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Instrumental relationships: A potential relational model for inner‐city youth programs
Author(s) -
Halpern Robert
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.20032
Subject(s) - psychology , identity (music) , task (project management) , youth work , developmental psychology , focus (optics) , social psychology , positive youth development , work (physics) , domain (mathematical analysis) , political science , public relations , management , mechanical engineering , mathematical analysis , physics , mathematics , acoustics , optics , economics , engineering
In this article, a distinct type of adult–youth relationship found in some youth programs and characterized as instrumental is discussed. Such relationships focus primarily on joint work on a task or project, or in a discipline, with the adult having expertise and a strong identity in the substantive domain involved, rather than in youth work per se. It is hypothesized that, by virtue of their matter‐of‐fact quality, their substantive focus, and their particular interactional patterns, instrumental relationships offer potential for some reworking of adolescents' sense of self. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 33: 11–20, 2005.