TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2016//
TI  - Youth narratives on community experiences and sense of community and their relation to participation in an early childhood development program
JO  - Youth and society
A1  - Hasford, Julian
A1  - Loomis, Colleen
A1  - Nelson, Geoffrey
A1  - Pancer, S. Mark
SP  - 577
EP  - 596
VL  - 48
IS  - 4
N2  - 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). <br><br>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). <br><br>FINDINGS have implications for community-based ECD programs to impact later adolescence SOC and for using narratives to study these effects.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0044-118X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0044118X13506447
ID  - ref1
ER  -