Search:
  Go!

Overcoming the Odds:

Description and Current State of the Study

The "Overcoming the Odds" (OTO) project is supported by funding by the W. T. Grant Foundation and provides longitudinal information about the role of individual and ecological developmental assets as potential sources of positive individual and social behavior and development among African American male adolescents involved either in urban, inner-city gangs or in community-based organizations (CBOs) designed to promote positive youth development.

The theoretical basis on which OTO was developed incorporates (a) developmental contextualism, which stresses that individual differences in adolescents' positive or negative developmental experiences and outcomes are produced by their history of person context relations; and (b) the empirical and theoretical literatures about the strengths of youth, and about the "adaptive modes" used by minority adolescents and their family and community contexts to promote positive development.

OTO used face-to-face interviews with African-American adolescent gang members from Detroit, and with a comparison group of adolescent males who lived in the same neighborhoods as did the gang youth but who were involved in CBOs, such as YMCA, after-school sports programs, or faith institution-based programs. Data from these interviews were used to understand the individual and community bases of positive development among African American male adolescent gang and CBO youth. OTO research was aligned with contemporary research about adolescent development that indicates that when young people develop in communities rich in the resources needed to foster their healthy development -- that is, in developmental assets -- their positive development becomes much more likely. Such community assets involve the presence of adult mentors and positive connections to community organizations and institutions.

With OTO, we studied for about four years (and four waves of testing) a group of 45 African American male adolescent gang youth from Detroit and a comparison sample of 50 African American males living in the same neighborhoods as the gang youth but involved in CBOs aimed at promoting positive youth development (PYD). The results of OTO indicated that CBO youth perceived that more developmental assets were available and their responses demonstrated more PYD than gang youth. However, gang youth reported they had access to some developmental assets and, when these reported assets increased, their PYD began to resemble that of at least the lower end of the distribution of CBO youth.

We are seeking currently to extend the OTO study and findings in order to: 1) objectively measure developmental assets and triangulate these measures of actual assets with assessments of perceived assets; 2) extend the project to include girls; and 3) replicate our prior findings with boys in new samples of male and female gang and CBO youth. The goal of this new phase of the study would be to enhance the presence and integration of community developmental assets in the lives of urban youth.

List of Published OTO Manuscripts

• Taylor, C. S., Lerner, R. M., von Eye, A., Balsano, A. B., Dowling, E. M., Anderson, P. M., Bobek, D. L., & Bjelobrk, D. (2002a). Stability of attributes of positive functioning and of developmental assets among African American adolescent male gang and community-based organization members. In R. M. Lerner, C. S. Taylor, & A. von Eye (Eds.), New directions for youth development: Theory, practice and research: Pathways to positive development among diverse youth (Vol. 95; G. Noam, Series Ed.). (pp. 35-56) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
   
• Taylor, C. S., Lerner, R. M., von Eye, A., Balsano, A. B., Dowling, E. M., Anderson, P. M., Bobek, D. L., & Bjelobrk, D. (2002b). Individual and ecological assets and positive developmental trajectories among gang and community-based organization youth. In R. M. Lerner, C. S. Taylor, & A. von Eye (Eds.), New directions for youth development: Theory, practice and research: Pathways to positive development among diverse youth (Vol. 95; G. Noam, Series Ed.). (pp. 57-72). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
   
• Taylor, C. S., Lerner, R. M., von Eye, A., Bobek, D., Balsano, A. B., Dowling, E., & Anderson, P. (2003). Positive individual and social behavior among gang and non-gang African American male adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research 18(6), 547-574.
   
• Taylor, C.S., Lerner, R. M., von Eye, A., Bobek, D., Balsano, A. B., Dowling, E., & Anderson, P. M. (2004). Internal and external developmental assets among African American male gang members. Journal of Adolescent Research 19(3), 303-322.
   
• Taylor, C. S., Smith, P., Taylor, V. A., von Eye, A., Lerner, R. M., Balsano, A. Anderson, P. M., Banik, R., Almerigi, J. (2005). Individual and ecological assets and thriving among African American adolescent male gang and community-based organization members: A report from Wave 3 of the "Overcoming the Odds" study. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1).

Back to top.