Valaitis Ruta
School of Nursing, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Health Care Women Int. 2002 Apr-May;23(3):248-66. doi: 10.1080/073993302317346325.
The cornerstones of health promotion are the concepts of empowerment and community participation. There has been little research, however, on how these concepts are actualized within a youth population and even less from a gender perspective. Girls are socialized to be more compliant and cooperative; thus they feel less assertive to express themselves. The benefits of community participation, such as the development of personal identity and increased self-determination, may therefore be more important for girls' development. In this qualitative study I explored youth's perceptions about community, their ability to be heard, and their power to effect community change. Responses to focus groups and an on-line sentence completion exercise by 23 well-functioning, predominantly female (83%) youth, at an inner-city school in Canada, revealed that youth perceived that they were not heard and felt disempowered in the larger community. Three subthemes explain these threats to empowerment: "grown-ups run everything" (they had no actual decision-making power), "we're just kids" (they were low in the social hierarchy), and "they don't trust us" (they felt mutual mistrust of and by adults). Boys showed some evidence of feeling more empowered than girls. Boys and girls identified that they perceived they could make a difference, particularly in their school. Five themes of empowerment help to explain this perception, including, "adults who know us, trust us" (they were trusted by some adults), in school "they ask us what should we do" (they had some participation in decision making), "we can make a difference" (they felt self-efficacy), "we can do it as a group" (they had a belief in group action), and they could "get someone big so they would listen" (they demonstrated political efficacy). Implications for community health practitioners are discussed.
健康促进的基石是赋权和社区参与的理念。然而，关于这些理念如何在青年群体中得以实现的研究甚少，从性别视角进行的研究更是少之又少。女孩在社会化过程中被教导要更加顺从和合作，因此她们在表达自己时缺乏自信。社区参与的益处，比如个人身份认同的发展和自主决定权的增强，可能对女孩的发展更为重要。在这项定性研究中，我探讨了青少年对社区的看法、他们被倾听的能力以及他们影响社区变革的力量。加拿大一所市中心学校的23名功能良好、以女性为主（83%）的青少年对焦点小组和在线句子完成练习的回答显示，青少年认为在更大的社区中他们的声音未被倾听，且感到无权。三个子主题解释了这些对赋权的威胁：“成年人掌控一切”（他们没有实际决策权）、“我们只是孩子”（他们在社会等级中地位较低）以及“他们不信任我们”（他们感到与成年人相互不信任）。有证据表明男孩比女孩感觉更有权力。男孩和女孩都认为他们能够有所作为，尤其是在学校里。五个赋权主题有助于解释这种认知，包括“了解我们、信任我们的成年人”（他们得到一些成年人的信任）、在学校里“他们询问我们该怎么做”（他们有一定的决策参与权）、“我们能够有所作为”（他们有自我效能感）、“我们可以作为一个群体做到”（他们相信集体行动）以及他们能够“找来有影响力的人让其倾听”（他们展现出政治效能）。文中还讨论了对社区健康从业者的启示。
