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Background/Context: Studies carried out over the last two decades have established structured after-school programs as significant contexts for adolescent development. Recent large-scale evaluations of after-school initiatives have yielded mixed results, finding some impact on adolescents' attitudes toward school but limited impact on their academic performance. One clear conclusion of these studies, however, is that it matters how often and for how long young people spend time in after-school settings. Purpose/Research Question: This study describes the features of after-school settings that are most appealing and engaging to youth growing up in low-income communities. Setting: Analyses focus on a network of five after-school centers that serve predominantly racial and cultural minority youth living in low-income urban neighborhoods. Participants: Participants in the study include 120 youth who varied in their frequency of participation in the after-school centers. Of these participants, 20 were in elementary school, 76 were in middle school, and 24 were in high school. Forty-two percent identified themselves as Asian American, 22% as African American, 13% as Latino/Latina, 7% as European American, and 5% as Filipino, and 10% were categorized as "other' or "unknown." Research Design: This study is a qualitative investigation geared toward understanding young people's subjective experiences and meaning making. Data are drawn principally from focus groups and individual interviews with participants over a 2-year period and supplemented with field work conducted by a team of trained youth ethnographers. Findings: Our analysis of these data points to three features of the youth centers that youth identified as valuable: supportive relationships with adults and peers; safety; and opportunities to learn. Results highlight the meaning and significance youth ascribed to each feature, while also underlining the important function that centers with these features play in adolescent development. Conclusions/Recommendations: After-school settings have the potential to serve as a unique developmental niche by meeting needs that are not consistently met in other contexts. Youths' descriptions of supports and opportunities also underscore the interrelationships among the positive features they perceived. Researchers, practitioners, and policy makers are encouraged to recognize after-school programs as core contexts of development that should be assessed according to the full spectrum of adolescents' developmental needs.

Community-based youth organizations represent potentially powerful settings for activism among marginalized urban youth. This article uses quantitative and qualitative data collected in one such organization to examine the link between youth-adult relationships and youth activism. Survey data point to adults as contributing to youth's activist development and reveal pathways that lead to this outcome. Interview and observation data clarify youth's perceptions of adult support, highlight the complexity of building egalitarian relationships, and situate youth-adult interactions within broader public action. Analyses direct attention to transformations among youth and convey the challenges inherent in breaking out of conventional patterns of youth-adult interaction. Keywords: adolescents; activism; community-based organizations; urban youth; youth-adult relationships

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of high volume aquatic-based plyometrics versus lower volume land and aquatic plyometric training on vertical jump (VJ), muscular peak power, and torque in the dominant knee. Thirty-nine adult participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups: aquatic group 1 (APT1), aquatic group 2 (APT2), land group (LPT1), and control group (CON). All groups performed a 6-week plyometric training program. The APT1 and LPT performed the same volume of training where APT2 doubled the volume. All participants were pre- and posttested on performance variables. A 4 (group) × 2 (time) ANOVA with repeated measures was used to determine differences between the performance variables. We found no significant differences between groups for all tested variables; however, APT2 showed the greatest increased average in the performance variables. The high volume aquatic plyometric protocol is useful to help increase performance and minimize muscle soreness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based youth organizations represent potentially powerful settings for activism among marginalized urban youth. This article uses quantitative and qualitative data collected in one such organization to examine the link between youth-adult relationships and youth activism. Survey data point to adults as contributing to youth's activist development and reveal pathways that lead to this outcome. Interview and observation data clarify youth's perceptions of adult support, highlight the complexity of building egalitarian relationships, and situate youth-adult interactions within broader public action. Analyses direct attention to transformations among youth and convey the challenges inherent in breaking out of conventional patterns of youth-adult interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agility is an important skill in athletic performance because it integrates intermittent, dynamic, and skilled movements. Preplanned agility skills are closed skills and have no temporal or spatial uncertainty. Reactive skills, also known as open skills, have temporal and spatial uncertainty and are designed to mimic play in sports. Recognizing the development of adolescent athletes while challenging them in these skills are important. Sufficient research is not present to endorse current agility training for adolescents. To investigate two forms of agility training, preplanned and reactive protocols, and determine the effectiveness on 3 agility tests. 30 male adolescents (age 16.33 + 1.06; height 69.85 + 2.95 in; weight 154.51 + 22.23 lbs) participated in 1 of 3 treatment groups: 1) Control Group; 2) Preplanned Protocol; 3) Reactive Protocol. The three agility tests were the T-test, Illinois Agility test, and SPAD (Speed and Agility Drill). Subjects pre-tested on each agility test and then divided into 3 groups based upon performance to equate scores for all 3 groups. Agility protocols were performed on 2 non-consecutive days per week for 6 weeks. Subjects performed a 10-minute warm-up followed by 4 agility drills with 3 repetitions at maximal intensity. Subjects post-tested on the agility tests at the completion of the 6 week program. A 2 (time) × 3 (group) repeated measures ANOVA was used to determine if differences existed between the agility tests. This study found that groups significantly improved their scores over time in the T-test (p = .009) and SPAD (p = .001) tests respectively. Refer to Table 1 for the means/standard deviations of the best time trials for each group. All three groups improved throughout the 6 week study. The limited experience of adolescents may affect cognitive improvements, and biomechanical changes may incur initially as seen in the overall improvement of time trials for the T-test and SPAD. The specific type of agility testing measures in this study may have confounded the results. More examination into specific reactive agility testing measures and adolescent training is needed. The utilization of preplanned or reactive agility training has shown improvements for adolescent athletes. Athletes may require longer periods of training for perceptible Central Nervous System adaptations and improvements to occur. Agility training, especially in adolescent athletics can be implemented to prevent injuries and assist in developing correct biomechanics and increase performance.Table 1. Mean of Best Time Trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]