Relationships

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education - in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health - conducts the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) in randomly selected public high schools in every odd-numbered year. The YRBS focuses on the major risk behaviors that threaten the health and safety of young people.Read more

This article by Sarah McMahon defines bystander intervention as a promising approach for at-risk youth in regards to sexual violence. The study was conducted specifically with student-athletes to determine their willingness to intervene as bystanders in situations involving sexual violence. The researchers found that the most significant factor in their willingness to intervene was the closeness of the team bond. These results suggest that many student-athletes are willing to serve as active bystanders and provide positive intentions to intervene in sexual violence.

The national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) monitors priority health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among youth and adults in the United States. The national YRBS is conducted every two years during the spring semester and provides data representative of 9th through 12th grade students in public and private schools throughout the United States.Read more

This article reports qualitative findings of seven focus groups that illuminate the phenomenon of dating and dating violence from the perspective of the young adolescent. This study was part of a larger intervention project, “An Arts-Based Initiative for the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls,” a collaboration of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Johns Hopkins University, School of Nursing. Concepts of interest included: dating norms, ecological factors, elements of healthy and unhealthy relationships, and prevention strategies.Read more

Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb, reported on some recent research that linked Facebook usage with adolescent female anxiety and depression. According to Dr. Joanne Davila and  doctoral candidate Lisa Starr, girls that use texting, instant messaging and social networking, have an easier way to keep stuck rehashing the same topic over and over without a sense of resolution.Read more

Research shows that girls and women need role models to develop high aspirations for the future. With women becoming increasingly more involved in the workforce and in non-traditional, previously male-oriented careers, this review of literature examines career aspirations of women and presents an overview of women’s participation in the workforce and the progress of women’s career development and career aspirations in the latter half of the 20th century.

This compilation of research outlines the role of mentoring as a youth development strategy that uses positive youth-adult relationships to provide broad guidance and support rather than aiming for quick fixes or teaching a specific skill. They define youth development using the stages that all children go through to acquire the attitudes, competencies, values and social skills necessary to become successful and resilient adults.Read more

Formal mentoring programs have historically tended to match youth with same-sex mentors; more recently, mentoring programs designed specifically for girls have begun cropping up in response to theories on gender and adolescent girls’ psychological health and development, which suggest girls have particular psychosocial needs and ways of relating. Yet, there have been few empirical studies that explicitly examine the relational processes in adolescent girls’ relationships with female mentors from the perspectives of the participants themselves.Read more

Formal mentoring programs have historically tended to match youth with same-sex mentors; more recently, mentoring programs designed specifically for girls have begun cropping up in response to theories on gender and adolescent girls’ psychological health and development, which suggest girls have particular psychosocial needs and ways of relating. Yet, there have been few empirical studies that explicitly examine the relational processes in adolescent girls’ relationships with female mentors from the perspectives of the participants themselves.Read more

An important study was done of a formal mentoring program (matching adolescent girls with women mentors) executed by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. The study reveals that these relationships provide strong emotional support and improvement in girls’ psychosocial functioning coupled with the development of new skills and confidence through collaborations in shared activities. This study is unique because it explicitly examines the relational processes in adolescent girls' relationships with female adult mentors from the perspective of the participants themselves.