Youth Radio - Topic: Youth

[Excerpt] Youth Unemployment Since Lehman Brothers Collapse: Greece Compared To U.S.

rgee — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:10:38 -0600

As we look back on 2011, youth unemployment in European countries like Greece and Spain has almost reached 50 percent, according to the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, in the United States, youth unemployment (ages 16 - 25) has decreased since January 2011 from 18.1 percent to 16.8 percent. The Reuters chart above shows European youth unemployment over the past 20 years demarcated by some economic triggers, including the Lehman Brothers collapse.

This event took a toll on the global economy, but since then, unemployment for young people in Greece and Spain has increased close to ten percent every year. Since the collapse in September 2008, youth unemployment in the U.S. has increased3 percent overall.

In Greece, you can start working at the age of 15 and in Spain at the age of 16, the same as in the U.S. These numbers represent those from the minimum working age up to 25.

Since the Lehman Brothers collapse, France and Germany’s youth unemployment rates have either stayed relatively level or decreased.

Check out a chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows unemployment rates by month over the last ten years for 16 - 24 year-olds.

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, Unemployment Rate - 16-24 yrs. Bureau of Labor Statistics

"Sexting" Problem Was Blown Out Of Proportion

rgee — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:25:31 -0600

A recent study contradicts the notion that teenagers are “sexting” non-stop. In fact, only 9.6 percent said they had either sent or received an image that included nudity in the past year, according to the New York Times.

The survey, conducted by the Crimes Against Children Research Center (CACRC) at the University of New Hampshire, asked 1,560 children across the country about the messages they had seen, sent, and forwarded on their cell phones. Only two percent of “sexters” said they were in the pictures themselves, and the other seven percent said they were on the receiving end, and only three percent forwarded messages they received.

According to Lisa Jones at the CACRC, the researchers were not surprised by the results. She said previous studies about sexting often included 18, 19 and 20 year-olds, and while the behavior is still risky, there are no legal concerns about child pornography in this demographic. Additionally, many previous studies used a broad definition of nudity, and might have included pictures of children in bathing suits. However, law enforcement would not consider “sexy poses in bathing suits” to be sexually explicit.

Jones said that most youth are aware that sexting is potentially dangerous. However, in one third of the cases when it happens, drugs and alcohol are involved. “Sexting is like any kind of sexual risk taking, there is an element of something possibly going wrong. But it may be happening in a context where other kinds of risk taking are happening,” said Jones.

The CACRC also did a study that specifically looked at the sexting incidents that involved law enforcement agencies. They found that one-third of all sexting incidents that are brought to the police involve adult sex offenders soliciting images from children. “In a lot of the incidents that are largely publicized, the most serious element is bullying, it’s more serious than the photo itself,” said Jones.

Those young people who do send sexually explicit pictures often reported that the behavior was part of a romantic relationship.

Jones said that there are two common reactions to the data. Some are quick to accept it saying that sure, all adults think kids are behaving worse than they really are. Others don’t believe it, and think that kids are lying.

“People have mixed feelings about what kids are doing. This survey involves adolescents, and there is an idea that they are hyper-sexualized and huge risk-takers. But a lot of research shows that teenage pregnancy is down, the number of young people with multiple partners is down -- kids are making better decisions bout sex than they were 10, 20, and 30 years ago,” said Jones.

Check out more articles on sexting:

Criminalizing 'Sexting' Sends Wrong Message

The Untold Story of 'Sexting'

The Psychology of What Makes Teens Thankful

cfoster — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:12:28 -0600

By Rayana Godfrey

Gratitude, research psychologists have found, is an abstract concept. It requires reflecting on not only how another person has done right by you, but also how you might return the favor. Perhaps that’s not something we need experts to tell us, but it’s worth bearing in mind when considering whether gratitude might be beyond the capabilities of the teenage brain.

Take for example the popular YouTube clip “Greatest freak out ever (ORIGINAL VIDEO),” in which a teenage boy goes ballistic in his bedroom after his mom cancels his World of Warcraft account. “I'm going to run away! You'll never see me again! I swear!” he shouts, as he slams himself repeatedly into his bed, tears off his clothes and screeches like someone out of an Exorcist movie.

Personally, my mom would kill me if I ever acted like that. But according to scientific studies, his lack of gratitude makes him pretty normal. In gratitude surveys, the only people who score lower than teenagers are people with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

“I mean, it's just unavoidable,” said Giacomo Bono, a professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills who studies gratitude among adolescents. Although a lack of gratitude may be inevitable among teens today, Bono rejects the argument that it's just a natural limitation of adolescence. In his view, the environment plays a big role.

“One of the reasons would be the commercial culture that young people are finding themselves in,” he said. “Having to be a consumer is something that young people are starting to do without even understanding it all.”

Luckily for teenagers, Bono said feelings of gratitude – and an awareness of things to be grateful for – can change over time. One of the ways to measure that change is through a survey called the GQ6. It’s a questionnaire with only six statements to rank on a scale of “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Statements like, “I have so much in life to be thankful for.” The highest possible score is a 42; most teens score in the upper-twenties.

Measuring Gratitude

Something didn't seem right about those scores. I consider myself a grateful 17 year old, and when I took the survey, I scored a 37 – pretty high no matter what, but much higher than the average for my age group.

And I'm not the only grateful teenager I know. I started asking other people my age if they had anything to be grateful for. They answered easily: family, a job, college scholarships, music, love, and understanding.

I wanted to know how these teens would do on the GQ6. I started handing it out to people I know from work and from my church youth group. Obviously, it's not a random sample. And it's not a big enough group to be considered scientific. But I certainly got some interesting results: the young people I interviewed, particularly those in their late teens, scored much higher in gratitude then teens had in published studies.

“I’m so grateful for everything that God has given me,” Bianca Brooks, 17, told me after filling out the questionnaire. She scored a highest-possible 42. She was happy to elaborate on her gratitude: “I’m grateful for family, friends, fashion, food… Wow, that all begins with F; and funk, music.”

If I had given her this survey a few years ago, however, her score might not have been so high. When she was in middle school, she was “just such a selfish, self-centered person,” she said. “I didn’t really care.” But as she got older, Brooks said she got closer to her religion and her outlook on gratitude changed. Which made me wonder: is it her religion that makes her so grateful?

What Makes Teens Grateful?

I went back over the surveys and was shocked to discover that the highest scoring teenagers I talked to generally said they weren’t religious at all. An example is Salim Boykin, 16, who answered “no” on the questionnaire when asked if he was religious. He had a more practical reason for being grateful: “If you’re not grateful, you’ll go through life either depressed or just sad not really knowing why.

Giacomo Bono says Boykin is already tuned into something his research consistently shows -- that feeling gratitude actually makes people's lives better. They take better care of themselves, and they're nicer to other people.

“What gratitude does is it tunes us into the essentials,” Bono said. And why is it so important to be mindful of what’s important? “It improves people's lives and it improves relationships,” he said.

The teens I surveyed all felt like that was true. But according to Bono, they're still not the norm -- for a lot of teenagers, the most important thing is “to acquire a thousand friends on Facebook.”

So why are my results so skewed toward gratitude? Bono said it might be because all the teens I interviewed are part of communities: some are involved with church, others with Youth Radio.

“Where there's a strong sense of community, where young people feel at home, that tends to produce gratitude too,” he said. “When you find something you love, that's a good achievement in life.”

Bono has found in his research that many young people are less grateful because they don't yet know what their purpose is. In other words, my contemporaries probably aren't ungrateful people – they're just still figuring out what to be grateful for.

Casey Miner produced this story.

More Info:

Youth Radio Investigates is an NSF-supported science reporting series in which young journalists collect and analyze original data with professional scientists, and then tell unexpected stories about what they discover. Check out more from Youth Radio’s science desk here.

For more Youth Radio Investigates stories on Turnstyle News, a project of Youth Radio, check out:

In a High School Lab, Glimpses of an Ancient Climate
You Can Lead a Kid to Water
My Brain on Ads

New Online Resource For Young Parents And Pregnant Teens

rgee — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:50:06 -0600

The California Pregnant and Parenting Youth Guide was just released by the National Partnership for Women and Families. The guide is for young people under 18 who are looking for answers to basic and complicated questions regarding being a new mother or father, or making decisions during pregnancy.

Sections in the guide include:

- Can I stay in school if I’m pregnant?

- What are the father’s rights and duties?

- What do I do if I’m homeless?

- What kind of health care should I get if I’m pregnant?

- What if I have no insurance?

The guide is presented in a question and answer format, with simple cartoon scenarios on the side. There are also resources and companion guides for healthcare providers, educators, and social workers on the website.

Diamond Bell, 18 and a new mother, previewed the site and had mixed feelings. “When I look at the page, I see the quotes and questions, but it’s not telling me why the quotes and questions are there, it’s just going straight to the answers,” she said.

Bell thinks the site will be helpful for young parents and young people who are pregnant because often times they don’t have support from their own parents. “I got my parents, and my son’s grandparents, but some of my friends don’t have that,” she said.

One of the hardest things Bell faced as a new teen mother was finding childcare, and thinks resources for finding childcare would be a good addition to the website.

In addition, she would recommend a screening mechanism for clinics. “There are clinics at school, and clinics in our neighborhoods...everyone can go to their little centers and stuff, but a clinic has to be a clean environment, and make sure that they will keep your personal business,” said Bell.

67 Suenos: A Message From Undocumented Youth

rgee — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:44:41 -0500

Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

The presidential campaigning has brought the debate about immigration reform into hyper focus recently. But for some, the debate is too narrow, focusing only on DREAM Act legislation when around 50 percent of undocumented youth don't finish high school, according to Pablo Paredes, founder of the organization 67 Sueños (67 Dreams). Paredes said that focusing on the DREAM Act as the main narrative in the immigration reform debate leaves out 67 percent of undocumented youth.

His group, based in the Bay Area in California, is small and he works with just seven students at Oakland public schools between the ages of 15 - 18. Four of them are undocumented, and the other three come from "mixed-status" families. Their goal is to change the immigration conversation from focusing only on the exceptionally talented immigrants who "deserve" legalization, and instead acknowledge that every undocumented young person deserves a path to legalization. In California, the DREAM Act has moved along further than any other state in the union, and just recently passed part 1 of a state DREAM Act.

Paredes and his group organized a huge public art display in San Francisco on the wall of a building in an abandoned lot and Turnstyle spoke with Paredes about the project.

Turnstyle: What does 67 Sueños stand for?

Paredes: 67 Sueños is a group that supports the radical notion that every undocumented person, whether they go to college or not, has a dream worth pursuing. We focus on youth who are not on the pathway to college, to create pathways for them to legalize.

Turnstyle: Where did the idea for the images in the mural come from? Did famous artists help?

Paredes: We gathered stories. Stories are an important way to change dialogue and legislation. We partnered with NPR’s StoryCorps. They have a project that tries to tell stories of Latinos. They were very excited to tell stories of undocumented youth especially those not on the path to college. We did 21 interviews with undocumented youth out of Oakland public high schools... Even if they have trouble in high school, they still have rights. We thought how do we get these 21, 40-minute interviews in the news, and use them as a way to launch our work? We kicked around ideas and focused on the idea of public art. Everyone likes the idea of a mural, they don’t have to pay to see it and everyone has access to it. We listened to each interview. We sat there and picked out themes, struggles, and dreams that were most common and that captured the migrant experience in these communities. We ended up with a 15-page brainstorm of stories. We gave this brainstorm to a very talented artist, Pancho Pescador. He rendered our vision and our brainstorm into a cohesive piece of art. The artist was also undocumented when he came to this country, so he’s personally connected to the issue and he works with Oakland youth. He really understood.

Turnstyle: Describe the message of the mural.

Paredes: The tag line is “No human being is illegal, y cada uno tiene un sueño” (and each one has a dream). It’s not exclusive in any way. Everyone has a dream. That’s the main idea that we want to infuse in the national immigration debate. Right now [the immigrant rights groups] are promoting an exceptionalist model, that these great outstanding students deserve it -- legalization -- and access to education, basically the right to dream.

Turnstyle: What has the response been from the community?

Paredes: Overwhelmingly positive. We invited a lot of folks involved in the immigrant rights community who hadn’t heard this message before, and they were really positive. Once you lift the stories of these youth, it’s easy to fall in love with them. It’s easy to include them in the fight. No one was lifting those stories up, but once that happened people believed in it. Here in the "Somar" section of the city, it’s an abandoned community. The lot where the mural is was full of needles, bottles -- it’s an ugly side of our country. And these young folks, they are undocumented and under-privileged, they were invited and nurtured to do something positive. It was an experiment; they transformed the space. And it was positive for the entire community, they were excited that the space was being transformed. The products they create are not controversial. The mural is just three blocks fom city hall and we want to start having that conversation with government. Oakland is our next project. Next summer we will work on a big wall in Oakland. Every piece of it they were involved in. The artist was oriented in mentoring youth artists so he taught them to use spray cans, brushes, shading, darkening. They put their fingerprint on every piece of the wall.

Photos courtesy of Equal Voice Newspaper and 67 Sueños.

Native Health Initiative- "Youth Leading the Way"

nmexico — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:13:26 -0500

The Native Health Initiative (NHI) youth presentation titled “Youth Leading the Way” at the New Mexico Public Health Association’s annual conference on April 27th, 2011.
High School students will presented on their efforts to create healthier, more sustainable communities.

· Youth from the Walatowa Jemez Green stars will be talking about how they created a comprehensive recycling program in their community
· South Valley Academy High School juniors who serve as peer health educators will talk about a recent wellness event they created at their school, complete with physical fitness activities and educational material.
The Native Health Initiative (NHI) is a partnership which addresses health inequities through loving services. They are the only American Indian partnership in the U.S. that is run by Tribes working with health professions students. NHI also empowers their youth to realize their heritage, their potential, and their power to become leaders.

Pakistani Youth Speak, Ponder Life After Bin Laden

rgee — Tue, 31 May 2011 15:01:50 -0500

By Charlotte Buchen, Turnstyle News

University Of Karachi: Pakistani College Students Speak from Turnstyle Video on Vimeo.

Amidst all the media frenzy since the death of Osama Bin Laden over two weeks ago, some voices have been missing. We believe they are important voices - those of Pakistani youth. Pakistan is a nation of young people: over 60% of the population is under the age of 25.

What is on the mind of some of these young people after the special forces attack that killed Bin Laden? As the ground shifts under the already teetering relationship between the US and Pakistan, we headed to Karachi University to ask some questions of the students there: What was your reaction to the death of Bin Laden? Do you think anyone in Pakistan's government or Army know about Bin Laden's whereabouts? What does this mean for the security situation of the region? What will be the implications for Pakistan and for their future?

American lawmakers are probing for answers, but so are Pakistanis. We found a hugely diverse range of viewpoints. Watch the video to hear what they said.

Government Wants Companies to Limit Food Marketing to Kids

tanderson — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:21:33 -0500

In the face of a national epidemic of childhood obesity, a collection of federal agencies has been working for two years now to come up with a set of voluntary guidelines that would restrict what foods can be marketed to kids. Food companies and marketing groups rejected a set of proposed guidelines last year, and the government has repeatedly postponed releasing new ones

New guidelines state that “companies would be urged to only market foods to children ages 22 through 17 if they are low in fats, sugars and sodium and contain specified healthy ingredients.” These new guidelines are stricter than the standards companies have set for themselves in terms of targeting kids; guidelines also cover not only traditional forms of advertising (e.g. commercials during Saturday morning cartoons), but the burgeoning market of online advertising as well.

Learn more here.

Pakistani Youth Silenced In Discussion About Bin Laden

rgee — Thu, 05 May 2011 13:06:44 -0500

Media sources including National Public Radio are asking about the impact of Osama bin Laden’s death on young people - who grew up in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Youth Radio spotlighted the perspectives of three American young people and their thoughts on the death of Bin Laden- but what about the Pakistani youth living in this country? Can they openly voice their opinions?

Sunaina Maira is a Professor of Asian American Studies at UC Davis and does research specifically on South Asian youth culture and politics. She’s written books on this issue including her most recent which was called “Missing: Youth Citizenship and Empire After 9/11.” The book is a study of South Asian youth in New England looking at how the War on Terror influenced their understandings of national and racial identity.

Maira says Pakistani youth in America are caught in a tough dichotomy. “There’s this idea that you’re either for the terrorists or against them - this is an American notion that’s very rigid. It has spread and permeated young people."

Maira says that has a chilling effect. “The young people that I work with are probably so scared about sharing what they really think. If you have a Muslim name and you dare to challenge the official narrative, the FBI is probably going to come knocking at your door or put a GPS device on your car,” said Maira.

Maira also did field work in Lahore, Pakistan looking at youth organizing and the emerging progressive culture in Pakistan. She is very worried that the voices of young Pakistanis are not being heard in today’s debate about the War on Terror. “The young Pakistanis I saw were really concerned about the impact of fundamentalism on their society, but on the other hand, young Pakistanis have to struggle with power cuts, unemployment, and rising fanaticism that makes their lives constricted and confined. The Pakistani state routinely crushes youth activism," she said.

Maira gives the example of a friend in Pakistan who was a youth organizer working with urban youth in Lahore. “He was beaten by the police for organizing a protest against the regular electricity cuts that have crippled the economy of Pakistan and have made it difficult for students to study and work. He was in the street doing a demonstration after a 24 hour power cut at the height of summer."

In her recent book, Maira includes the story of a boy whose family is from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan - where Bin Laden was reportedly killed. His family is part of the Pashtun tribe, which forms the bulk of the Taliban according to Maira. This young man waited in Pakistan for 15 years while his father was in the U.S. trying to get his green card.

“I remember talking to him about issues of Pakistani identiy versus Indian identiy and Pashtun identity versus Punjabi identity... One thing that really struck me was how careful he was about making these kinds of divisions. This was a teenage high school student talking about how one couldn’t generalize about ethnic identities. This stereotype of the militant, fanatical Pashtun is something that under-gaurds the US image of the Paksitanis that they’re fighting."

Youth Perform "Take Control" Rap Song At Grad Nation Summit

rgee — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:29:52 -0500

A group of young people graced the stage yesterday at a three-day event called the Grad Nation Summit, which began this week in Washington D.C. The goal of the summit is to promote President Obama’s goal of having a 90 percent national high school graduation rate by 2020.

This group of young people from the High School for Recording Arts in Minnesota, performed their rap song called “Take Control,” that features the chorus, “Every 26 seconds, every 26 seconds...” They’re referring to the shocking statistic that every 26 seconds, a student in America drops out of high school. You can find information about the 26 Seconds campaign here.

Lil’ C (Cassandra Sherry-Rojas) made the beat for "Take Control." “When I heard the statistic about 26 seconds, I was in major shock,” she said.

She was ecstatic about being in D.C. “I’m the type of person that wants to motivate people, make an impact on someone’s life. If we can help someone, that will affect me so much... We’re going to be the people behind changing that statistic,” she said. Lil' C thinks music is the right venue for getting the message out. “Words won’t do it. To me, music makes the world go ‘round. Everyone listens to it. That’s the way we get our message out,” she said. The group of young musicians has gotten nothing but support from their peers back home, according to Lil' C.

Dominochyea (Dominique Demetice Farrar) sings the chorus of the song, and he couldn’t wait to get on stage in front of everyone at the summit. “Oh man. There’s so many historical monuments [in D.C.]. If I hadn’t stuck it out in school, I wouldn’t be here today,” said Domino, a near-dropout himself.

He wants to pursue music, but especially the 26 seconds campaign. “We want it to stick - we don’t want it to go away. While I’m helping people, I’m also helping my music career. I hope it impacts a lot of people to see kids their age doing something positive,” he said.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke at the summit yesterday about the need for more educated workers in the U.S. The statistics about dropouts on the Grad Nation Summit website are pretty astounding:

    * One-third of all children – and more than half of low-income and minority youth – fail to graduate high school on time.
    * Among graduates, only about one-third have enough of the skills needed for success in college and the workforce.
    * Only 10 percent of minority students who enroll in college will graduate.

Check out a video from the summit featuring a clip of the "Take Control" performance: