Cross-age Peer Mentoring to Enhance Resilience Among Low-Income Urban Youth Living in High Violence Chicago Communities, 2014-2019 (ICPSR 37494)

Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)

Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection

Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

The goal of this mixed-methods study was to evaluate the effectiveness of community based cross-age mentoring to reduce negative outcomes related to violence exposure/engagement and promote positive development among African-American and Latinx youth from multiple sites serving four low-income, high violence urban neighborhoods, using youth mentors from the same high-risk environment.

Study Design View help for Study Design

Mentoring sessions lasting one hour took place each week, with an hour debriefing session for mentors following each mentoring session. Quantitative data were collected pre, post and at a 9-12 month follow-up.

Throughout the mentoring intervention, several forms of qualitative data, including entry letters and eco-maps, were gathered to make it possible for youth voices to permeate understanding findings, to illuminate program processes that youth perceived as helpful and not helpful, and to provide multiple perspectives on youths' resilience and their understanding of the risks they faced. Both mentors and community collaborators were trained and engaged as community researchers. Qualitative data in the form of mentor debriefing forms were collected at most mentoring sessions, and field notes were completed by staff observing every mentoring session.

Sample View help for Sample

A convenience sample of mentors was recruited from community schools in four high-poverty, high-crime urban neighborhoods, three African-American and one Latinx. A total of nine mentoring sites were established, each with mentees. Control youth were recruited from community schools in the same neighborhoods as the treatment sites.

Time Method View help for Time Method

Universe View help for Universe

Urban adolescents residing in low-income, high-crime communities of color

Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation

Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection

Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

Variables in the Mentee and Mentor datasets include variables on event attendance, school disciplinary and performance records, and survey data that includes participants attitudes towards their mentors or mentees, information about their home life, their attitudes towards school, drug and alcohol use, their attitudes towards problem solving, and demographic data.

Variables in the Parent datasets include survey data with demographic information, as well as their child's activities and behavior patterns.

Other datasets include survey data where mentors are debriefed on their experiences with their mentees, relationship mapping data, and data from participants' entry and exit letters.

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

After initial contact with schools and community locations to recruit youth into this study, 249 mentors completed data collection at baseline, including 148 treatment and 101 control mentors. In addition, 219 mentees completed data collection at baseline, including 132 treatment and 87 control mentees.

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

Measurement tools included:
• Youth Self-Report (Achenbach, 1991)
• Neighborhood Environment Scale (Elliot Huizinga and Ageton, 1982)
• Neighborhood Youth Inventory (Chipeur et al., 1999)
• Positive Youth Development Inventory: Character and Contribution sub-scales (Arnold, Nott and Meinhold, 2012)
• Revised scale concerning stress combining the Multicultural Events Schedule for Adolescents and the Stress Index (Gonzales, Gunnoe, Jackson and Tolan, 1995; Attar, Guerra and Tolan, 1994)
• Future Expectation Scale (Wyman et al., 1993)
• Beliefs about Aggression and Alternatives (Henry, Farrell and Project, 2004)
• Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992)
• Mentor Strength of Relationship Scale (Rhodes, Schwartz, Willis and Wu, 2014)
• Attitudes towards Violence Scale (Funk et al., 1999)
• Attitudes toward Youth (Herrera et al., 2007)
• Grit (Duckworth and Quinn, 2009)
• Social Support Scale for Children - Revised (Dubow and Ullman, 1989)
• Leadership (Richards et al., 2013)
• Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965)
• Brief Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (Tipton and Worthington, 1984)
• Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980)
• Social Interest Scale (Crandall, 1975)

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2021-07-27

Version History View help for Version History