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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Teenage girls--Conduct of life; Teenage girls--Services for;

Abstract

In the early 1990's there were over 17,000 youth development programs in the United States (Quinn, 1999). The overwhelming number of these organizations causes problems in defining, describing, and interpreting these types of organizations. The current definition describes these programs as opportunities and support to help youth gain the competencies and knowledge they need to meet the increasing challenges they will face as they mature. This definition is accurate, however, it does not fully describe how youth learn and grow nor does it describe how youth can gain this competency and knowledge. The limitations of Kohlberg and Mayer (1972) and the weaknesses of current techniques used to interpret youth development programs establish the need for an alternative approach. I propose a move to a situated learning theory that is vastly different from current approaches. Situated learning theory sees learning as embedded in everyday activities and views this theory as a way to observe how learning occurs in certain situations. The purpose of this study is to explore an empirical strategy for interpreting learning and development for youth programs, using situated learning theory. The basic questions are:

  • What are youth learning to do? (goal)
  • Who are youth becoming? (identity).

Participant-observation strategy was used to interpret a local youth program. Through the use of this strategy, the theme of friendship became the goal of their experience in the program as well as their self-identity. The theme of friendship is supported by the concepts of: pairing-off, play, in-group/out-group behavior, self selection, boy-crazy behavior, and attention-seeking behavior. This strategy for interpreting learning and development in a youth program explains how the youth change and grow in a program as well as describing how and why these changes occur.

Year of Submission

2001

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure Services

First Advisor

Douglas Magnuson

Second Advisor

Larry Hensley

Third Advisor

Susan Hudson

Comments

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Date Original

2001

Object Description

1 PDF file (77 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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