Youths’ Individual Pathways Towards Contextual Well‐Being: Utilizing Electrodermal Activity as an Ethnographic Tool at a Theater After‐School Program

Abstract

This article addresses how youth (with their embodied, physical, and cognitive resources) traverse, in situ, experiential pathways and how this plays a role in the experience of well‐being at Green Door Theater's (GDT) after‐school program. Electrodermal activity (EDA) is used as part of a qualitative protocol to deepen our understanding of intracultural variation by highlighting individual attention and engagement during normative activities. After‐school programs, as with other cultural groups, involve negotiations between individuals and the community of practice. By comparing youth with higher and lower program engagement, it is shown that culturally shaped routine activities (performances and the “gospel circle”) are experienced differentially. Program staff strive for high‐engagement participation and want to achieve this through normative program scripts for activities, yet data reveal that well‐being can emerge in other ways as well. The article shows how the triangulation of evidence from each level of analysis (ethnography, EDA, and youth interpretations of their experiences) adds value to the overall understanding of the creation of well‐being in such programs.

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