COUV ACTES - Psychologie communautaire

Community Psychology: Common Values, Diverse Practicesand colleagues (Goddard, 2001; Goddard, Hoy & Hoy, 2000) found that collective efficacy among public highschool teachers was related to student’s academic achievement. Unfortunately, however, teacher CE was lowerin schools with more socioeconomic disadvantage. Thus the challenge becomes the ability to develop a sense ofcollective efficacy among those who are living in less advantaged neighborhoods.To date, much of the research on collective efficacy has examined the impact of adult collective efficacy uponyouth behavior with very little, if any focusing on youth perceptions of their own sense of belonging, community,and empowerment. In instances where children’s perceptions of their social capital, i.e. neighborhood cohesionand informal social control have been included, these concepts have been found to be related to children’smental health (Drukker, Kaplan, Feron, van Os, 2003). Though research on deviant and delinquent peersabound, work focusing on positive peer influence is rare. Examining the meaning of collective efficacy forchildren of diverse racial-ethnic and social backgrounds might be particularly timely.Opportunities to help promote a sense of belonging, engagement, leadership, and involvement among youth aredeemed important aspects of youth serving settings (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Larson, 2000; Smith, 2007;Vandell & Shumow, 1999; Villaruel, Perkins, Borden, & Keith, 2003). Further, the ways in which youth areengaged in out-of-school and recreational opportunities have been found to be related to both their positivedevelopment and decreased involvement in delinquency (Caldwell, 2005; Osgood, Anderson, & Shaffer, 2005;Osgood, Wilson, Bachman, O’Malley & Johnson, 1996). Out-of-school time and children’s connectedness insettings that serve them afterschool might be particularly salient to positive youth development. This study willexamine demographic predictors of children’s collective efficacy and its relationship to youth adjustment andproblem behavior for youth in community-based afterschool settings.MethodologyData was collected from children, grades second to sixth, in elementary afterschool programs. Half of theprograms were located in a school district in Pennsylvania that was more urban and was comprised of 74 percentAfrican American, 18 percent Latino, and 6 percent White children with 71 percent of the children in the districtclassified as economically disadvantaged (eligible for free/reduced lunch). The other half were in a more ruralarea comprised of 80 percent White children, 14 percent Latino, and 4 percent African American with 34 percentof the children in the school district being eligible for free/reduced lunch. Wave 1 was collected in the fall andWave 2 in the spring. At Wave 1 185 children participated in the survey and 116 at Wave 2; a 63% retention rateindicative of the absences and attrition that occur in afterschool programs. In general, the sample was almostevenly distributed by gender, with a preponderance of children in third grade, and a mean age of 9.8 years old.MeasuresSeveral measures were used to gather information from children on their own perceived adjustment and behavior(e.g. anxiety, aggression, etc.) and their collective efficacy (i.e. belonging and willingness to positively influencepeers). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to assess children’s adjustment and hasbeen found to be reliable and valid for children as young as 7 years old (Goodman, 1997; Mellor, 2004). It is271