public spaces (in which they are validated, and even liked or admired). Youth friendships are not limited to peer-networks; they can cross other social divides and involve adults of all ages. Indeed, community practice and asset assessment approaches are increasingly focusing on the relevance of strong peer relationships and networks as strengths upon which to build. Friendships, therefore, are a community asset and as such could be included as a key aspect of community asset assessments and interventions. Community organizations, schools, religious institutions, and other less-formal groups provide practitioners with ample opportunities to foster urban youth friendships. This book seeks to accomplish four goals: (1) provide a state of knowledge on the definition, role, and importance of friendships in general and specifically on urban youth of color (African-American, Asia and Latinos); (2) draw implications for community practice scholarship and practice; (3) illustrate how friendships can be a focus of a community capacity enhancement assets paradigm through the use of case illustrations; and (4) provide a series of recommendations for how urban friendships can be addressed in graduate level social work curriculum but with implications for other helping professions. Urban Youth Friendships and Community Practice is a must-have for community practitioners, whether their focus be social work, recreation, education, planning, or out-of-school programming.

The demise of state Socialisms caused radical social, cultural and economic changes in Eastern Europe. Since then, young people have been confronted with fundamental disruptions and transformations to their daily environment, while an unsettling, globalized world substantially reshapes local belongings and conventional values. In times of multiple instabilities and uncertainties, this volume argues, young people prefer to try to adjust to given circumstances than to adopt the behaviour of potential rebellious, adolescent role models, dissident counter-cultures or artistic breakings of taboo. Eastern European Youth Cultures in a Global Context takes this situation as a starting point for an examination of generational change, cultural belongings, political activism and everyday practices of young people in different Eastern European countries from an interdisciplinary perspective. It argues that the conditions of global change not only call for a differentiated evaluation of youth cultures, but also for a revision of our understanding of 'youth' itself - in Eastern Europe and beyond.

In Your Face: Stories from the Lives of Queer Youth is a unique collection of real-life accounts that explores the lives and identities of lesbian, gay, and bisexual teens. Fifteen youths, age 14-18, bravely tell of the hardships and emotions they experience because of their sexualities. Readers will explore stories that touch on several issues, such as:
-- coming out to yourself
-- coming out to family and friends
-- dealing with the school environment
-- getting involved in the queer community
-- realizing how religion impacts one's sense of self

Through the innovative methodology of asking them to record their experiences on videotape, this book offers an evocative and fascinating cross-cultural exploration into the everyday lives of a number of teenage girls from their own broad social, cultural and ethnic perspectives. The use of the video camera by the girls themselves reveals their exploration and experimentation with possible identities, highlighting their awareness that the self is not ready made but rather constituted in the process of continuous performance. The result is an active self-conscious exploration of the continuous "art" of self-making. Through their play, the teenagers are shown to strategically test out various possibilities, while keeping such explorations within the bounds of what is acceptable and permissible in their own micro-cultural worlds. The resulting material challenges previous findings in those feminist and youth anthropological studies based on too narrow a concept of class, ethnicity or populist approaches to culture.

In his study of children and criminality, criminologist and research analyst Ronald Flowers provides an understanding of the relationship between child victimization and juvenile delinquency as well as a comprehensive review of the literature. Assessing the effectiveness of present conceptual frameworks, modes of research, and social and legal measures, he offers recommendations for furthering professional and research efforts in the field. His analysis blends the findings of leading experts and researchers in a variety of disciplines with relevant FBI and law enforcement data. An additional feature is the "model statute" for the study, prevention, and treatment of child victimization in all of its guises.

Most of the Muslim societies of the world have entered a demographic transition from high to low fertility, and this process is accompanied by an increase in youth vis-a-vis other age groups. Political scientists and historians have debated whether such a "youth bulge" increases the potential for conflict or whether it represents a chance to accumulate wealth and push forward social and technological developments. This book introduces the discussion about youth bulge into social anthropology using Tajikistan, a post-Soviet country that experienced civil war in the 1990s, which is in the middle of such a demographic transition. Sophie Roche develops a social anthropological approach to analyze demographic and political dynamics, and suggests a new way of thinking about social change in youth bulge societies.

The opening of the borders to Eastern Europe has expanded our view on European diversities and offered new opportunities to examine the effects of the heterogeneity in European cultural backgrounds and political systems on personality and social development. This book is a first step in utilizing the rich cultural resource offered by the large number of cultural units represented in Europe and--at least in part--in the United States.
One way to understand the life conditions of adolescents in different countries is to study what they actually do in everyday life and how much time they spend on what types of activities. This book also provides essential and new information about individual and societal priorities and values. Toward this end, the "Euronet" scientists set up a postdoctoral training workshop on adolescent psychology for 10 selected American and 10 selected European participants.
The Euronet project comprises 13 different samples--six stemming from Middle and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, the Czechoslovakian Federal Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Romania), six from Western European countries (Finland, France, Germany, Norway, French, and German Switzerland), and one from the United States (Michigan). This book reports the results of this large, cross-national, longitudinal study of adolescents and the world(s) in which they live, and is offered to all those who have an interest in adolescence and/or the diversity of Europe. Readers will learn about hundreds of features of adolescence which are more or less characteristic of the cultures, ages, and genders.

Based on the wealth of experience gathered in the forty years of the life of the Adolescent Department at the Clinic, this covers a full range of clinical work with some of the most difficult areas of adolescence, but it also gives a conceptual framework of normal adolescence and traces the difficulties that arise when this goes wrong. Facing It Out presents new work which has not previously been fully described. The book will be vital reading for clinicians whose work includes work with adolescents. The Adolescent Department of the Tavistock Clinic in its long history has been engaging with young people and their families when the strains prove too great. In this book, staff of the Adolescent Dept examine in accessible language different clinical aspects of adolescent disturbance, exploring in particular the impact on the family. The chapters look at a range of severity of disturbance from adjustment crises to anorexia nervosa and psychosis as well as aspects of adolescent development in small families and in the formation of a sense of identity. With the exception of infancy, adolescence is the most radical of all developmental periods.

Educators as First Responders is a comprehensive, hands-on guide to adolescent development and mental health for teachers and other educators of students in grades 6-12. Today's schools are at the forefront of supporting adolescents with increasingly complex, challenging psychosocial needs. Moreover, students are more likely to seek out a trusted teacher, advisor, or coach for support than to confide directly in a parent or even a school counselor. Succinct and accessible, this book provides tips and strategies that teachers, coaches, nurses, counselors, and other school professionals can put into immediate use with students in varying degrees of distress. These evidence-based practices and real-world classroom examples will help you understand the "whole student," a developing individual shaped not just by parental pressure or psychiatric diagnosis but by school and broader cultural and systemic forces.

The problems of studying families arise from the difficulty in studying systems where there are multiple elements interacting with each other and with the child. How should this system be described? Still other problems relate to indirect effects; namely the influence of a particular dyad's interaction on the child when the child is not a member of the dyad. While all agree that the mother-father relationship has important bearing on the child's development, exactly how to study this--especially using observational techniques--remains a problem. While progress in studying the family has been slow, there is no question that an increase in interest in the family systems, as opposed to the mother-child relationship, is taking place. This has resulted in an increase in research on families and their effects.
This volume, by leading figures in child development on families, attests to the growing sophistication of the conceptualization and measurement techniques for getting at family processes. The third in a series that aims to address topics relevant to the developmental problems and developmental disabilities of retardation, this volume is divided into two parts. Section 1 presents basic family processes and approaches for describing family dynamics. It deals with these issues from a broad perspective, including studying families at dinner, families in different cultural contexts, and the understanding of family in nonhuman primates. Section 2 looks at family processes in the service of studying families at-risk. The risk factors include poverty, malnutrition, and developmental delay and retardation. The study of family processes in these contexts provides data on family dynamics as well as how these dynamics impact on the children's developing competence. This volume will be informative for researchers, clinicians, and educators from a variety of disciplines and settings. The editors' aim is to bring a greater clarity to issues concerning the family life of children and highlight new research and possibilities for intervention.

In the half-century after 1913, approximately 5000 children were sent from Britain to Australia, Canada, and Rhodesia under the auspices of the Child Emigration Society, established by the South-African born Kingsley Fairbridge in 1909. The Fairbridge Society's child emigration scheme became the best known and most celebrated of the 20th-century juvenile migration schemes from Britain to the Imperial Dominions. This study investigates the motives for the establishment of the Fairbridge child migration scheme, examines its history in Australia and Canada, and outlines the experiences of many of the former child migrants. The book is based on material from Australia and Canada as well as archives of the Fairbridge Society in England, Western Australia and New South Wales, plus surviving records of the Society in British Columbia, and on interviews with former Fairbridge children. It aims to place the Fairbridge scheme in its historical context, and uses oral history, interviews and photographs.

This book offers a fascinating yet disturbing account of the significance of racism in the lives of five and six year old children, drawing upon data from an in-depth study of an inner-city, multi-ethnic primary school and its surrounding community. It represents one of the only detailed studies to give primacy to the voices of the young children themselves - giving them the space to articulate their own experiences and concerns. Together with detailed observation of the children in the school and local community, it provides an important account of how and why they draw upon discourses on race in the development of their gender identities.
The book graphically highlights the understanding that these children have of issues of race, gender and sexuality and the active role they play in using and reworking this knowledge to make sense of their experiences.

eBook available with sample pages: 020302687X

Friendships are crucial to children's well-being and happiness and lay important foundations upon which later relationships in adolescence and adulthood are built. This overview of the nature and significance of children's peer relationships examines issues such as social-cognitive development; the context of children's relationships; relationship problems such as loneliness; shyness and social isolation; and methods of promoting positive relationships.

In the context of the ongoing de-standardization of young people's lives, this book explores changing patterns of household formation amongst contemporary 20-somethings and the implications of these changes for the ways in which they relate to friends, parents and partners. The book points to the growing polarization between the experiences of graduates and non-graduates, and highlights changing expectations and attitudes towards intimacy and "settling down" amongst these groups.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book represents a method by which students are assisted to make wise decisions about the use of alcohol and other drugs. Situations which are essential to effective daily living are employed to reach effective decisions. The role of parents in assisting the children toward a better understanding of the nature of drug use is also explored. Specifically, the use of alcohol and other drugs in the workplace places the drug situation directly in the light of the job market. The current problem of HIV and drugs is also discussed, along with drugs and pregnancy.

"Mark Fenemore's ambitious yet admirably compact...provides a wide-ranging, richly detailed, nuanced, and insightful cultural and social history of (predominantly male) youth nonconformity in the GDR...this book belongs in the latest generation of pioneering cultural and social histories of the GDR that suggest new approaches and future paths for comparative study." . American Historical Review

..".an insightful, constantly thought-provoking and engaging analysis of the tension between the young people of the GDR and the SED's state system. While historians of the GDR will undoubtedly find a great deal to interest them in Fenemore's work, his insights into neo-Nazism, youth culture in general and the relationship between gender and the state mean his book deserves an audience beyond those interested just in the GDR." . Cultural and Social History

..".a wonderful book on the relationship of masculinity discourses of working-class culture, working-class conservatism and pop culture. Fenemore shows that youth culture is not "left" just because it deviates from the norm. . H-Soz-u-Kult

" The volume] offers a stimulating overview that widens our understanding of the socio-cultural dimension underlying National Socialism." . Historische Zeitschrift

Mark Fenemore has a first class degree in history and a Masters with Distinction. In 2002, he gained his Ph.D. in German Studies from University College London. He has held research fellowships at the Institute of Historical Research in London and the Centre for Historical Research at the University of Limerick. In October 2005, he took up a prestigious Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress, Washington DC. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Manchester Metropolitan University."

This book endeavors to be a study of identity in Indian urban youth. It is concerned with understanding the psychological themes of conformity, rebellion, individuation, relatedness, initiative and ideological values which pervade youths' search for identity within the Indian cultural milieu, specifically the Indian family. In its essence, the book attempts to explore how in contemporary India the emerging sense of individuality in youth is seeking its own balance of relationality with parental figures and cohesion with social order. The research questions are addressed to two groups of young men and women in the age group of 20-29 years-Youth in Corporate sector and Youth in Non Profit sector. Methodologically, the study is a psychoanalytically informed, process oriented, context sensitive work that proceeds via narrations, conversations and in-depth life stories of young men and women. Overall, the text reflects on the nature of inter-generational continuity and shifts in India.

Why do some young adults substantially change their patterns of smoking, drinking, or illicit drug use after graduating from high school? In this book, the authors show that leaving high school and leaving home create new freedoms that are linked to increases in the use of cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. They also show that marriage, pregnancy, and parenthood create new responsibilities that are linked to decreases in drug use.
The research is based on more than 33,000 young people followed from high school through young adulthood by the nationwide Monitoring the Future project. Every two years, participants reported on their drug use, as well as their schooling, employment, military service, living arrangements, marriages, pregnancies, parenthood, and even their divorces.
The unique qualities of this research--large nationally representative samples, follow-ups extending up to 14 years beyond high school, and multiple approaches to analysis and data presentation--allowed the examination of several important influences simultaneously, while retaining much of the rich detail encountered in the real world. On the whole, the results are encouraging, suggesting that the potentials for change and improvement during the transition to adulthood are as important as the detrimental effects of problem behavior in adolescence. This research is a "must" read for anyone concerned with how new freedoms and responsibilities impact adolescents, young adults, and the use of licit and illicit drugs.

Sex, Ethics, and Young People brings together research and practice on sexuality and violence prevention education. Carmody focuses on showing how the challenges faced by young people negotiating their sexual lives can be addressed by a six week interactive skill based Sex and Ethics Program.

Here is a comprehensive review of adolescent substance abuse issues and an expansive, empirically based curriculum for school-based programs to teach adolescents about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The abuse of alcohol and other drugs among young people is a problem of alarming scope and gravity. Adolescent Substance Abuse explores the multiple forces which impact adolescents and can push them toward drug and alcohol abuse.Adolescent Substance Abuse proposes means by which to effect macro-level change in societal norms and values regarding substance abuse. The authors describes in detail an effective means of teaching adolescents about drugs and alcohol using an empirically based teaching method called Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT). TGT was developed through extensive research on games used as teaching devices. It uses small groups as classroom work units and capitalizes on peer influence by using peers as teachers and supporters. The book explains an effective curriculum which utilizes the TGT approach and provides a program for parents. The curriculum is unique in that it is anchored in empirical data and delivered via adolescent peer groups. Adolescent Substance Abuse addresses other issues pertinent to the reduction of adolescent substance abuse by exploring subsystems of change, including school and peer group environments, home and family, the media, community movements, and business and industry. The book is a great source of innovative ideas for beginning and expert counselors, social workers, mental health professionals, school psychologists, and others who want to prevent adolescent abuse of drugs and alcohol.

Blending academic theory with policy guidelines and practical suggestions, this book provides a review of current approaches to assessment and Intervention For Children With Emotional And Behavioural Difficulties. It incorporates a discussion of government guidelines on policy and provision with schools and LEAs and reviews a range of successful innovations in intervention. Specific areas are covered, including Exclusion, Integration And Emotional Abuse.; Five Recurring Themes permeate the whole book, these being: the effects of government legislation on all aspects of EBD assessment and provision; the recognition that children with EBD come from economically and socially disadvantaged families and the implication that this has for assessment and provision; the problems of agreeing on an acceptable definition of EBD; the fact that children labelled as EBD do not have an equal opportunity to assessment and provision; and the belief that schools can make a substantial contribution to the prevention of EBD.

This text provides a step-by-step healing process for adults reared in dysfunctional families and who have unfinished business with their pasts. This process encourages individuals to tell the truth about abuse and neglect, embrace and feel the feelings, identify how present-day acting- out behaviour is related to inner dialogue, and apply the inner child method to adulthood issues.; Providing information on shame, codependency, abuse, neglect, birth order and boundaries, this workbook enables the individual to gain new understanding about their past and present. Using the activities described here, a person should first develop skills that help in healing childhood trauma, and consequently be given the means to address adulthood problems such as correcting self- defeating thought and behaviour patterns. The learning of self-nurturing, self-acceptance and health boundaries should then follow as a matter of course.; This text reintegrates the personality parts in a functional way through the use of exercises and visualisations, with the aim of enabling the individual to finish with the past and live successfully in the present. Examples of real-life inner child therapy assignments are also included.; A manual for therapists ISOSBN 1-55959-063-7 and a visualisation tape ISOSBN 1-55959-076-9 are also available.