|
| Pursuing the Promise: Access, Equity and Diversity in After School Programs, National Research Findings
The following findings are from Pursuing the Promise: Addressing Access, Equity, and Diversity in After School and Youth Programs by California Tomorrow (2003). The research, sponsored by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, sought to identify patterns, challenges and promising practices for providing after school and youth programs in the context of a diverse society. It also sought to highlight effective after school policies and program practices that can improve educational and social outcomes for underserved youth and communities, including youth of color, low income youth, immigrant youth and other groups. Components of the study included: a national survey of 3300 after school and youth programs, a qualitative community study of after school services in the city of Oakland, California, and case studies of more than 20 additional programs, promising practices and initiatives around the country.
After School & Youth Programs in the Context of Diversity
1. Cultural, linguistic and other forms of diversity have become the norm in after school program enrollment. The vast majority of programs serve more than one racial/ethnic group. Half serve two or more language groups. The majority enroll disabled youth.
2. Programs in different demographic and social community contexts face different equity and diversity challenges that impact program design, resource allocation, and decision-making structures.
Program-level Understandings, Strategies and Challenges
3. There is widespread attention among programs to issues of safety, childcare, academic support and enrichment. Relatively fewer programs seek to address explicit equity issues such as closing gaps, cross-cultural awareness, or identity development.
4. While many after school programs provide valuable academic interventions, a significant number do not yet have the level of knowledge or capacity to be effective with groups frequently targeted for support—namely low income youth, youth of color, immigrant youth, and English Language Learners.
5. Programs with the greatest attention to equity and/or diversity utilize a similar set of promising understandings, strategies, and models. These include:- The use of culturally embedded programming;
- Identity support and development;
- Cross-cultural and/or anti-bias learning that teaches explicit principles of respect, inclusion, understanding, cooperation and conflict resolution;
- Youth leadership and empowerment that support young people to challenge and change injustices in communities and society; and
- The hiring of staff who share and/or deeply understand young people’s backgrounds and experiences.
6. Despite the existence of wonderful models, most programs are still struggling to understand the depth and complexity of equity and diversity dynamics and are therefore still struggling to respond comprehensively to the challenges that these dynamics present.
7. Many programs are not aware that there are populations within their enrollment or service area that they are not serving or may not be serving well.
8. Program cost, transportation, limited enrollment space and concerns over content all create additional barriers to access or full participation.
9. Within a larger context of unmet needs, programs are particularly unaware of equity and diversity issues for: English Language Learners; young people with physical, emotional and/or learning disabilities; and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.
Policy- and Infrastructure-level Understandings, Strategies, and Challenges
10. Current policy often directs after school resources to programs in impoverished communities. This makes an important difference in providing needed services to these populations, but disparities between communities persist.
11. Many programs in low-income urban and rural areas face intense sustainability challenges.
12. Local community organizations and other institutions play important roles in providing services and funding, and ensuring programs reflect community diversity and equity concerns.
13. National organizations and initiatives often bring valuable resources to struggling communities, and are most effective when they have strong community ties.
14. There is a considerable gap between the desire of program staff for training on issues of equity, access and diversity, and the degree of training that staff actually receive.
15. Policies that encourage programs to collect disaggregated data help in identifying who benefits from these programs and who does not. |
|
