Youth Development Insight

By Darcy Cole If you have worked in youth development for long, you probably have encountered at least one youth who seems “unique”. You might not know exactly why he or she is different, but you know for some reason she is. That something may be called autism.

By Rebecca Meyer Isis Wenger, creator of the #ILookLikeAnEngineer  campaign How do we engage women in productive science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers when stereotypes run so deep?  A recent ad campaign by a company recruiting engineers ignited a social media dialogue about sexism in the tech industry and what people believe engineers should look like.  One of the ads featured a female engineer, which elicited sexist comments in social media.

By Joanna Tzenis Many young people aspire to go to college, but there’s a gap between aspirations for higher education and actually enrolling. This is an important gap to address because lower levels of educational attainment are associated with higher levels of poverty. Here are the numbers: In the U.S. in 2011, a higher percentage of young adults without a high school diploma (31 percent) were living in poverty than those who had completed high school (24 percent) and those who had earned a bachelor’s or higher degree (14 percent) (U.S. Department of Education, 2011).