Youth Narratives on Community Experiences and Sense of Community and Their Relation to Participation in an Early Childhood Development Program

Abstract

This comparative study examined how participation in an early childhood development (ECD) program, Better Beginnings, Better Futures, for children (ages 4-8) relates to sense of community (SOC) in later adolescence (ages 18-19). Youths’ stories (N = 96) about community experiences, collected by semistructured, open-ended interviews, were quantitatively coded for several narrative dimensions (specificity, positivity, prosocial content, and meaning-making) and for elements of SOC (membership, influence, needs fulfillment, and shared emotional connection). Findings show a significant positive relationship between all narrative dimensions and the total SOC score. Better Beginnings youths’ stories (n = 64) were significantly higher on specificity and shared emotional connection than comparison youth (n = 32). Findings have implications for community-based ECD programs to impact later adolescence SOC and for using narratives to study these effects.

Keywords

sense of community community participation narratives prevention and promotion early childhood development programs adolescent identity

Psychological sense of community (SOC) is an important aspect of positive youth development. It is related to adolescent identity development (Obst & White, 2005), community involvement (Kegler et al., 2005), and intention to stay in a community (Pretty, Bramston, Patrick, & Pannach, 2006). While a central aspect of SOC is how individuals make meaning of community experiences, it is not solely a psychological phenomenon. Research shows that environmental factors such as shared activities with parents and connections to school can influence SOC during adolescence (Duke, Skay, Pettingell, & Borowsky, 2009). Few studies, however, have examined how early childhood experiences can influence experiences of SOC in later adolescence. Also rare in the SOC literature are comparative studies of multiple communities, as most studies have examined SOC in one context. The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of an early childhood development (ECD) program, Better Beginnings, Better Futures, on SOC through adolescents’ stories about community experiences using a comparison group, and to examine the relationship between the narrative dimensions of those stories and elements of SOC.

SOC

SOC has been defined as “the sense that one is part of a readily available, mutually supportive network of relationships” (Sarason, 1974, p. 1). It is particularly important for individuals and communities because “it is only through a shared SOC that the creative potential of the individual and the community will reach expression” (Sarason, 1974, pp. 158-159). While there is no universally accepted theory of SOC, there is widespread acknowledgment that it is a multidimensional phenomenon involving a sense of attachment to geographical or relational communities, that people belong to multiple communities simultaneously with some having more importance than others (Brodsky, Loomis, & Marx, 2002), and that SOC involves processes of meaning-making of community experiences (McMillan & Chavis, 1986).

Various conceptualizations of the dimensions that comprise SOC have been proposed. Currently, a widely cited conceptualization includes geographical and relational communities and consists of four elements: membership (personal investments and common symbol systems that engender identification and belonging), influence (bidirectional yielding between a community and an individual), integration and fulfillment of need (exchange of tangible and intangible assets between members), and emotional connection (sharing history or identity; McMillan & Chavis, 1986).

A number of studies suggest that SOC plays a significant role in adolescent development and well-being. One study of SOC among 13- and 18-year-olds found that neighborhood and school SOC were significantly related to loneliness and subjective well-being (Pretty, Conroy, Dugay, Fowler, & Williams, 1996). In another study, adolescents’ involvement in formal groups was associated with increased SOC, and SOC was associated with increased social well-being (Albanesi, Cicognani, & Zani, 2007). SOC has also been found to serve as a protective factor against the development of social and emotional problems associated with experiences of family violence in childhood (Greenfield & Marks, 2010). Most studies appear to examine SOC in one context. Although one study compared individuals’ meanings of community across two communities to which he or she belonged (Loomis, McEvoy, Adamson, Friesen, & Quiring, 2011), we found no published studies that compared SOC among youth in two neighborhoods.

Narratives

Narrative psychologists postulate that people use stories to make sense of their experiences and to create a sense of meaning, unity, and purpose in their lives (McAdams, 2001). Stories also capture the complex interactions between individuals and their communities. Studies show that the way people tell life stories has important implications for SOC (Mankowski & Rappaport, 2000), identity development (McAdams, 2001), and community involvement (Lawford, Pratt, Hunsberger, & Pancer, 2005).

Narrative researchers use a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to study stories. A growing body of scholarship has focused on the study of autobiographical accounts of situated stories (including episodic and self-defining memories), which consist of personal memories of specific situations, told to specific audiences, for specific goals (McLean, Pasupathi, & Pals, 2007). Current theory and empirical evidence suggest that situated stories play a major role in the development of the self through past experiences—individuals choose to tell situated stories that have some importance to the self, and that often represent recurring themes in the life story and personality. Researchers have analyzed stories for dimensions such as content, structure, tone, specificity, and meaning-making, and found them to be associated with various measures of identity (McLean & Pratt, 2006), psychological functioning (Blagov & Singer, 2004), and community involvement (e.g., Lawford et al., 2005).

Narratives play an important role in facilitating a SOC. Mankowski and Rappaport (2000) suggest that narratives are markers of SOC that can define group membership, promote collective identity, and preserve information about how to belong to a community. For example, in a qualitative study of a campus ministry for university students, Mankowski and Thomas (2000) found that the shared narrative of the ministry group allowed students to develop a common sense of values and SOC, and that students incorporated the shared narrative into their personal life stories as a way to cope with being away from home, and to reshape their personal identities and experience personal growth. Sonn and Fisher (1998) have explored how oppressed people of color have used narratives to foster a SOC and resist oppression by reframing dominant cultural narratives.

While a number of researchers have used narrative methods to study adolescent SOC (e.g., Evans, 2007; Sonn, Bishop, & Drew, 1999), few have examined the relationship between narrative dimensions and SOC elements. Using narrative methods to explore how adolescents make meaning of their community experiences provides a novel way of exploring SOC and the long-term impacts of childhood experiences such as ECD programs.

ECD Programs and Adolescent SOC

ECD programs have typically focused on the promotion of academic achievement and social-emotional functioning in the short term and the prevention of problems in living (e.g., school dropout, involvement with the criminal justice system) in the long term. Recent reviews of ECD program evaluations suggest that ECD programs achieve sustained effects over follow-up periods, and also result in cost savings (Lesesne, Loomis, & Petrunka, 2010).

One limitation of the ECD research is that there are few studies that have followed children through late adolescence. Those that have followed youth into their late teen-age years or early adult years include the Abecedarian Project (Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002), the Mother–Child Home Program (Levenstein, Levenstein, Shiminski, & Stolzberg, 1998), the Perry Preschool Program (Berrueta-Clement, Schweinhart, Barnett, Epstein, & Weikart, 1984), the Chicago Child–Parent Centers (Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001), and the Better Beginnings, Better Futures program (Peters et al., 2010). While these studies have shown positive impacts of ECD programs on a variety of adolescent outcomes, including community participation (Janzen, Pancer, Nelson, Loomis, & Hasford, 2010), none have examined their impact on how adolescents experience a SOC.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this study is to explore how youth make meaning of their relationship with their communities. Toward this end, we examine the impact of an ECD program on the types of stories that youth tell about their communities. We reason that ECD programs may lead to more positive stories about community and SOC when the child participants become adolescents. The specific research questions follow:

Research Question 1: How do the narrative dimensions of youths’ community stories relate to SOC elements in their stories?

Research Question 2: Do youth who participated in Better Beginnings ECD programs have more positive community stories than youth from comparison communities?

Research Question 3: Do youth who participated in Better Beginnings programs tell community stories with greater SOC than youth from comparison communities?

Method

This study was part of a larger longitudinal study of individuals who participated in the Better Beginnings, Better Futures initiative (Pancer, Nelson, Hasford, & Loomis, 2012). For the current study, two designs were used. First, we used a one-group design to explore the relationships between narrative dimensions and SOC elements across all youth (i.e., those who participated in Better Beginnings and those who did not). The second type of design used was a two-group comparison with one group of youth who had participated in Better Beginnings and a comparison group of youth who had not participated in this particular intervention. This design included three Better Beginnings sites (k = 3) and two matched comparison sites (k = 2).

Better Beginnings Model, Sites, and Programs

Better Beginnings, Better Futures is a 25-year research demonstration project with the goals of preventing problems in young children, promoting positive development and well-being, and enhancing the ability of disadvantaged families and communities to provide for their children. Using census data the Ontario government selected geographical communities that had household incomes below the provincial average and invited them to complete a proposal to compete for the opportunity to be a Better Beginnings demonstration site. Criteria for selection were based on resident participation and local service provider engagement and commitment to Better Beginnings’ principals of a community-driven initiative. There are three Better Beginnings sites in Ontario that focus on children aged 4 to 8: Sudbury, Cornwall, and Highfield (a neighborhood in Toronto). After the demonstration sites were selected, the demonstration research team chose two other neighborhoods in Ontario that were similar in economic and community characteristics to the communities receiving the intervention; the designated comparison sites are Ottawa-Vanier and Etobicoke (Toronto).

The key features of Better Beginnings are that it is (a) ecological, with strategies seeking to impact children, their families, and their communities; (b) universal, in that all children and families living in a community are eligible to take part in the programs; (c) integrated with schools and other community services; and (d) community driven, involving local residents in program planning and delivery. Programming at each site was designed to meet the same major project goals and included child, family, parent, and community programs. However, the programs offered in each of the sites varied considerably based on the needs and preferences of community residents in three cities.

Cornwall

Cornwall is a medium-sized city in eastern Ontario. At baseline, 68% of children in the research cohort were from Francophone families and 24% were from single-parent families. The average monthly household income was $3,000, and 15% of parents had university degrees. Much of the Better Beginnings budget in Cornwall was devoted to school-based activities, including a full-time facilitator based in each of the four schools that participated in Better Beginnings. Community-focused programs included activities for children and families during school breaks and activities designed to promote the French language and the Francophone heritage of the community.

Highfield

Highfield is an ethnically diverse community in the northwest part of metropolitan Toronto. According to the 1996 census, 60% of the population of this area was made up of newcomers to Canada, with the largest groups being those from India and the Caribbean. Employment rates and the mean family income in this area have historically been lower than provincial averages. The Highfield project took place in a single school with roughly 1,000 students. All programming took place on school premises, including in-school, before- and after-school, and holiday activities for children, parent groups, and community celebrations. Highfield had a full-time community development coordinator and strongly emphasized resident participation in all aspects of the project. As well, there was a school-wide social skills program, which incorporated a community service component.

Sudbury

With a population of approximately 165,000, Sudbury is the largest city in northern Ontario. Of the 1,473 children enrolled in the elementary schools in the project’s catchment area at the beginning of the project, 48% were from Anglophone families, 38% from Francophone families, and 14% from families with another primary language. Approximately 300 were of Aboriginal descent. In addition, the neighborhoods in which the project was situated had problems with high crime rates, poor quality housing, low incomes, and few job opportunities. The Sudbury project proposal originated with a group that came together through the Native Friendship Center. Moreover, the Sudbury site emphasized community development and placed a high priority on building community leadership and community-based initiatives, including community kitchens, community gardens, and environmental enhancement projects. As well, nearly 60% of the Better Beginnings budget in Sudbury was devoted to before- and after-school and holiday programs.

Participants

Participants in this study comprised a subsample of youth from the larger Better Beginnings research sample. All youth were 4 to 8 years old when they participated in Better Beginnings, and were between ages 18 and 19 at the time of data collection. The subsample (n = 96) was selected using a stratified random sampling strategy, with stratification by site and gender. The resulting sample included youth who had participated in Better Beginnings (n = 64) and youth who lived in comparison communities (n = 32), with a gender representation of 51 young men and 44 young women. Some participants (n = 19) were unable or unwilling to provide stories about community involvement. In such instances, interview responses were not coded completely and were excluded in some analyses, thereby resulting in a smaller sample in the findings.

Measures and Instruments

Data for this study were collected through quantitative coding of narrative interviews, using procedures described below (see Nelson et al., 2012, for a more complete description).

Narrative interviews

A semistructured narrative interview guide was used that included questions about participants’ community involvement, neighborhood experiences, and crime. The guide also contained probes to obtain concrete examples of youths’ report of events and perceptions. Interviews were conducted by site researchers who lived in the Better Beginnings and comparison communities. Site researchers were trained in qualitative interviewing by Better Beginnings investigators, who also provided ongoing feedback on interview quality. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The community involvement section of the interview guide consisted of 10 questions, including 2 questions asking youth to provide a personal story of community involvement. These latter two questions were used for this study: (a) Do you have groups of people or a community that you feel connected to, that you spend time with, that you do things for, and that does things for you? If so, what groups would those be? and (b) Tell me about a time when you were involved with one of those communities.

Coding

Community involvement stories were coded by investigators and trained research assistants for narrative dimensions and SOC elements.

Narrative dimensions

Community involvement stories were coded for four narrative dimensions that have been found to play important roles in psychological functioning, and have sound validity: specificity, positivity, prosocial content, and meaning-making (Blagov & Singer, 2004; McLean & Pratt, 2006). Interrater reliabilities were determined using Pearson correlations coefficients on scores between two independent raters of 20 narratives and were in the acceptable range (all Pearson’s r > .70) for all four narrative dimensions (for interpretation of interrater reliability see Barrett [2001]).

Positivity

The positivity of community stories was defined as the emotional tone, or affective quality, of the narrative’s event and of the narrator’s subjective response to the event. Positivity was assessed using a 7-point scale adapted from Blagov and Singer (2004) that ranged from 1 (very negative) through 4 (neutral or ambivalent) to 7 (very positive). Interrater reliability for positivity was .93.

Specificity

Community stories were coded for the degree of specificity, using a scale adapted from Blagov and Singer (2004). Specificity was defined as the level of descriptive detail and temporal specificity used in the narrative, and was assessed on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not specific) to 5 (very specific). Interrater reliability for the specificity scale was .74.

Prosocial content

Prosocial content referred to the extent to which events recounted by participants consisted of prosocial activities or behaviors (i.e., activities or behaviors that are considered to be generally beneficial to other people by a significant segment of society; Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder, 2005). Narratives were rated on a 3-point scale from 1 (not prosocial, for example, argument at work) to 2 (somewhat prosocial, for example, hanging out with friends) to 3 (prosocial, for example, volunteering). Interrater reliability for prosocial content scale was .85.

Meaning-making

Meaning-making was defined as the level of reflection and insight gained from the event described in the participant’s response (McLean & Pratt, 2006). The meaning-making code was a 4-point scale that ranged from 0 (no meaning reported) to 3 (insights). Interrater reliability for meaning-making was .84.

SOC elements

Community stories were coded for subdimensions of four major SOC elements using a coding protocol developed by investigators based on conceptualizations from McMillan and Chavis (1986) and Chipuer and Pretty (1999). The coding protocol specified guidelines for assessing the presence or absence of each subdimension of the four SOC elements in participants’ community stories. Coders read each community story in its entirety before coding, to understand the story’s context. Each story was then coded for the positive presence (score +1) or absence (score 0) of each subdimension. Each participant received a maximum score of +1 for each subdimension—multiple references to the same subdimension were assigned a score of +1 (for example, if a narrative included three references to themes of individual power, the narrative would receive a maximum score of a +1 for the individual power subdimension).

A total (sum) SOC score (range 0-17) was created by summing positive presence scores for all four elements of SOC. Interrater reliabilities for SOC were determined using Kappa coefficients on scores between two independent raters of 20 narratives. The Kappa values were high (within the range of 0.60 to 0.79; Landis & Koch, 1977) for the dimensions of needs fulfillment, influence, and shared emotional connection and moderate (from 0.40 to 0.59) for the membership dimension. Definitions for each element are as follows.

Membership

The membership element of SOC reflected stories emphasizing a sense of belonging or identification with the community (Kappa = .42, p < .05). Membership consisted of five subdimensions: (a) boundaries (events or reflections that define who is and is not a member of a group); (b) shared symbols (events or reflections that recognize the importance of shared symbols in supporting group membership); (c) personal investment (events or reflections that indicate the relevance of earning or maintaining the right to membership through personal investment or sacrifice, e.g., paying dues); (d) sense of belonging (events or reflections on the personal identification with the group or feeling of belonging, fitting in, or acceptance; and (e) emotional safety (events or reflections that indicate a supportive environment for safe expression of feelings and needs, development of intimacy). Participants received a score of +1 for each of these subdimensions if they talked about them in a positive way, for a maximum score of 5.

Influence

Stories were coded for influence when they emphasized the members’ ability to influence the community and/or the community’s ability to influence members (Kappa = .63, p < .005). Four subdimensions comprised the influence element: (a) individual power (member’s potential or actual influence on the group or its members, or a sense of personal agency gained through membership in the group); (b) group power (group’s influence over member(s)); (c) reciprocal power (mutual influence of the member on the group and of the group on member); and (d) collaborative power (group’s collaborative efforts to achieve a common goal). Participants received a score of +1 for each of these subdimensions if they talked about them in a positive way, for a maximum score of 4.

Needs fulfillment

The SOC element of needs fulfillment was reflected in stories that included an expectation or experience of instrumental needs being met by the resources or rewards they received through membership in the group (Kappa = .68, p < .005). Three subdimensions of need fulfillment were coded: (a) contribution (member contributes valued resources or support to other members in the group); (b) rewards (member gains rewards through participation in the community; and (c) exchange (members exchange valued resources or support). Participants received a score of +1 for each of these subdimensions if they talked about them in a positive way, for a maximum score of 3.

Emotional connection

Stories were coded for emotional connection when they emphasized one of five subdimensions of affective attachment to a community (Kappa = .69, p < .005): (a) shared experience (shared events of importance to those involved as the basis for emotional connection); (b) fun (fun as basis for emotional connection, through play, or other forms of informal social interaction); (c) place attachment (story emphasizes emotional attachment to the physical environment or history of a community); (d) personal experience (emotional connection to community is grounded in personal event of importance to the individual, but not necessarily to the group); and (e) faith (spiritual belief as a basis for emotional connection to the community). Participants received a score of +1 for each of these subdimensions if they talked about them in a positive way, for a maximum score of 5.

Analysis

To address the first research question, Pearson correlations were calculated between narrative dimensions and SOC elements. The second and third research questions regarding cross-site differences in positivity of community involvement stories and SOC elements between youth in Better Beginnings and comparison communities were analyzed with ANOVAs. Scores for participants who reported no community involvement (n = 19) were excluded from the analyses.

Findings

Research Question 1: How Do the Narrative Dimensions of Youths’ Community Stories Relate to SOC in Their Stories?

The types of community involvement that were reported by youth include the following: employment (18%), recreation (11%), helping-neighboring (10%), socializing (7%), volunteering (7%), religion (6%), extra-curricular youth development program (5%), community service (4%), and other (10%). Another 20% did not report on community involvement. Table 1 summarizes the correlations between narrative dimensions and SOC elements. Significant correlations were found between SOC elements and narrative dimensions. The SOC elements of influence and needs fulfillment and the total SOC score showed the highest correlations with the narrative dimensions, with all but 1 of these 12 correlations reaching statistical significance.

Table 1.

Correlations of Narrative Dimensions and SOC Elements.

	SOC elements (n = 96)
Narrative dimensions	Membership	Influence	Needs fulfillment	Emotional connection	SOC total
Specificity	.00	.35**	.05	.20(*)	.25*
Positivity	.21(*)	.23*	.42**	.00	.35*
Prosocial content	.18	.26*	.29*	−.02	.29*
Meaning-making	.20(*)	.48**	.32*	.00	.41**

Note. SOC = sense of community.

(*)p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01.

Research Question 2. Do Youth Who Participated in Better Beginnings ECD Programs Have More Positive Community Stories Than Youth From Comparison Communities?

Table 2 shows the results of ANOVAs comparing narrative dimension scores for youth from all Better Beginnings communities (n = 53) with those from comparison communities (n = 26). The only significant difference between groups was in specificity. Better Beginnings youths’ stories had significantly higher specificity (M = 3.11, SD = 1.28) compared with youth from comparison communities (M = 2.27, SD = 1.12), F(1, 78) = 8.22, p < .005. The effect size for this difference was large (.69). No other differences between groups were found. An example of a high-specificity story from a Better Beginnings youth follows, which contains a detailed account of a specific time-bound event:

At work all of us cashiers and some other people . . . got together and we raised money and did the [Relay Event]. We made posters, we made our own t-shirts, I still have the t-shirt . . . we made a banner [that said] “(cancer) doesn’t sleep, neither does [workplace name]” . . . And like we did the [Relay] and raised over like $5000 and yea . . . it was awesome . . . we walked maybe 23 hours, the last hours [one girl] is like “ok I can’t do this anymore,” but ya, she did it, she did a good job too . . . the reason why is cause there’s a girl at our work, her moms had breast cancer and everything and she like lost her hair . . . and she’s the one that put it together cause her mum’s a cancer survivor, so [Hilary] like I’m going to do it for your mum and she did and she spent the day and took the day off work too . . . I go out a lot with the girls from work. We try to get everyone one, we’ll go play bowling, get a little drink you know, sometime we go out for supper, so I find we’re really close, everybody at [workplace name] is very close, that’s why I like my, that’s why I like where I work you know. I love to work everyday.

Table 2.

Means and Standard Deviations of Narrative Dimensions and SOC Elements for Community Involvement Stories by Better Beginnings Sites and Comparison Sites.

			BBBF	Comparison
		F value (effect size)	M (SD)	M (SD)
	Range	(df)	(n)	(n)
Narrative dimensions
Prosocial content	1-3	ns	1.79 (0.86)	1.77 (0.82)
Prosocial content	1-3	ns	(n = 53)	(n = 26)
Specificity	1-5	8.22*** (0.69)	3.11 (1.28)	2.27 (1.12)
Specificity	1-5	(1, 78)	(n = 53)	(n = 26)
Positivity	1-7	ns	4.92 (1.81)	4.50 (1.77)
Positivity	1-7	ns	(n = 53)	(n = 26)
Meaning-making	0-3	ns	1.34 (1.02)	0.96 (0.96)
Meaning-making	0-3	ns	(n = 53)	(n = 26)
SOC elements
Membership	0-5	ns	0.75 (1.02)	0.80 (0.91)
Membership	0-5	ns	(n = 51)	(n = 25)
Influence	0-4	ns	0.51 (0.76)	0.40 (0.91)
Influence	0-4	ns	(n = 51)	(n = 25)
Needs fulfillment	0-3	ns	0.69 (0.93)	09.64 (0.70)
Needs fulfillment	0-3	ns	(n = 51)	(n = 25)
Emotional connection	0-5	3.83*** (0.47)	1.12 (1.05)	0.64 (0.95)
Emotional connection	0-5	(1, 75)	(n = 51)	(n = 25)
Total SOC	0-17	ns	3.06 (2.27)	2.48 (1.85)
Total SOC	0-17	ns	(n = 51)	(n = 25)

Note. SOC = sense of community; BBBF = Better Beginnings, Better Futures; ns = not significant.

***

p < .005.

Stories of low specificity tended to refer to general experiences rather than specific events, and contained fewer detailed descriptions. An example of a low-specificity story from a youth from a comparison community follows:

. . . I work. I get along really well with people there . . . I get along with them I just don’t feel that I can related to them. Nobody at my age at work has gone through what I have gone through. So I can’t be like you know how it feels right. They are just not there . . . Although I still play floor hockey at the community center which is where I used to- pretty much the staff that runs it remembers me. Like oh my god he has grown up, he was drawing on paper and now he is playing hockey . . . It feels good that they remember me. Like I said I am a familiar face in there. That is what community is right, everybody knows each other in that neighborhood.

Research Question 3. Do Youth Who Participated in Better Beginnings Programs Tell Community Stories With Greater SOC Than Youth From Comparison Communities?

Table 2 also presents the results of the ANOVA tests on the SOC elements comparing youth from Better Beginnings with youth from comparison communities. We found that youth from Better Beginnings sites tend to tell stories with a greater emphasis on emotional connection than youth from comparison communities, F(1, 75) = 3.83, p < .005. The effect size was moderate (.47). This was the only significant difference.

Discussion

The Relationship Between Narrative Dimensions and SOC

Perhaps the strongest findings of this study were the correlations between narrative dimensions and SOC. These findings are consistent with previous research that has found stories to be a significant means through which individuals make meaning of community experiences and SOC (Mankowski & Rappaport, 2000; Pancer & Pratt, 1999). Given that the integration of the four SOC elements into autobiographical accounts appears to be strongly related to narrative dimensions associated with identity construction, the findings also build on previous studies that demonstrate SOC’s critical role in the construction of identity within community contexts (e.g., Obst & White, 2005). The finding that correlations were strongest between narrative dimensions and the SOC element of influence may underscore the importance of voice and agency in integrating community experience into the narrative identity of adolescents, which has been found in previous research (Evans, 2007).

Early Intervention and Specificity of Youths’ Community Stories

The Better Beginnings, Better Futures ECD program seems to have had some positive impact on participants’ community stories during adolescence. Youth from Better Beginnings communities told more specific stories than youth from comparison communities. One possible explanation may be that Better Beginnings youth developed story-telling skills more so than comparison sites. This explanation may carry some weight because Better Beginnings children have performed significantly better than comparison children on some academic outcomes. This finding may also reflect, in part, the positive impact of Better Beginnings on youth’s overall levels of community participation (Janzen et al., 2010). Alternatively, it may be that Better Beginnings youths’ experiences within the community during childhood were qualitatively richer than youth not in the program and this difference provided the material for youth to describe their community experiences in more detail. Blagov and Singer (2004) found that people who tell stories in a vivid and detailed way (i.e., with specificity) are less defensive than people who provide more vague global accounts, and the findings of Better Beginnings sites having more specificity than comparison sites is consistent with the positive mental health findings in Better Beginnings. While Better Beginnings youth scored higher than youth from comparison communities on the narrative dimensions of prosocial content, positivity, and meaning-making, none of these differences were statistically significant.

Early Intervention and SOC in Youths’ Stories

Better Beginnings youth expressed a stronger emotional connection with their community than comparison youth in their community stories. Emotional connection is an important element of SOC and has been shown to be a powerful determinant of people’s involvement with their communities. Findings in the current study are consistent with previous Better Beginnings research that has found Better Beginnings children have more positive mental health outcomes than comparison children. The sense of emotional connection reported by youth is an aspect of SOC that is particularly important in influencing well-being and the likelihood of young people’s future participation in community life. Youth often report that the sense of connection they form through volunteering is one of their most powerful life experiences, making them want to stay involved with the community organizations with which they have worked (Pancer & Pratt, 1999).

Statistically significant differences between Better Beginnings and comparison youth were not observed with regard to membership, influence, and needs fulfillment. However, a qualitative analysis indicates that statements relating to these themes were much less prominent in the youths’ narratives, suggesting that they were not as salient as the themes relating to emotional connection.

An unexpected finding is that employment was the most frequently described type of community experience (18%), based on participants’ self-generated responses to open-ended interview questions. The frequency of employment stories is striking and a relatively new finding in the SOC literature, with the exception of Pretty and colleagues (2006). There are several possible interpretations of youths connecting employment with community in their stories. It may be that youths’ SOC led them to choose work in the community and that staying in the community reinforced their SOC. Conversely, finding work in the community may have kept them local, which allowed more time for them to deepen (or maintain) their SOC. This finding may highlight the importance of employment in identity development during adolescence, as it marks the transition to adulthood, and the exploration and adoption of new roles (Porfeli & Lee, 2012). Participants may have selected workplace stories about community given the salience of employment during their developmental stage. The finding may also reflect a larger than expected influence of the workplace on how adolescents experience a general SOC. Although there appears to be little research that has explicitly explored the relationship between work and SOC, some scholars suggest that workplaces are becoming increasingly important sources of social capital and community connection (e.g., Estlund, 2003). Studies have found that employment is a particularly important source of community for individuals of marginalized groups, such as ethnic groups (McLaughlin & Jesilow, 1998) and rural youth (Pretty et al., 2006). As youth in this study were from disadvantaged neighborhoods, employment may have been an important part of their SOC. Future research should explore explicitly the meaning of work and its relation to community involvement and SOC.

Limitations and Future Research

A significant limitation in this study is that a notable proportion (20%) of youth participants did not tell a story. This may be attributed in part to research fatigue, because the participants and their families have participated several times in this research project during the past 19 years and may have been less motivated to narrate detailed stories about their communities. However, participation in research was even across the intervention and comparison sites so the level of research fatigue, if present, would be similar. Future research could address research fatigue through additional training to site researchers on interviewing reticent participants.

Another limitation is that some of the correlations between narrative and SOC dimensions may have been strengthened because a similar method was used to code open-ended text into the two variables. For example, if someone said that their community involvement fulfilled one’s needs, this would probably be stated in a positive way. Mankowski and Rappaport (2000) raise similar concerns about the breadth of the SOC concept. Future research may address this limitation through the collection and analysis of a wider set of data, including more detailed qualitative data specifically about SOC, and measures to enable more robust assessment of the validity of the narrative SOC measure.

Conclusion

Involvement in ECD programs during the first years of schooling may impact individuals’ experiences of SOC during adolescence. Youth who participated in the Better Beginnings ECD program told stories about community experiences with greater detail (i.e., specificity) and more SOC emotional connection than youth from comparison communities. Findings from the study also suggest that SOC is a central aspect of the way in which adolescents make meaning out of their community involvement experiences, and integrate those experiences into their identities. In designing ECD programs using a community based approach that engages parents, community members, schools and other social service agencies may act as a protective factor against adolescents losing a SOC and may increase community involvement.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the youth research participants, site researchers who conducted the interviews (Natalie Bourget, Charlene Burnside, Andre Clement, and Tina D’Souza), and research assistants who helped with coding the data (Katie Cook, Alexandra Miciak, John Kyeremeh, and Lisa Armstrong).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was made possible by funding from the National Crime Prevention Centre, Department of Public Safety Canada.

Author Biographies

Julian Hasford is a community psychologist with interests in intervention and engagement of marginalized youth and community food systems. He is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University’s PhD program in community psychology.

Colleen Loomis’ research investigates how the interaction between schools and communities impact early childhood care and education. From this research with multi-cultural urban cities and rural mono-cultural settings she is working with new models to support the relationship between schools and communities. This work will help to promote positive child development. Dr. Loomis is an associate professor of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada.

Geoffrey Nelson is professor of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. Professor Nelson was the recipient of the Harry MacNeill award for innovation in community mental health from the American Psychological Foundation and the Society for Community Research and Action of the American Psychological Association in 1999 and the award for Distinguished Contributions to Theory and Research in Community Psychology from the Society for Community Research and Action in 2013.

S. Mark Pancer is professor of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario. His primary research interests are in community involvement, volunteering and social activism among youth, and in the evaluation of community-based prevention programs.

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