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Cool Girls, Inc.: Promoting the Positive Development of Urban Preadolescent and Early Adolescent Girls

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Abstract

The past two decades have seen a transformation in youth programming toward a comprehensive positive youth development (YD) framework. Cool Girls, Inc., a YD program, focuses on improving girls’ life chances by promoting positive behaviors and attitudes in multiple domains. These include self-concept, academic orientation, future orientation, and healthy behaviors. The present study uses a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent comparison group design to examine short-term effects of participation in Cool Girls, Inc. on multiple indicators of each of these domains. Participants were predominately African American and included 86 program participants and 89 comparisons in grades 4–8. Self-report questionnaires were administered at pretest (September–October) and posttest (April–May) of the 2005–2006 academic school year. We hypothesized that program participants would show improvements across domains of self-concept, academic orientation, future orientation, and healthy behavior. Relative to comparisons, program participants experienced gains in scholastic competence, hope for the future, and physical activity. Cool Girls participants with a mentor experienced significant gains in social acceptance and body image relative to other Cool Girls and were more than four times as likely to have expectations of avoiding drug use in the future. The role of mentoring as well as the study’s practical significance, strengths, and limitations are discussed.

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Notes

  1. We also computed intraclass correlations for each outcome to assess the extent of between site variability. These correlations were low, ranging from .00 to .06; thus, given the small number of sites and the relatively small sample size, we elected to not to account for clustering of youth within sites in the analysis.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for this research was provided by Cool Girls, Inc., the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, a Research Program Enhancement Award from the Georgia State University Research Foundation, and a Seed Grant for Social and Behavioral Sciences jointly awarded by the Georgia State University Research Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This research would not have been possible without the support of the staff at Cool Girls, Inc., and the insights of the girls served by it’s programs. Special thanks also to Rashida Whitley, Claudia Beltran, and Kelly Minor for their assistance in the preparation of this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Gabriel P. Kuperminc, Jessica Thomason & Michelle DiMeo

  2. EMSTAR Research, Inc., Atlanta, GA, USA

    Kimberley Broomfield-Massey

  3. Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 5010, Atlanta, GA, 30302, USA

    Gabriel P. Kuperminc

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  1. Gabriel P. Kuperminc
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  2. Jessica Thomason
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  3. Michelle DiMeo
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  4. Kimberley Broomfield-Massey
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Correspondence to Gabriel P. Kuperminc.

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Kuperminc, G.P., Thomason, J., DiMeo, M. et al. Cool Girls, Inc.: Promoting the Positive Development of Urban Preadolescent and Early Adolescent Girls. J Primary Prevent 32, 171 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-011-0243-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-011-0243-y

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