Job Skills and Minority Youth Minority youth unemployment is an enduring economic and social concern. This book evaluates two new initiatives for minority high school students that seek to cultivate marketable job skills. The first is an after-school program that provides experiences similar to apprenticeships, and the second empha- sizes new approaches to improving job interview performance. The evaluation research has several distinct strengths. It involves a randomized controlled trial, uncommon in assessments of this issue and age group. Marketable job skills are assessed through a mock job interview developed for this research and admin- istered by experienced human resource professionals. Mixed methods are uti- lized, with qualitative data shedding light on what actually happens inside the programs, and a developmental science approach situates the findings in terms of adolescent development. Beneficial for policymakers and practitioners as well as scholars, Job Skills and Minority Youth focuses on identifying the most promising tactics and addressing likely implementation issues. Barton J. Hirsch is Professor of Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University, where he is also on the faculty of the Institute for Policy Research. He has published two previous books on youth programs, A Place to Call Home: After-School Programs for Urban Youth and After-School Centers and Youth Development: Case Studies of Success and Failure (with Nancy L. Deutsch and David L. DuBois), both of which received the Social Policy Award for Best Authored Book from the Society for Research on Adolescence. Job Skills and Minority Youth New Program Directions Barton J. Hirsch Northwestern University 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107427709 © Barton J. Hirsch 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hirsch, Barton Jay, 1950– Job skills and minority youth : new program directions / Barton J. Hirsch. pages cm ISBN 978-1-107-07500-9 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-107-42770-9 (paperback) 1. Minority youth – Employment. 2. Vocational qualifications. I. Title. HQ796.H57 2015 331.3∙46–dc23 2015022582 ISBN 978-1-107-07500-9 Hardback ISBN 978-1-107-42770-9 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. In memory of Maggie Daley Contents Preface page ix 1 Preparing Youth for Work 1 2 Do Youth in After School Matters Have More Marketable Job Skills? 15 3 A Comparison of the Strongest and the Weakest Apprenticeships 32 4 Which Apprenticeship Has the Best Model for Scaling Up? 52 5 What Human Resource Interviewers Told Us about Youth Employability 78 6 A Program for Teaching Youth How to Do Well in Job Interviews 98 7 Guidelines for the Future 115 Appendix 1 The Impact of After School Matters on Positive Youth Development, Academics, and Problem Behavior 127 Appendix 2 Northwestern Mock Job Interview 160 References 171 Index 185 vii