Journal of Adolescent Research

The aim of this article is to report lessons learned from feasibility challenges faced in a mixed-methods study designed to test the feasibility of measuring recovery in participants of an Alternative Peer Group (APG). The APG integrates pro-recovery peers and social activities into clinical practice to engage adolescents in recovery. Though well established, APGs have never been tested. This study was one phase in a line of research that aims to develop an APG evidence base. The study used a mixed-methods design and naturalistic sampling of participants of one APG program. Repeated measures analysis with linear mixed models was planned to test the hypothesis that spending time in the APG builds recovery capital, resulting in progress in the processes of recovery, and improved symptoms. Semistructured interviews were conducted and framework analysis was used to explore feasibility challenges. Recruitment and retention challenges precluded meaningful measurement of change over time in recovery. Lessons learned from qualitative findings informed multiple strategies for revisions to strengthen future study protocols. Recruitment and retention of adolescents are common challenges that can threaten a study’s validity. Researchers seeking to recruit and retain adolescents with SUD in longitudinal studies may benefit from strategies derived from this study.

In this article we explore how individual expressions of agency are shaped by structural factors and exercised by Black African girls with child sexual abuse (CSA) histories as they navigate resilience pathways. We employed a qualitative multiple instrumental case study design and purposefully recruited seven Black African girls, between the ages of 15 and 18 years, with a history of CSA. Participants were engaged in a range of participatory methods that included participatory diagramming (time lines), digital stories, and participatory videos. Data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Findings highlight how agency, as a process of resilience, manifested as well as how these agentic expressions were activated, bound, and later reciprocated and sustained by the surrounding social structures.

This qualitative study focuses on blogs written by Israeli girls, aged 14 to 18, concerning their body and the developmental process of identity construction. Using a sociocultural approach, the study examined the ways in which the girls write about their bodies, what issues they raise in their blogs concerning their body and identity, and what blog writing about the body offers to them in the process of identity construction. A combination of thematic-categorical analysis and structural-linguistic analysis was used to analyze 27 blogs (86 posts) written by Israeli girls. The findings reveal a complex picture about the ways in which girls experience their bodies and perceive societal norms concerning their appearance. The blogs included the girls’ feelings of insecurity, stress, and confusion about their body and at the same time served as a place where girls were able to voice resistance to the current ideal of beauty and of social conventions. Findings also reveal the ways in which the girls presented their body to their girl peers. The study concludes that writing blogs is an important channel for Israeli girls to engage in discourse about the body as part of the process of identity formation.

This article focuses on adolescents’ use of anonymous social networking sites (SNSs). Their perceptions and attitudes toward one such platform, Ask.fm, are discussed using the framework of uses and gratifications theory to explore motivations for using it. Four focus groups and four interviews were carried out with 22 Maltese adolescents (10 female and 12 male) aged 11 to 16 years. Thematic analysis of data collected was undertaken to identify and develop themes relevant to Ask.fm use. Findings indicate that the platform is a space where adolescents interact with others as part of their identity exploration. The role of anonymity was salient throughout. Ask.fm users were aware of the risks related to using the site; yet, the possibilities for fun, peer acceptance, and identity exploration may be driving them to experiment with this risky behavior. The implications arising from these exploratory findings may be applicable to other anonymous SNSs.

Repression in residential youth care institutions can manifest itself openly in coercive measures or may be concealed in staff behavior that is endemic to residential youth care, such as soft power and strict behavioral control (i.e., structure), which threatens rehabilitative goals and might even violate children’s rights. To increase awareness of particularly the more hidden aspects of repression, this qualitative study follows the framework method to examine processes that cause adolescents to experience repression. Semistructured interviews were conducted with an ethnic diverse sample of 32 adolescents from open, secure, and forensic (i.e., youth prisons) residential youth care institutions in the Netherlands. Results indicated that adolescents tend to accept structure, rules, coercion, and punishments, and that they expect staff to use their power to create order and safety. However, results also showed that restrictive measures may be approved by adolescents to cope with repression, taking the form of rationalization. Staff behavior perceived as unfair or excessive by the adolescents was conceived of as repressive. Respect for autonomy and providing treatment that is experienced as meaningful by the adolescents seem to decrease experienced repression.