Professor Van Ry

Much can be said about the lack of access to enrichment opportunities for youth growing up in urban, high-poverty neighborhoods. But what about all those after-school programs that few kids bother to attend, or that never get off the ground to begin with?

Anyone who knows a tween––of any economic bracket––knows how hard it is to keep his or her attention during those vulnerable, pivotal years between ages 10 and 13 when, suddenly, parents aren’t the only ones deciding what to do outside school anymore. Tweens can choose to spend their time in a myriad of ways, whether hanging out, texting, playing video games, shooting hoops or (psst, don’t tell anyone) doing homework. They care about nothing more than fitting in.

Our friends at the Wallace Foundation, seeking to engage low-income young people in the arts as a way of narrowing life opportunity gaps, commissioned a strategic marketing group to find out: What makes a program desirable to kids? <Read more.>

Via Sara Neufeld, Hechinger Report.