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This study proposes an innovative use of a modified version of photovoice for cross‐national qualitative research that allows participants to express their ideas, experiences, and emotions about a topic through photographic language. We examine factors affecting social service providers' work on people experiencing homelessness in Europe. We highlight five advantages of using photovoice in cross‐national research: visual language, methodological flexibility, participatory data analysis, the bottom‐up process, and the promotion of social change. Moreover, we identify key stages of the process: writing a detailed protocol for the implementation and fidelity of the projects, using two levels of data analysis, and disseminating the results. This study provides lessons learned for others who may want to use photovoice in cross‐national research. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Research on youth civic engagement has emphasized the importance of growing up in a civic context. We examined the relative influence of neighborhood characteristics (neighborhood opportunities and intergenerational closure), civic education at school, friends’ civic engagement, and parents’ civic engagement on civic attitudes and civic behaviors among youths. Participants were 403 11- to 15-year-old adolescents randomly selected from the city register of a midsized city in Italy. The hierarchical regression analysis found that all analyzed contexts were related to adolescent civic engagement. In particular, intergenerational closure, friends’ civic engagement, and parents’ civic engagement were associated with both civic attitudes and civic behaviors. Findings highlighted the importance of considering multiple contexts to understand what factors are associated with youth civic engagement. We discuss ways that findings can be transmitted into further research and practice to address the multiple contexts in which youths are embedded and their relative influence on adolescent civic engagement.

This study examines the individual and contextual factors associated with sociopolitical control expressed by immigrants in southern Spain. We used hierarchical linear modeling to evaluate the relations between individual (community participation, social connectedness, and perceived cultural competence of receiving community services) and municipality characteristics (city community participation, city social connectedness, and city community services’ cultural competence) and immigrants’ feelings of sociopolitical control. Data were analyzed using a two‐level model based on 707 Moroccan immigrants in 25 municipalities. After adjusting for gender, educational level, and psychosocial confounding factors, we observed a positive association between social connectedness and sociopolitical control at the individual level. At the contextual level, we observed a positive association between (a) city community participation, (b) city social connectedness, and (c) city community services’ cultural competence, and sociopolitical control. Indeed, living in a municipality where there are community services with high levels of cultural competence and where, on average, many people participate in organizations and neighbors are connected, was associated with higher levels of perceived control in the sociopolitical domain for immigrants. We also discuss implications for community‐based research and practice. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España SEJ2006‐14470 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España PSI2011‐25554 Junta de Andalucía 2007/87

Aims To estimate the role of family and socio-economic indicators of welfare state in accounting for probable problem gambling during adolescence in a representative sample of students living in nine European countries. Design Data from the 2011 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) Study were used for cross- sectional analyses of adolescent probable problem gambling. Setting Representative surveys in nine European countries. Participants A total of 31 236 16-year-old students. Measurements Respondents' probable problem gambling, socio-demographic characteristics and parenting (regulation, monitoring and caring) were measured indi- vidually. Indicators of wealth (gross domestic product per capita, GDP), expenditure on public health (% GDP) and benefit in kind for families/children (% GDP) were obtained from national public databases. Findings Students who perceived more parental caring (odds ratio (OR) = 0.92, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.85-0.98) and monitoring (OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.53-0.62) reported less involvement in probable problem gambling. Moreover, students who perceived stronger parental regulation (OR = 1.16, 95% CI = 1.09-1.23) were more likely to be possible problematic gamblers. At the country level, expenditure on public health was associated negatively with probable problem gam- bling (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.78-0.97), whereas GDP per capita (OR = 1, 95% CI = 1.00-1.00) and the benefits in kind for families/children (OR = 1.16, 95% CI = 0.89-1.51) showed no association with probable problem gambling. Conclusions Family characteristics and expenditure on public health may play a key role in explaining probable problem gambling among adolescents in Europe.

Youth gang involvement is a serious public health challenge as adolescents involved in gangs are more likely than others to engage in violence and aggression. To better understand gang involvement, we examined the role of protective (empathy and parental support) and risk (peer deviance and lack of safety at school) factors, as well as their interactions, in predicting adolescent gang affiliation. The study involved a sample of 26,232 students (53.4% females; mean age = 14.62, SD = 1.69) participating in the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), a survey investigating a wide range of youth health and risk behaviors administered in all California schools every 2 years. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), findings indicated that high levels of empathy and parental support were associated with a lower likelihood of affiliating with a gang. Associating with deviant peers and perceiving the school as unsafe were positively correlated with gang membership. At the school level, lack of safety and type of school (special education, vocational, or alternative school vs. comprehensive schools) were associated with greater probability of gang membership. Empathy mitigated the association between deviant peers and gang membership.

Civic engagement, defined as involvement in community life, is influenced by reciprocal relationships between individuals and contexts and is a key factor that contributes to positive youth development. The present study evaluates a theoretical model linking perceived democratic school climate with adolescent civic engagement (operationalized as civic responsibility and intentions for future participation), taking into account the mediating role of civic discussions and perceived fairness at school. Participants were 403 adolescents (47.9 % male) ranging in age from 11 to 15 years old (mean age = 13.6). Path analysis results partially validated the proposed theoretical model. Higher levels of democratic school climate were associated with higher levels of adolescent civic responsibility; the association was fully mediated by civic discussions and perceived fairness at school. Adolescents' civic responsibility, then, was positively associated with a stronger intention to participate in the civic domain in the future.

The aim of the study is to validate the two-dimensional structure of the Sociopolitical Control Scale for Youth (SPCS-Y) in a sample of Italian adolescents and to investigate associations of this interpersonal component of psychological empowerment with different measures of psychosocial adjustment. The questionnaires were filled out by a sample of 1,376 (57.6% females; mean age = 17.24, standard deviation = .99) 11th- to 13th-grade students. The two-dimensional structure of the SPCS-Y provided a significantly better fit to the data than the one-factor model in the sample. Furthermore, students high in both leadership competence and policy control were found to be higher in perceived school importance, neighborhood attachment, and community and school participation. The results are consistent with previous studies from other countries and indicate that the SPCS-Y is a valid instrument to assess sociopolitical control among Italian adolescents and possibly among those from other Mediterranean countries. C

According to the norms and collective efficacy model, the levels of social connectedness within a local community are a function of neighborhood structural characteristics, such as socioeconomic status and ethnic composition. The current work aims to determine whether neighborhood structural and institutional features (neighborhood wealth, percentage of immigrants, population density, opportunities for activities and meeting places) have an impact on different components of neighborhood social connectedness (intergenerational closure, trust and reciprocity, neighborhood-based friendship and personal relationships with neighbors). The study involved a representative sample of 389 early and middle adolescents aged 11-15 years old, coming from 31 Italian neighborhoods. Using hierarchical linear modeling, our findings showed that high population density, ethnic diversity, and physical and social disorder might represent obstacles for the creation of social ties within the neighborhood. On the contrary, the presence of opportunities for activities and meeting places in the neighborhood was associated with higher levels of social connectedness among residents.

Research on youth civic engagement focuses on individual-level predictors. We examined individual- and school-level characteristics, including family affluence, democratic school social climate and perceived neighborhood social capital, in their relation to civic engagement of 15-year-old students. Data were taken from the 2006 World Health Organization Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey. A sample of 8,077 adolescents in 10th grade from five countries (Belgium, Canada, Italy, Romania, England) were assessed. Multilevel models were analyzed for each country and across the entire sample. Results showed that family affluence, democratic school climate and perceived neighborhood social capital positively related to participation in community organizations. These links were stronger at the aggregate contextual than individual level and varied by country. Canadian youth participated most and Romanian youth least of the five countries. Gender predicted engagement in two countries (girls participate more in Canada, boys in Italy). Findings showed significant contributions of the social environment to adolescents' engagement in their communities.