“That’s Why I Stay to Myself”: Marginalized Youth’s Meaning Making Processes of Social Disconnectedness

AbstractNearly 15% of youth in New Orleans have been labeled “socially disconnected” from formal educational and economic systems (Babineau et al. in No longer invisible: Opportunity youth in New Orleans,http://www.thecoweninstitute.com.php56-17.dfw3-1.websitetestlink.com/uploads/OY-Data-Guide-2016-Revised-FINAL-1506966101.pdf, 2016). Socially disconnected youth face barriers to social, psychological, and economic well-being (Mendelson et al. in Public Health Rep 133:54S –64S, 2018). While there has been attention to the detrimental impacts associated with isolation in adolescence, there is a limited examination of how social isolation manifests in the lives of disconnected youth in urban communities. Data were collected from six focus groups at three youth-servin g agencies in the urban south. Participants were aged 16–24 (n = 39), mixed gender, and the majority identified as African American. We utilized a thematic content analysis approach that involved multiple rounds of inductive coding. Youth reported an overarching theme of “staying to oneself’ or self-isolation. Youth constructed isolation as a complex cognitive and physical process utilized to stay safe from community and interpersonal violence. Self-isolation functioned as a tool of self-protection and as being essential to surviving and thriving amidst adversity. The consequences of s elf-isolation include perceptions that participants are alone to deal with life’s challenges and purposeful diseng...
Source: Clinical Social Work Journal - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research