JGC Issue Briefs

Positive Youth Development: Individual, Setting and System Level Indicators
This Issue Brief provides a framework for organizing positive indicators of youth’s social and emotional development at the individual, setting and system levels and offers examples of items and tools that the field can use to measure them.

Boys and Girls Club Participation and Language Acquisition Among English Learner Students
Using the Youth Data Archive, English Learner students were followed over three academic years to study the link between their after school program participation and English language development.

Linking Physical Fitness and Academic Outcomes Among Redwood City Youth
Students were followed across four consecutive years for the study of the link between physical fitness and its relationship to students’ academic growth.

Alternative Education Options: A Descriptive Study of California Continuation High Schools
This issue brief summarizes initial findings from a year-long descriptive study of continuation high schools in California.

Creating Community Change: Challanges and Tensions in Community Youth Research
An issue brief that describes the promising practice of community youth research in the context of a live example in Redwood City, CA. (.pdf opens in new browser window)

Youth Empowerment - The Contributions and Challenges of Youth-Led Research in a High-Poverty, Urban Community
An issue brief that addresses the benefits and challenges of sponsoring a youth-led research project in a school where students and their friends, families, and teachers confront daily the demanding challenges posed by poverty and its attendant ills.

Integrating Technology into Community Youth Research
Based on the finding of a JGC and SRI joint project, this issue brief outlines what programs can expect as they begin to explore how technology might help youth develop research skills.