Person, Place, and Perception: Connecting with Rural Adolescents

1
Person, Place, and Perception Connecting with
Rural Adolescents

• Meg Kapil
• Dr. Blythe Shepard
• University of Victoria
• CCA Conference, May 2007

2
Outline

• Paths to the Future and Person, Place, and
  Perception
• Context of Inquiry
• Transition to Adulthood
• Future Bound
• Self-Concept Exploration Group
• Self-Concept
• Personal Strengths Activity
• Sense of Community
• Community Life Space Map
• Possible Selves
• Possible Selves Mapping Activity
• Closing Comments

3
Paths to the Future and Person, Place and
Perception

• Paths to the Future
• Ethnographic Narrative Methodology
• Emphasis on youth as active organizers of their
  experiences
• Present and future self-perceptions possible
  selves impact of rural living gender and
  cultural differences and similarities risk and
  protective factors and career choice strategies
• Person, Place, and Perception
• Survey Methodology
• Triangulation for emerging adolescent development
  model and qualitative themes
• Self Concept, Sense of Community and Possible
  Selves

4
Context for Inquiry

• Adolescent identity formation
• Little research on rural as context for
  development
• Realities obscured by rural mystique
• Community transitions due to economic
  restructuring/reduction in resource-based
  industries
• Importance of place identity

5
Transition to Adulthood

• Contextual considerations set the stage
• Adolescent Development
• Different ways of connecting with youth to
  support this transition
• Future Bound
• Self-Concept Exploration Group

6
Future Bound Workshop
7
Basis for the Workshop

• Listening to youths voices Grounded in research
  with rural youth
• Narrating their life journey
• Creating a sense of whats possible
• Identifying assets and challenges
• Continually integrating new knowledge
• Implications for other marginalized youth
• Building on Blueprint for Life/Work Designs

8
Self-Concept Exploration Group

• Past
• Exploring your roots
• Life Narrative
• Critical Incidents
• Present
• Who are you right now?
• Mapping
• Internal and external self
• Boundary Bag
• Future
• Possible Selves
• Future Vision Collage

9
Self-Concept

• Self-Concept
• Self Schema
• Working Self-concept
• Self-concept and adolescence
• Self-esteem
• Personal Strengths
• Activity

10
Personal Strengths Activity

• Uncoverering a skill, talent, or quality
• OR describing a time when you did something that
  you were proud of
• Facilitating the story-telling process
• Recording positive strengths

11
Sense of Community

• Sense of community
• Sense of Community Model
• (McMillan Chavis, 1986)
• Membership
• Influence
• Fulfillment of Needs
• Emotional Connection
• Community Life Space Map Activity

12
Community Life Space Map

• Create a visual representation of the self within
  a community context
• Promote a perspective on the self, including
  supports, strengths, obstacles, needs, values,
  and interests
• Develop both macroscopic and microscopic views of
  themselves, and to consider broad trends as well
  as small, but nonetheless relevant details
• Produce a record that allows individuals to
  return to the map to add further details and to
  make further connections

13
Community Life-Space Mapping

• Provide youth with a large sheet of paper and
  felt pens
• Represent themselves with a symbol and place
  themselves in that community at a place that
  makes sense to them
• Record on their maps important resources, role
  models, groups, organizations, etc., tha are
  important parts of their community context
• Write words , images, and ideas that come to mind
  about each item on the map. Connect each new
  word, idea, and image with a line to the
  associated circled item
• Connect those important aspects of their
  community to the symbol representing themselves
  using line thickness and/or colours to indicate
  relative importance

14
Possible Selves

• Possible Selves
• Development
• Possible Selves and Adolescence
• Possible Selves and Gender
• Possible Selves Activity

15
Possible Selves Activity

• Purpose To generate several hopes and fears for
  the future, to gain a better understanding of
  personal values and how these relate to the
  future, to identify factors that could affect
  your future, to connect current activities with
  your hopes and fears for the future.
• Hoped-for and feared selves
• Map

16
Possible Selves Mapping

• Supply youth with green and yellow file cards
• Encourage youth to write on the green cards as
  many hoped for selves as come to mind. Put only
  one response on each card. Repeat the same
  procedure for feared selves, using the yellow
  cards
• Direct youth to rank hoped-for selves in order of
  importance and repeat with feared selves
• Scale sense of capability and likelihood of two
  most important hoped-for and feared selves
• Consider what actions have been taken in the last
  year to (a) bring about important hoped-for
  selves and (b) prevent feared selves

17
Conclusion

• Life-career pathways shaped by individual agency,
  motivation, and opportunities within the social
  structure
• Rural youth need assistance in developing
  concrete practical steps and in accessing
  resources and information
• Foster school-community connections and work
  training opportunities
• Build on a rural-based curriculum
• Provide linkages to urban settings and
  institutions
• Provide active roles for youth in community
  development, decision-making, and planning

18
Closing Thoughts

• There are different ways of connecting with youth
  to support this transition
• Future Bound
• Self-Concept Exploration Group