Exploring the voices of the 'Glenview' neighborhood: An ecological approach to studying at -risk youth, recreation, and community social organization

The purpose of this interpretive study was to explore the voices of the ecological agents that directly and indirectly affected the at-risk youth of "Glenview," a low-resource neighborhood and to gain various perspectives of the phenomenon and multi-level processes that involved the establishment and discontinuation of a community organization effort to have structured recreation programs provided for the resident youth. Two theoretical frameworks surrounding the ecological systems approach and community social organization were used to guide the study. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviewing as the primary source of data collection, 21 participants including parents from Glenview; local church members; members from the university's recreation department; city parks and recreation personnel; a former mayor and city commissioner; police officers assigned to Glenview; neighborhood residents; and the local elementary school principal were asked to reflect upon issues concerning the neighborhood, the local park, recreation, the at-risk youth, and collaboration. Four major themes encompassing perceptions of the neighborhood environment, despondence, parental conditions, and parental involvement in community organization were constructed from the transcribed data using constant comparison as the method of analysis. Such analysis led to the construction of institutional-anomie, trust, and hope as grounded theory. Practical implications involved recreation as a means for community development in low-resource neighborhoods. At-risk youth and their parents/families remained the centralized area to which all these concepts connected.