Thomas Akiva
Biographic Data
| ID | 4395650 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Akiva |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Akiva |
| SIGNATURE | AKIVA T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pittsburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1872-0316 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 93 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Empathy in an ecosystem: A longitudinal study examining contributions of summer camp and school experiences to empathy during early adolescence
This study utilized data from a national longitudinal study of 277 early adolescent summer camp participants to examine the iterative links between youths' experiences in two contexts – summer camp and school – and empathy over two years. Using a cross-lagged panel model, the authors examined how the quality of youths' developmental experiences within each context, defined as a combination of supportive relationships and engaged learning opportun…
STEM “On-the-Job”: The Role of Summer Youth Employment Programs in the STEM Learning Ecosystem
Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) operate in most major U.S. cities and are known to build social–emotional and job skills in youth while reducing crime. Integrating STEM learning and summer employment offers a promising way to increase youth engagement in STEM—and allow leaders to access funding not typically used for education. Using a connected learning framework, we examined how STEM-focused SYEPs support STEM pathways, the practices t…
Arts Learning Across a City: How Ecosystem Thinking Helps Shape Understanding of Black-Centered and Eurocentric Arts Programming
Given historical patterns of unequal access to arts education, we used an ecosystem perspective to investigate Black Centered Arts and Eurocentric Arts in a mid-sized U.S. city, with a focus on youth programs, museums, and other youth arts organizations. We found that practitioner-leaders valued arts quality, equitable access, community embeddedness, and cultural preservation. Programs that provided access to Eurocentric arts tended to be older, …
Youth Development Staff Experiences During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Methods Study
The Promise of Building Equitable Ecosystems for Learning
Children and youth learn across settings; however, U.S. educational practice and policy frequently equates learning with formal schooling. This perspective overlooks the growth in structured out-of-school learning programs and the opportunities they provide for addressing educational inequities for marginalized students. In this article, we link the literatures on out-of-school time and educator expertise with historical and contemporary understa…
The Seek & Share Resources Tool: Measuring a Learning Practice of Making
The maker movement has grown rapidly in educational contexts during the past decade. The field now needs valid, reliable measurement tools to capture learning that occurs in maker-based activities. In this study, facilitators and researchers from five organizations engaged in a codesign process to develop a tool measuring how learners seek and share resources while making. We describe our process of collaboratively developing, testing, and revisi…
Simple Interactions: A randomized controlled trial of relational training for adults who work with young people across settings
Research across multiple fields finds that adult-youth relationships are key influencers of development; however, professional learning about relational practice is limited. This suggests the need for targeted, efficient ways to help adults improve relational practice. We present a randomized controlled trial of Simple Interactions, a strength-based professional development approach during which participants reflect on short videos of themselves …
Training pre-service teachers to better serve LGBTQ high school students
Pre-service teachers rarely receive training on how best to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) high school students. We tested whether participating in LGBTQ-focused service-based learning or LGBTQ-focused didactic training improved pre-service teachers' knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, and skills for serving LGBTQ high school students more than a control group. A non-randomised pre-test-post-test design with eighty-…
Facilitated Making in Museum‐Based Educational Makerspaces
The Maker Movement is on the rise and research shows that the ways educators facilitate making activities is a key element of supporting children’s learning and development in this setting. As a field, we need to better understand how educators and children interact in makerspaces and the context that surrounds facilitation. In this study, we describe a research‐practice partnership between 11 museum educators and 4 researchers. Over two years, p…
Learning in the library: A national study of youth services public library workers
AIMS: This study aims to interrogate the occupational identity of youth services public library workers across the United States and to understand specifically how this study is related to the learning ecosystem. Public library workers, especially those who work specifically with youth, are underrepresented in academic literature. METHOD: We adapted an interview method that allows participants to explain how they think different stakeholders perc…
Opportunity gaps in out-of-school learning: How structural and process features of programs relate to race and socioeconomic status
Out-of-school learning programs can be a context for positive development and learning for children and youth. However, research points to potential racial and socioeconomic disparities, or opportunity gaps, in this context. In this study, we use survey and video data from 106 staff across 30 out-of-school programs to examine how three features, staff, activities, and adult–child interactions, differ based on the racial and socioeconomic makeup o…
And school won’t teach me that!’ Urban youth activism programs as transformative sites for critical adolescent learning
To challenge deficit discourses and victim narratives of youth marginalized due to their race, gender, class, age, and/or sexuality, child and youth service providers can build on young people’s agency by implementing creative, radical, and social-justice-oriented services. Youth activism programs offer such opportunities by supporting young people in understanding and working toward dismantling the marginalization they face. These programs can a…
What do you think youth workers do? A comparative case study of library and afterschool workers
You Never Know Who's Looking at Your Page!”: African American Male Adolescents’ Perceptions of Emotional Display Rules Online
Social network sites (SNSs) are a powerful new context for adolescent development. We qualitatively investigate African American adolescent boys' (N = 50, mean age = 15.8) perceptions of emotional display rules on SNSs. We present and discuss a taxonomy of display rules for anger, sadness, embarrassment, and excitement. Perceived display rules around anger and sadness were most notable. Participants' understandings of display rules around anger w…
Fostering distinct and transferable learning via summer camp
Motivating Political Participation Among Youth: An Analysis of Factors Related to Adolescents’ Political Engagement
Prior research has identified political efficacy and political interest as strong predictors of political participation, but few studies have examined these two attitudes in tandem or compared their relative importance vis‐à‐vis political participation. Drawing on the expectancy‐value model of motivation, we begin to address this research gap while also considering several related issues. Our sample includes a diverse group of high school student…
Are we ready for citywide learning? Examining the nature of within‐ and between‐program pathways in a community‐wide learning initiative
Learning and development occur over time across multiple settings both in‐ and out‐of‐school. However, educational programs have not been designed for coordination across settings. Successfully supporting community‐wide youth learning requires greater understanding of how youth may move between settings and the learning pathways available to them. We investigated this topic with data from the adult leaders of 17 programs that participated in a re…
Adolescent motivation to attend youth programs: A mixed-methods investigation
Research suggests that adolescents can benefit from participating in youth programs; however, recruitment and retention are challenging for many programs, and youth living in low-income, urban areas can be the hardest to reach. We investigated motivation to attend a neighborhood-based program for urban adolescents. Participants completed questionnaires (N = 141, M age = 16.6, 88% African American), and a subsample (n = 34) also participated in fa…
Growing with youth: A lifewide and lifelong perspective on youth-adult partnership in youth programs
Involving Youth in Program Decision-Making: How Common and What Might it Do for Youth
Motivating Political Participation Among Youth: An Analysis of Factors Related to Adolescents’ Political Engagement
Prior research has identified political efficacy and political interest as strong predictors of political participation, but few studies have examined these two attitudes in tandem or compared their relative importance vis‐à‐vis political participation. Drawing on the expectancy‐value model of motivation, we begin to address this research gap while also considering several related issues. Our sample includes a diverse group of high school student…
Involving Youth in Program Decision-Making: How Common and What Might it Do for Youth
And school won’t teach me that!’ Urban youth activism programs as transformative sites for critical adolescent learning
To challenge deficit discourses and victim narratives of youth marginalized due to their race, gender, class, age, and/or sexuality, child and youth service providers can build on young people’s agency by implementing creative, radical, and social-justice-oriented services. Youth activism programs offer such opportunities by supporting young people in understanding and working toward dismantling the marginalization they face. These programs can a…
Growing with youth: A lifewide and lifelong perspective on youth-adult partnership in youth programs
Fostering distinct and transferable learning via summer camp
The Promise of Building Equitable Ecosystems for Learning
Children and youth learn across settings; however, U.S. educational practice and policy frequently equates learning with formal schooling. This perspective overlooks the growth in structured out-of-school learning programs and the opportunities they provide for addressing educational inequities for marginalized students. In this article, we link the literatures on out-of-school time and educator expertise with historical and contemporary understa…
What do you think youth workers do? A comparative case study of library and afterschool workers
Are we ready for citywide learning? Examining the nature of within‐ and between‐program pathways in a community‐wide learning initiative
Learning and development occur over time across multiple settings both in‐ and out‐of‐school. However, educational programs have not been designed for coordination across settings. Successfully supporting community‐wide youth learning requires greater understanding of how youth may move between settings and the learning pathways available to them. We investigated this topic with data from the adult leaders of 17 programs that participated in a re…
Involving Youth in Program Decision-Making: How Common and What Might it Do for Youth
Adolescent motivation to attend youth programs: A mixed-methods investigation
Research suggests that adolescents can benefit from participating in youth programs; however, recruitment and retention are challenging for many programs, and youth living in low-income, urban areas can be the hardest to reach. We investigated motivation to attend a neighborhood-based program for urban adolescents. Participants completed questionnaires (N = 141, M age = 16.6, 88% African American), and a subsample (n = 34) also participated in fa…
Growing with youth: A lifewide and lifelong perspective on youth-adult partnership in youth programs
Are we ready for citywide learning? Examining the nature of within‐ and between‐program pathways in a community‐wide learning initiative
Learning and development occur over time across multiple settings both in‐ and out‐of‐school. However, educational programs have not been designed for coordination across settings. Successfully supporting community‐wide youth learning requires greater understanding of how youth may move between settings and the learning pathways available to them. We investigated this topic with data from the adult leaders of 17 programs that participated in a re…
You Never Know Who's Looking at Your Page!”: African American Male Adolescents’ Perceptions of Emotional Display Rules Online
Social network sites (SNSs) are a powerful new context for adolescent development. We qualitatively investigate African American adolescent boys' (N = 50, mean age = 15.8) perceptions of emotional display rules on SNSs. We present and discuss a taxonomy of display rules for anger, sadness, embarrassment, and excitement. Perceived display rules around anger and sadness were most notable. Participants' understandings of display rules around anger w…
Fostering distinct and transferable learning via summer camp
Motivating Political Participation Among Youth: An Analysis of Factors Related to Adolescents’ Political Engagement
Prior research has identified political efficacy and political interest as strong predictors of political participation, but few studies have examined these two attitudes in tandem or compared their relative importance vis‐à‐vis political participation. Drawing on the expectancy‐value model of motivation, we begin to address this research gap while also considering several related issues. Our sample includes a diverse group of high school student…
Opportunity gaps in out-of-school learning: How structural and process features of programs relate to race and socioeconomic status
Out-of-school learning programs can be a context for positive development and learning for children and youth. However, research points to potential racial and socioeconomic disparities, or opportunity gaps, in this context. In this study, we use survey and video data from 106 staff across 30 out-of-school programs to examine how three features, staff, activities, and adult–child interactions, differ based on the racial and socioeconomic makeup o…
And school won’t teach me that!’ Urban youth activism programs as transformative sites for critical adolescent learning
To challenge deficit discourses and victim narratives of youth marginalized due to their race, gender, class, age, and/or sexuality, child and youth service providers can build on young people’s agency by implementing creative, radical, and social-justice-oriented services. Youth activism programs offer such opportunities by supporting young people in understanding and working toward dismantling the marginalization they face. These programs can a…
What do you think youth workers do? A comparative case study of library and afterschool workers
Training pre-service teachers to better serve LGBTQ high school students
Pre-service teachers rarely receive training on how best to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) high school students. We tested whether participating in LGBTQ-focused service-based learning or LGBTQ-focused didactic training improved pre-service teachers' knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, and skills for serving LGBTQ high school students more than a control group. A non-randomised pre-test-post-test design with eighty-…
Facilitated Making in Museum‐Based Educational Makerspaces
The Maker Movement is on the rise and research shows that the ways educators facilitate making activities is a key element of supporting children’s learning and development in this setting. As a field, we need to better understand how educators and children interact in makerspaces and the context that surrounds facilitation. In this study, we describe a research‐practice partnership between 11 museum educators and 4 researchers. Over two years, p…
Learning in the library: A national study of youth services public library workers
AIMS: This study aims to interrogate the occupational identity of youth services public library workers across the United States and to understand specifically how this study is related to the learning ecosystem. Public library workers, especially those who work specifically with youth, are underrepresented in academic literature. METHOD: We adapted an interview method that allows participants to explain how they think different stakeholders perc…
The Seek & Share Resources Tool: Measuring a Learning Practice of Making
The maker movement has grown rapidly in educational contexts during the past decade. The field now needs valid, reliable measurement tools to capture learning that occurs in maker-based activities. In this study, facilitators and researchers from five organizations engaged in a codesign process to develop a tool measuring how learners seek and share resources while making. We describe our process of collaboratively developing, testing, and revisi…
Simple Interactions: A randomized controlled trial of relational training for adults who work with young people across settings
Research across multiple fields finds that adult-youth relationships are key influencers of development; however, professional learning about relational practice is limited. This suggests the need for targeted, efficient ways to help adults improve relational practice. We present a randomized controlled trial of Simple Interactions, a strength-based professional development approach during which participants reflect on short videos of themselves …
Youth Development Staff Experiences During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Methods Study
The Promise of Building Equitable Ecosystems for Learning
Children and youth learn across settings; however, U.S. educational practice and policy frequently equates learning with formal schooling. This perspective overlooks the growth in structured out-of-school learning programs and the opportunities they provide for addressing educational inequities for marginalized students. In this article, we link the literatures on out-of-school time and educator expertise with historical and contemporary understa…
Arts Learning Across a City: How Ecosystem Thinking Helps Shape Understanding of Black-Centered and Eurocentric Arts Programming
Given historical patterns of unequal access to arts education, we used an ecosystem perspective to investigate Black Centered Arts and Eurocentric Arts in a mid-sized U.S. city, with a focus on youth programs, museums, and other youth arts organizations. We found that practitioner-leaders valued arts quality, equitable access, community embeddedness, and cultural preservation. Programs that provided access to Eurocentric arts tended to be older, …
STEM “On-the-Job”: The Role of Summer Youth Employment Programs in the STEM Learning Ecosystem
Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) operate in most major U.S. cities and are known to build social–emotional and job skills in youth while reducing crime. Integrating STEM learning and summer employment offers a promising way to increase youth engagement in STEM—and allow leaders to access funding not typically used for education. Using a connected learning framework, we examined how STEM-focused SYEPs support STEM pathways, the practices t…
Empathy in an ecosystem: A longitudinal study examining contributions of summer camp and school experiences to empathy during early adolescence
This study utilized data from a national longitudinal study of 277 early adolescent summer camp participants to examine the iterative links between youths' experiences in two contexts – summer camp and school – and empathy over two years. Using a cross-lagged panel model, the authors examined how the quality of youths' developmental experiences within each context, defined as a combination of supportive relationships and engaged learning opportun…
Psychology (17 works) · Youth Development and Social Support (14 works) · Political science (12 works) · Developmental psychology (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Pedagogy (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Public relations (7 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (6 works)