Building social capital to promote adolescent wellbeing: a qualitative study with teens in a Latino agricultural community

Abstract

BackgroundLatino youth, particularly in rural settings, experience significant disparities in rates of teen pregnancy and violence. Few data are available regarding social and structural influences on Latino youth’s developmental trajectories, specifically on factors that promote wellbeing and protect them from engagement in high-risk sexual and violence-related behaviors.MethodsForty-two youth aged 13 to 19 years old were recruited from middle schools and youth leadership programs to participate in one of eight community-based focus groups in Salinas, a predominantly Latino, urban center in California’s rural central coast. Focus groups covered youths’ experiences with the risk and protective factors associated with exposure to violence and romantic relationships. Four researchers completed coding with a Grounded Theory approach, informed by the theoretical frameworks of the social ecological model and social capital. The study’s design and participant recruitment were informed by a community advisory board of local youth-serving organizations and health care providers.ResultsParticipants described family lives rich in bonding social capital, with strong ties to parents and near-peer family members. They reported that while parents had a strong desire to promote healthful behaviors and social mobility, they often lacked the bridging or linking social capital required to help youth navigate structural systems, such as college applications and access to confidential health care. Youth also reported that some families link their children to negative social capital, such as exposure to gang affiliation.ConclusionAdolescents in this agricultural community identified robust sources of bonding social capital within their families. However, they identified limitations in their families’ capacities to link them to structural resources in education, employment, and health care that could support healthful behaviors and upward social mobility.

Assessment of health inequality between urban-to-urban and rural-to-urban migrant older adults in China: a cross-sectional study

“…With medical model transformation from a biomedical model to a bio-psycho-social model, recent evidence has been show that factors such as social capital [5], social integration [6] and social-economic factors (gender, education, marital status, immigrant status) may be important for migrant older adults' health. Among them, social capital and social integration were popular in international health research [7] and social science disciplines as well as the field of public health [8,9]. Nan Lin [10] and other researchers [11,12] defined social capital from different perspectives.…”

How Neighborhood Effects Vary: Childbearing and Fathering among Latino and African American Adolescents

“…They argue that expanding the horizons of low-income, minority youth to include others from different areas and backgrounds fosters positive attitudes toward alternative paths to adulthood and deferring early parenting. In a similar vein, a recent qualitative study found that Latino youths described families and immediate surroundings rich with bonding social capital, but despite these youth’s strong social ties, they often lacked the bridging social capital that would help youth navigate complex structures and systems (e.g., educational settings and college applications) that would, in the long-term promote delayed childbearing/fathering and overall upward social mobility [ 71 ]. Ultimately, our study’s findings suggest that future inquiry should attempt to measure each domain of social capital and consider neighborhood scale and respondents’ operationalization of such in order to further sort out the complexity of this finding.…”

Associations among Adolescents’ Relationships with Parents, Peers, and Teachers, Self-Efficacy, and Willingness to Intervene in Bullying: A Social Cognitive Approach

“…Further, SCT asserts that individuals' self-efficacy beliefs are influenced by the vicarious experience of socialization agents and that self-efficacy further contributes to an individual's motivation to take action [15]. Given the key role of social relationships and socialization agents according to SCT, it is not surprising that adolescents with positive social relationships with parents, peers, and teachers benefit from these experiences and, therefore, are more likely to display better social, emotional and behavioral outcomes [17][18][19][20][21]. In the present study, we investigate if and how social relationships with key socialization agents (measured as relationships with parents, bullying victimization via peers, and relationships with teachers) are directly associated with adolescents' willingness to intervene in bullying, as well as indirectly through self-efficacy in social conflicts.…”