Youth Narratives on Community Experiences and Sense of Community and Their Relation to Participation in an Early Childhood Development Program. (July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hasford, Julian; Loomis, Colleen; Nelson, Geoffrey; Pancer, S. Mark
• Is Part Of: Youth & society. Volume 48:Number 4(2016:Jul.)
• Page Start: 577
• Page End: 596
• Publication Date: 2016-07
• Subjects: sense of community -- community participation -- narratives -- prevention and promotion -- early childhood development programs -- adolescent identity; Youth -- Periodicals; 305.235
• DOI: 10.1177/0044118X13506447
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0044-118X

Abstract

This comparative study examined how participation in an early childhood development (ECD) program, Better Beginnings, Better Futures, for children (ages 4-8) relates to sense of community (SOC) in later adolescence (ages 18-19). Youths' stories ( N = 96) about community experiences, collected by semistructured, open-ended interviews, were quantitatively coded for several narrative dimensions (specificity, positivity, prosocial content, and meaning-making) and for elements of SOC (membership, influence, needs fulfillment, and shared emotional connection). Findings show a significant positive relationship between all narrative dimensions and the total SOC score. Better Beginnings youths' stories ( n = 64) were significantly higher on specificity and shared emotional connection than comparison youth ( n = 32). Findings have implications for community-based ECD programs to impact later adolescence SOC and for using narratives to study these effects.