Adolescents’ Negative Experiences in Organized Youth Activities

Jodi Dworkin, Ph.D. Department of Family Social Science and Minnesota Extension Service

University of Minnesota [email protected]

Reed Larson, Ph.D. Department of Human and Community Development

University of Illinois [email protected]

Volume 1, Number 3, Winter 2006-2007 Article 0603FA006

Adolescents’ Negative Experiences in Organized Youth Activities

Jodi Dworkin University of Minnesota

Reed Larson

University of Illinois

Abstract: Research indicates that organized youth activities are most often a context of positive development. However, there is a smaller body of evidence suggesting that these activities are sometimes a context of negative experiences that may impede learning or lead to dropping out. To better understand negative experiences in youth activities, we conducted ten focus groups with adolescents. Youths’ descriptions provide an overview of the range of types of negative experiences they encountered, as well as how they responded to them. The most frequent types of negative experiences involved peers and peer group dynamics and aversive behavior attributed to the adult leaders of the activities. The youth described two types of responses to their negative experiences – a passive response of feeling negative emotions, and active coping, which sometimes led to learning.

Introduction Research is increasingly shows that organized youth activities, such as extracurricular activities and community based youth programs, are a context of positive development for adolescents (Eccles & Templeton, 2002; Mahoney, Larson & Eccles, 2005). Yet there is also evidence – of a less complete nature – that these activities are sometimes a context of negative experiences. Studies suggest that participation in sports can lead to increased alcohol use (Eccles & Barber, 1999) and that participation in both music and sports can create adverse levels of stress (Scanlan, Babkes, & Scanlan, 2005; Smoll & Smith, 1996). Research on Swedish youth centers suggests that peer interactions in these contexts can reinforce negative norms and behavior patterns (Mahoney, Stattin, & Magnusson, 2001; Stattin, Kerr, Mahoney, Persson, & Magnusson, 2005). And there is evidence that some adults in organized programs act in ways that promote inappropriate behavior or have a negative influence on young people’s sense of self and faith in others (Eder & Parker, 1987; Grossman & Rhodes, 2002). The present investigation was designed to identify and begin to categorize the range of adolescents’ negative experiences in youth activities.

Our framework for this investigation conceptualizes negative experiences as experiences that disrupt the processes of positive development within organized youth activities. Most scholars working in this area agree that engagement is the critical vehicle of positive development. This includes psychological engagement in which youth are challenged, motivated, and devote deep attention to being successful in the activity (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993; Larson, 2000), and through which they become active producers of their own development (Lerner, 2004; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981; Silbereisen, Eyferth, & Rudinger, 1986). This also includes engagement in relationships. Developmental systems theory posits that positive development occurs in and through a young person’s participation in meaningful relationships (Lerner, 2002, 2004). In youth programs this can include engagement with supportive and caring adult leaders (Halpern, 2005; Rhodes, 2004), engagement in positive collaborations with peers (Larson, Hansen, & Walker, 2005; Mahoney, Cairns, & Farmer, 2003), and engagement with community adults who provide various forms of support and social capital (Jarrett, Sullivan, & Watkins, 2005). Negative experiences are important to understand because they can interfere with these different forms of positive engagement. A youth who is upset, distressed, or angered by an event in a program is less likely to be psychologically engaged and to devote attention to learning. Emotion researchers recognize that one of the functions of negative emotion is typically to shift attention from long-term goals such as development, toward immediate concerns of safety and well-being (Clore, 1994). In situations when a negative experience in a program occurs at the same time as a young person is experiencing other negative events, it can contribute to a “pile up” of stress; and we know from a large body of research that youth who experience multiple simultaneous stressors are more likely to become depressed, use substances, or manifest other problems (Chassin, Husson, Barrera, Molina, Tim, & Ritter, 2004; Garber, 2004), all of which sidetrack developmental processes. Similarly, negative experiences may disrupt engagement in important developmental relationships within an organized activity. A recent National Academy of Sciences report identified eight features that make youth programs contexts of positive development:

• physical and psychological safety, • appropriate structure,

• supportive relationships, • opportunities for belonging, • positive social norms, • support for efficacy and mattering, • opportunity for skill building, and • integration of family, school, and community efforts.

All eight features are factors that are influenced by adult leaders (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). Negative experiences with an adult leader are likely to interfere with the adult’s ability to shape these features. Research on mentoring and youth sports suggests that a single negative experience with a mentor or coach often has proportionally more influence on that relationship than a single positive experience (Rhodes, 2002; Smoll & Smith, 1996). Likewise, conflict with peers can reduce the learning that might occur within collaborative peer relationships (Larson et al., 2005), and the same could be said for interactions with community members. Negative experiences can also lead youth to drop out of organized activities, and totally disengage from learning in this context. Research on youth sports shows that performance

anxiety can lead youth to drop out (Scanlan et al., 2005). Studies of youth in other organized activities also suggest that negative experiences contribute to youth dropping out (Hultzman, 1993; Patrick, Ryan, Alfred-Liro, Fredricks, Hruda, & Eccles, 1999). Given the potentially disruptive effects of negative experiences on youth’s engagement in programs, they need to be a significant topic of study. Knowledge of the variety of negative experiences that youth encounter and their consequences is essential to evaluating and ultimately to improving youth programs (Dubas & Snider, 1993). Since the current knowledge on negative experiences is sparse and unsystematic, we felt that it was essential to begin by listening and documenting the range of negative experiences that youth report in organized activities. Our choice to focus on youth’s own open-ended accounts was based on two premises; first, that understanding the reality that people experience is important in its own right (Patton, 1990; van Manen, 1984), and second, that youth’s conscious appraisals of their experiences in an activity influence their engagement in the activity and their decision to remain in it. To identify the range of young people’s negative experiences, the present investigation utilized focus group interviews. Focus groups are one approach to group interviews that utilize group dynamics to elicit detailed information (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). Focus group methodology is designed to create a non-threatening environment that promotes self-disclosure. Although the data obtained in group interviews can be influenced by social desirability (Krueger, 1988), youths’ experiences in organized activities often emerge and are given voice through interactions with others (Patrick et al., 1999; Rogoff, Baker-Sennet, Lacasa, & Goldsmith, 1995). Thus, the dynamic of focus groups is well suited to eliciting young people’s accounts of the variety of negative experiences they encounter in this context.

Method

Sample

Ten focus groups were conducted with 4-9 adolescents in each. A total of 55 adolescents (23 boys and 32 girls) participated. Six focus groups were conducted in the high school of an ethnically diverse mid-sized Midwestern town. School counselors selected students to participate who were active in school activities and whom they thought would be articulate. In order to be certain to be inclusive of community-based youth organizations, three additional focus groups were formed from members of a community-based arts program, an FFA chapter, and a service-learning, leadership organization for high school women, primarily African American, sponsored by a university sorority. One additional focus group was also formed from student volunteers at a university high school. This use of purposeful sampling resulted in focus groups that were representative of young people who were or had been actively involved in activities. The focus groups planned through the high schools were conducted during the school day, in the school building. The focus groups formed from community-based organizations were conducted during the groups’ regular meeting time, either at their regular meeting location or in the researchers’ lab. The focus groups were mixed gender, age, and race, whenever not restricted by the demographics of the population (e.g., for the community groups). These youth had a mean age of 16 years (range 14-18). Twenty-two percent of the participants identified themselves as African American, 18% identified as bi-racial, 4% identified as Asian, and just over half (56%) of the participants identified themselves as White.

Procedures Prior to participating in the focus group, youth completed a brief background questionnaire: providing information on their age, gender, the activities they were involved in, and how often they participated in each. Youth activities were defined to include school-based extracurricular activities, community-based youth organizations, and all organized activities and programs for youth that are both voluntary and structured (Larson, 2000). These youth were highly involved in a variety of activities; 83% were involved in a club or organization, 60% were involved in performance or fine arts, and 72% were involved in sports. One of the authors or a trained graduate student was the moderator for each focus group. The moderator followed a semi-structured interview guide, designed to get the students to describe their specific negative experiences in youth activities. To establish rapport, the focus group began with open-ended, descriptive questions aimed at getting all students involved and talking about their experiences in organized activities (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). Engaging each participant helps establish a common base for sharing, and makes it easier for participants to speak again (Krueger, 1988). Following this rapport-building stage, the moderator first asked participants to describe the types of growth and learning experiences they had in youth activities. The results of these data are reported elsewhere (Dworkin, Larson, & Hanson, 2003). Next, youth were asked to describe the types of negative and “bad” experiences they have had in organized youth activities. After students’ spontaneous descriptions of negative experiences were exhausted, five probes were used to help identify additional negative experiences that had not spontaneously emerged. These probes asked about types of experiences that have been mentioned in other studies: negative group interactions, negative peer influences, negative interactions with adults, stress, and discovering something about yourself you did not like. We encouraged youth to give specific examples of negative experiences, however, in the flow of the conversation they also identified generalized experiences, using language suggesting that they had encountered them more than once and believed that other youth also had these experiences (e.g., “Sometimes you fail, and you don't want to do anything again or try anything new.”). The focus group sessions lasted 45 to 60 minutes, with approximately one-third of each focus group session dedicated to talking about youths’ negative experiences. The focus groups were tape recorded.

Data Analysis The focus group transcripts were coded to identify recurrent themes and categories of negative experiences (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). Codes were developed from the focus group transcripts (Charmaz, 1988). Consistent with a phenomenological perspective, these data were analyzed under the assumption that the data provided by participants correspond to their actual experiences and to the meanings they apply to these experiences. In addition, interpretation of the data included distinguishing between youth’s statements that were made spontaneously and those elicited in response to the probes. We used NVivo, a computer program, to assist with the coding and sorting of the data (Richards, 1999). The interviews were transcribed verbatim, noting salient features such as long pauses and laughter. To preserve participant confidentiality, the interviews were transcribed using pseudonyms and eliminating any identifying information. To ensure accuracy, the transcripts were then carefully checked against the tapes. Next, open coding was used to identify themes, patterns, and concepts in youths’ spontaneous descriptions of their negative experiences. Every

event and idea of a given phenomenon was named. We determined that these negative experiences most readily categorized in two ways – according to the person or persons portrayed as the source of the negative experience (e.g., peers, adult leaders, oneself), and by the way in which the youth responded to the negative experience (e.g. a passive response of feeling negative emotions, active coping). Then we coded students’ responses to our interview probes. We found that these responses fit into the two larger categories already identified. As a final step, axial coding, a more intense form of coding used to identify properties of domains that emerged during open coding (Strauss, 1987), was used to identify the types of negative experiences related to each category of person and the types of responses to negative experiences. Through this process, themes within these broader categories emerged. The categories that emerged from students’ descriptions of their experiences are described in the following sections. Given that multiple responses to an item were sometimes provided by members of the same focus group, sometimes in response to each other, we did not feel it was useful to provide counts of the frequency with which different categories were reported. On reporting the results below, we indicate that a category was frequent, only when it was reported by multiple youth across multiple focus groups. In addition, the categories are exemplified by direct quotes from students (Ryan & Bernard, 2000).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Types of Negative Experiences

Students identified five categories of persons portrayed as the sources of their negative experiences – peers, adult leaders, themselves, parents, and community members. Axial coding revealed the types of negative experiences related to each category of persons. Peers The largest number of negative experiences was attributed to peers and to peer group dynamics within the activity. First the students described encounters with aversive peer behavior. A boy in FFA held the position of Historian and had the role of recording all the activities of the chapter. He complained that “the members will start getting mad at you and start erupting at you.” The authoritarian style of youth in leadership roles was a commonly reported aggravation. A student in a theater production reported that the student directors of the play “get all up in your face and mad.” Unsportsperson-like behavior was another aversive behavior that students identified. A girl reported quitting the basketball team because other team members played too aggressively, “They didn't even try to go after the ball, they were just trying to hurt somebody. It wasn't about basketball.” These frequent reports of aversive behavior may stem from the nature of the activities, demands created by competition, or from the fact that youth activities often bring adolescents into contact with peers with whom they would not have otherwise chosen to affiliate. A second type of negative experience was the formation of cliques and exclusive friendship groups among participants in the activity. These made interactions difficult and led to some youth being left out. A male cheerleader described his experiences: “They all got their little cliques, like three or so stay together, and then, if you go and talk to one group or another group you’re favoring somebody.” A girl in track reported that group divisions had created a situation in which, “No one wants to have fun in practice, and the coach is always stressed out because everyone has a problem with everyone else. So, it's hard to do what you're supposed to be doing.”

Third, and interrelated with these experiences, youth described poor cooperation as another category of negative peer experiences. They reported frustrations with the lack of synergy within the entire group and between individuals. Disruptions in teamwork were attributed to personality clashes and to people procrastinating or not doing their part. One girl said, “When somebody didn’t show up or didn’t get a task done, it kind of left the rest of us hanging.” A boy working on the yearbook staff reported: “At the beginning of the year, we had a lot of people join, and now it’s down to the staff we had last summer. So almost everybody quit, and we have to do all the pages that they didn’t do. We gotta really work to get our stuff done.” The failure of others to do their part interfered with the achievement of goals that youth had for the activity, and sometimes left them doing much more work than they planned. Fourth, some students described being subject to negative peer influences. Some of the experiences in this category resulted from our probe on this topic. For instance, one boy said, “If they’re your teammates, that would probably have a bad influence. I mean, everybody wants to party every now and then. So you give in and you do what they do. That’s probably bad.” This boy did not identify the type of behavior he was being pressured to adopt, but his statement suggests peer processes similar to those lying behind the finding that participation in sports was related to increases in alcohol use (Eccles & Barber, 1999; Moore & Werch, 2005). A final category of negative experiences attributable to peers, dealt not with peers in the activity but with those outside of it. A number of youth reported being ridiculed for belonging to the activity or for the performance of the team or group. A boy in FFA reported being taunted that their initials stood for “Future Fags of America.” A girl reported that their dance group had performed a really hard routine during halftime of a basketball game, but “everyone in the crowd is like, ‘You guys suck’.” These comments from non-members often stung. Someone on a losing sports team said, “Sometimes the reputation that we have kind of pulls our self-esteem down.” The high rates of negative experiences with peers can be understood in terms of the developmental features of adolescence. Friends and peers are often the most important people in adolescents’ lives, so teens are very sensitive to how peers act and what they think (Brown, 2004). Participating in activities has the potential to provide youth with many social benefits (Patrick et al., 1999). Yet managing interpersonal relationships with other teenagers, including those whom you are thrown together with in an organized activity, is challenging. Of course, difficulties in relating to and working with others occurs across the life span, but Larson, Hansen, and Walker (2005) have argued that the cognitive egocentrism of this developmental period may increase the difficulties for teenagers. Their nascent ability to see others’ points of view and coordinate actions with others may heighten the possibility for peer misunderstanding and conflict. Adult Leaders The students also reported that many negative experiences were attributable to their adult leaders. First, youth described frequent experiences of being upset when leaders favored certain youth over others. These were situations where they perceived that some youth received special treatment, while others were picked on. A youth reported, “I was hurt one time, and when I was hurt, it didn't matter [to the coach]. But there was another player that was hurt and, ‘Oh, you need to sit out, and you need to make sure your arm’s okay’." A girl reported a similar reaction in a different situation: “That makes me so mad, because when a coach picks favorites, it doesn’t help anybody else but that person. It makes you feel like they only care about that one person. And sometimes they’re just so busy about that one person

that that one person has all that stress and that one person can’t even do it all anyway and it’s going to end up hurting that person.” This sense of injustice was also reported when a leader or coach selected out students for criticism. One boy said, “My band director can be difficult sometimes and sometimes it really seems like he picks on some of my friends for no reason or for stupid reasons.” The frequency of these reports suggests that adolescents are very sensitive to unequal treatment from adults. A second common category of negative adult experiences was leaders who were disrespectful or demeaning. One youth said, “This coach of mine can make you feel like you were born wrong.” Another said, “Our coaches are always negative; they put us down.” In several cases, youth saw this type of cutting comment as an attempt to motivate them, but this was rare. In one case, this demeaning attitude was experienced as discrimination, “They think that you don't know nothing. It also has to do with your race and your gender.” Research suggests that support from adults is a critical feature of fostering development in youth programs (Eccles & Gootman, 2002); disrespectful and demeaning comments from leaders are likely to undermine young people’s experience of support. Third, youth described leaders placing unreasonable demands on them. Some students attributed this to the fact that leaders sometimes “think that your life is centered around what you do with them.” A girl complained that the adult leader wanted them “to choose between practice and our religion.” In another situation, a youth reported: “The advisor he takes on more than what we can handle, and it ends up that everybody gets burned out and doesn’t want to do it, but yet he brings it on and decides that we need to do it. It kind of gets discouraging.” An underlying problem was when leaders’ expectations for the activity did not match those of the youth. One girl said, “With coaches if winning is everything to them, and it’s not to you, that can really make a season very unenjoyable.” Another complained that they “expect you to be something better than you can do it. And you know that you're working hard, but they don't believe you.” In an observational study, Zeldin and Camino (1999) found that youth practitioners sometimes expect youth to do things that even they could not do, a situation that sets youth up for failure. A fourth type of negative experience was related to adults who were unknowledgeable or poor leaders. This included leaders who were inexperienced either with the activity or in serving as a leader for that activity. For instance, one girl said, “On our JV volleyball team, we had a new coach this year and that was her first year. I mean we had to teach her basically everything.” Another girl said, “Last year during basketball season, we had a coach who wasn't all there, and he didn't really know how to talk to the girls, and one of the girls just ended up going off on him, and crying, and leaving during practice and everything. And that just pulled everything apart for a little while. Everyone was just really nervous about what had happened.” In one instance, a youth reported that the girls in the program became so angry and confrontational with their coach for his ignorance and repeated absences from practice that he responded by placing a note on his door that said, "Since you guys don't want me to be the coach, then I won't coach today. You guys can coach yourselves." Many of the adults leading youth programs are volunteers with little or no training (Carnegie, 1992), and this may increase the frequency with which youth encounter incompetent and immature adult behavior. This can be particularly discouraging as youth activities provide a critical opportunity for young people to gain new skills. Fifth, several students reported negative experiences when leaders tried to be more of a friend than a leader. These students felt the adults were unsuccessful at maintaining their role as

leader when they were also trying to be a friend. For example, one girl said, “I get fed up with that when they try to be my sister or my mother. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to sing.” Although many youth appreciate leaders who are empathic and provide emotional support (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; McLaughlin, Irby, & Langman, 1994), in some cases youth find a leader’s attempts to relate to them on a personal level to be intrusive and disruptive to their participation in the activity. Lastly, students described instances of inappropriate and unethical adult behavior. One girl in track complained that, while her coach followed the rules, coaches on other teams cheated, “Like when they’re doing times, they’ll say their person’s time was faster even though it was really slow.” In several cases, coaches were reported to encourage physical violence. One boy said, “It got to a point where he [football coach] doesn’t tell us, go out there and win a game. It’s go out there and hurt somebody.” This is consistent with the findings of Eder and Parker (1987) that being physically aggressive was praised in football and that some coaches taught youth that winning required being overly aggressive, even to the point of injuring another player. The students’ large volume and variety of negative experiences with adult leaders reflects the central role that leaders play in organizing and setting the climate in most youth activities (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). When combined with the finding of Hansen, Larson, and Dworkin (2003) that youth report high rates of inappropriate adult behavior in sports activities, it becomes evident that many adult leaders are not meeting the developmental needs of youth. The wide array of negative experiences reported by our students reflects different ways in which adult leaders failed to provide, or undermined, different features of a positive and facilitative environment. Oneself and Other Parts of One’s Life Another category of negative experiences included those portrayed as originating from the adolescents themselves. This included negative experiences related to the students’ self- evaluations and to conflicts between the organized activity and other domains of their lives. A first type of negative experience in this category was performance anxiety, most often reported in sports and occasionally in music. As expressed by one boy, “The night before a big game, you start getting worried. If I mess up here, I might cost the whole team.” Research on youth sports shows that performance anxiety can impair performance and lead youth to drop out of an activity (Scanlan et al., 2005; Smoll & Smith, 1996). An associated type of negative experience was the distress students reported after they did not perform as well as they expected. This distress was related both to individual and group performance. For instance, a girl said, “If things don’t go the way you expect them, it gets a whole lot more frustrating and it’s a lot harder.” A boy said, “Our football season wasn’t so good. I mean, we just kept losing and losing. It’s never fun when you lose. You just want to give up and quit.” When individuals did not perform well, they also described feeling that they had let others down. For example a girl said: “I get down on myself a lot when I’m not doing what I want to, and so the other teammates see it and they can’t bring me up if I get so mad. It directs the whole level of the whole team if one player can’t get back up.” As with performance anxiety, research on youth sports has documented that failure to achieve goals within the activity is a significant source of distress (Brustad, Babkes, & Smith, 2001; Scanlan et al., 2005).

Another type of negative experience related to self was encountering one’s own negative behavior or traits. A number of these responses resulted from our probe on this topic. One student described how losing his position as captain forced him to recognize his own negative behavior: “The most disappointing thing that I figured out is tha