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In this article guest
Research and Practice authors Shepherd Zeldin and Linda Camino highlight findings
from five evaluations of youth leadership programs. The integration of research and
practice are unique in this inquiry, where evaluation findings were documented, analyzed,
and shared with program staff so improvements could be made as soon as possible.
Similarly, staff provided feedback to evaluators, which helped them broaden their
understanding and ensure that the research focused on critical issues.
Youth Leadership:
Linking Research and Program Theory to Exemplary Practice
by Shepherd
Zeldin, Linda Camino
Youth leadership, which is one type of youth development programming, is distinctive
in three ways. First and foremost, it is grounded in a social cause. Second, it seeks
to promote a relatively narrow set of youth outcomes, specifically those that allow
young people to engage in collaborative action. And third, programming incorporates
not only instruction and action, but equally important, membership and modeling.
Indeed, we conclude that it is the experience of cause-based, collective, and visible
action that transforms a youth group into a youth leadership team.
Grounded in the principle that youth are capable of far more than society typically
expects, there is great potential for youth leadership programming to deliver on
its promises. At its best, the result is a powerful contribution to the youth and
community development fields, as well as an ability to influence the sponsoring organization
to value and adopt similar, participatory forms of decision making in other programs
and functions.
Amidst much enthusiasm, youth leadership programming has been elevated as a key
strategy for promoting healthy adolescent development. Youth leadership can also
serve as a means to an end--strengthening and connecting youth development initiatives
with service system reforms and community building efforts [1,2].
This is easier said than done, however. Challenges stem from the lack of clarity
regarding conceptual definitions and untested assumptions about what it takes to
ensure quality programming [5]. The risk is that "youth leadership"
will become jargon rather than a guide for innovative practice.
Given the ambiguities of youth leadership, conceptual maps are useful tools for program
design and research. This article outlines one such map. It is grounded in the experience
of practitioners and youth, and informed by adolescent theory and research.
Method Overview
Over the past four years we have served as external evaluators, either jointly or
individually, for five youth leadership programs during their initial years of operation.
Our methodologies were qualitative and ethnographic, drawing on formative evaluation
and shared learning approaches. Data were gathered both through traditional research
processes (interview, observation, focus group), and from interaction with stakeholders,
as we delivered feedback, guided the process, and participated in youth-led training
and community action.
We began this inquiry with the following definition of "leadership": A
set of competencies that allow young people to lead others over the long term. "Youth
leadership programming," then, is the provision of experiences, from highly
structured to quite informal, that help young people develop these competencies.
Given this perspective, youth leadership programming can occur in programs, initiatives,
families, group homes, or detention centers. The setting does not define the experience
of youth leadership.
While the five programs we evaluated were very different (see the table below), we
discovered that stakeholders struggled with strikingly similar challenges and responded
in similar ways. These commonalities form the framework discussed in this article,
which we call CO-SAMM--Cause and Outcome, Skill and Action, Membership and Modeling.
We developed the CO-SAMM conceptual map as a means for reducing the ambiguity around
defining youth leadership and as a method for joining evaluator and staff in planning,
evaluating, and reflecting on youth leadership efforts. CO-SAMM provides a defining
framework within which youth leadership can be researched, evaluated, and discussed.
As such, CO----SAMM is a handy tool, both for program design and research. The elements
of CO-SAMM are discussed in detail in the sections that follow. In a broad sense,
however, this framework conceptualizes youth leadership as follows:
- Occurring in the context of a
cause, chosen by young people
- Gearing youth programs toward
an explicit set of outcomes
- Developing in the context of
certain day-to-day experiences, such as skill building, action, membership, and modeling
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Cause and Outcome
All five programs sought to promote the positive development of young people. Staff
stressed that youth leadership was not only about youth development, however; it
was fundamentally about collective action and social causes. Indeed, the passion
of cause-based action was a prime motivator. Among the older leaders, for example,
the "mission" of social action and community change sustained their efforts,
be it managing a nonprofit social enterprise or making a long term commitment to
volunteer. Among high school-aged leaders, it was the idea of "being on a mission"
that energized them to go beyond community service and to take on leadership roles
in effecting community change.
Balancing the relative importance of individual development and social causes was
an ongoing struggle. The examples that follow describe some of the difficult choices
facing program directors and staff, when allocating scarce resources:
- Use of funds. In three
programs, tensions centered around providing training funds to meet individual leadership
needs, as compared with using the funds to support the collective needs of community
partnerships, and their capacity to provide for future leaders.
- Controlling outcomes.
Across all programs, staff frequently debated whether or not to rescue a young leader
"at the last minute" to ensure the success of an activity, or conversely,
allowing "failure" to occur (and thus risking community disappointment)
so that the individuals could learn from their mistakes.
- Issues of equity. In one
program, staff struggled with the dilemma of engaging youth in social causes, while
recognizing that the young people did not have access to basic opportunities such
as SAT preparation, guidance counseling, or resume-writing workshops.
Another challenge was defining
the leadership abilities that participants were to develop in the programs. In part,
this was because staff were forced to "hit the ground running," with little
planning time. Analysis of early interview data and program documents also showed
that the difficulty was embedded in two strongly held, but unstated, assumptions
that guided decision making. The first held that young leaders are possessed of certain
intrinsic qualities--charisma, comfort with the limelight, outspokenness--that permit,
indeed compel, them to lead. Staff adhering to this stance considered that youth
leaders were born, and could not be developed much further. The second, opposing
viewpoint maintained that all young people are inherently skilled leaders:
given the right situation--for example, the opportunity to personally lobby a business
owner--their natural talents would bubble to the surface or be unleashed for immediate
action.
These hidden assumptions initially contributed to a lack of clarity regarding youth
leader competency outcomes. However, as staff had more opportunities for reflection,
including discussions about evaluation findings, they pushed themselves to define
the desired outcomes of youth leadership. Our role as developmental evaluators was
to facilitate and help analyze these processes. A typology gradually emerged both
within and across programs that emphasized the abilities necessary to bring about
social change (see the "Youth Leadership Outcomes sidebar).
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Leadership Experiences
Youth programming can also be defined by the experiences it offers to young people
[4,8]. In our initial interviews, most staff
were unable to articulate the experiences they believed were most essential to youth
leadership development. Over time, however, as the programs gained maturity, we observed
commonalities. Four key types of experiences emerged: skill building, action in communities,
membership in groups, and modeling. These experiences are described in the sections
that follow.
Skill and Action
In all programs, youth were expected to go beyond simple participation, by leading
others in the field or taking on substantial administrative duties back in the office.
Early on , we observed some unrealistically high expectations, for
a variety of reasons:
- Youth did not yet have the requisite
knowledge or skill
- Young people had the ability
and confidence, but lacking the institutional power that adults bring to a situation,
were unable to garner cooperation from others.
- Adults sometimes expected young
people to excel in tasks that they themselves had not mastered (for instance, facilitating
meetings or setting and keeping to deadlines)!
The result was a series of "low-level
successes" that frustrated both young leaders and their constituencies. Staff
discovered that much of leadership development is not intuitive, but like any other
skill, it is learned. Our observations further revealed that young leaders need emotional
and strategic support, as much as high expectations.
Evaluation data again demonstrated some unstated assumptions held among staff. Many
staff initially feared that youth would not participate in instruction and reflection
sessions because "they hate to attend meetings," "dislike talking,"
and are "action-oriented." Once these assumptions were made explicit and
freely debated, however, staff felt more confident in shifting priorities and allocating
more time to skill-building. The young leaders responded. When they could see that
the instruction was relevant to real-life challenges, and that the instructor had
good advice to offer, training seminars often went well beyond their scheduled time.
Finding the proper balance between instruction and action was extremely difficult.
Youth workers who achieved such a balance relied on their feelings, observations
of individuals, and sensitivity to group needs. Evaluation data indicate that finding
the balance was an essential challenge:
- Finding common ground.
In two programs that emphasized skill building and personal reflection, young leaders
were insightful in discussing identity issues and organizational management. However,
when it came time to partner with residents and other constituencies, they were unable
to find a common ground for collaborative action.
- Reflecting on experiences.
In another program, young people took leadership in community projects, and in so
doing, developed project management skills. However, without the chance to reflect
on their experiences, few of the young people could speak to why the action was important,
nor could they communicate basic concepts to external audiences.
Membership and Modeling
Research demonstrates that membership has a positive influences on adolescent identity,
confidence, and sense of community connectedness [3,7].
Young people feel this, and during our evaluations, spoke clearly about the structure,
predictability, and comfort of their groups. In one program, when sessions were canceled
without adequate notice, they met anyway, and then challenged staff about their commitments
as group members. Another older leader spoke to the importance of membership. Noting
that his profession (social entrepreneur) does not have an association, he appreciated
the chance to attend retreats to "talk shop with people doing what I'm doing."
To help achieve a sense of group membership, each program had a meeting space separate
from that of the sponsoring organization's. Young leaders were encouraged to create
the symbols, rituals, rules, and norms that marked them off as a "special group."
Membership was also instrumental in helping youth to gain skills. In the groups we
observed, each participant took on both leader and member roles, which led to increased
interpersonal sensitivity, a respect for differences, and the opportunity to develop
and practice the competencies outlined in the "Youth Leadership Outcomes"
sidebar.
Modeling is also integral to leadership development. Staff reported that the most
critical criterion of a "healthy leadership group" is when young people
choose to serve as positive models for each other. Program operators further recognize
the many negative stereotypes about young people. In a very real sense, they view
youth leaders as models to adults, and in so doing, serve to counteract these negative
attitudes, and replace them with adult-youth partnerships.
From the perspective of young leaders, a great deal of value was placed on modeling
for "the next generation." Older leaders, on the other hand, derived satisfaction
from mentoring those who volunteered to work on their projects. Frequently, the high
school-aged youth leaders would bring their siblings (and the siblings would bring
their friends) to community building projects. It was obvious that the leaders enjoyed
teaching and supervising others during these events.
Conclusions and Advice
With potential comes risk. Without intentionality and definitional parameters, there
is a tendency to explain everything as youth leadership, and youth leadership as
everything. As a result, time and resources may be under-utilized. In addition, while
many young people end up being strong contributors to civic life, their development
may or may not be significantly enhanced. This caution may be particularly relevant
in environments where young people do not routinely receive the full range of developmental
opportunities and supports in their homes, schools, and communities.
The CO-SAMM conceptual map offers a means for planning, evaluating, and reflecting
on youth leadership efforts. It is, not, however, a panacea for effective implementation.
As Kreuger [6] reminds us, youth work is also experiential,
characterized by themes of rhythm, creative expression, and shared journeys and discoveries.
We believe that research-based conceptual maps and experience-based youth work draw
their power and influence from each other. As demonstrated in this inquiry, these
two different ways of "knowing" youth leadership can provide practitioners
with useful information and insight, while similarly, grounding and informing the
research of scholars.
The challenge to nonprofit managers is to give staff the time to discuss and reflect
on research and theory-based information. The challenge to researchers is to create
methodologies that more fully utilize and integrate the solid lessons from research,
the wisdom of exemplary practitioners, and the voices and meanings of young people.
To explore this approach, we suggest following the exercise below.
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References
1. Armistead,
P. and Wexler, M. (1997). "Community Development and Youth Development: Potential
for Convergence." New York: Ford Foundation. (back)
2. Burgess, J. (1998). "Spheres of community change: Youth
as a bridge." New Designs for Youth Development, 14(1):6-9. (back)
3. Camino, L. (1994). "Refugee adolescents and their changing
identities." In Reconstructing Lives, Recapturing Meaning: Refugee Identity,
Gender, and Culture Change, L. Camino & R. Krulfeld, (eds.), pp. 29-48. NY:
Gordon & Breach. (back)
4. Hamilton, S. and Zeldin, S. (1987). "Learning civics in
the community." Curriculum Inquiry, 17(4), 407-420. (back)
5. Kahne J. and McLaughlin M. (1998). "Framing issues for policy
and practice: Through theory-driven evaluation." New Designs for Youth Development,
14(1):17-22. (back)
6. Krueger, M. (1995). Nexus: A Book About Youth Work. Washington,
DC: University Outreach Press. (back)
7. McLaughlin, M., Irby, M., and Langman, J. (1994). Urban Sanctuaries.
San Francisco: Jossey Bass. (back)
8. Zeldin, S. and Price, L. (1995). "Creating Supportive Communities
for Adolescent Development (special issue)." Journal of Adolescent Research,
10(1), 6-14. (back)
Authors
Shepherd Zeldin, Ph.D.
teaches at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Department of Child and Family Studies. His research
focuses on adolescent development and community. His practice aims to build community
capacity for youth development, with a focus on nonprofit management and training.
Linda Camino, Ph.D. is
an independent consultant who conducts research, documentation, and evaluation for
youth development and community initiatives. She is also Senior Scientist, School
of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work focuses on making
research relevant to practitioners and policy makers.
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