PhD defence L. (Loïs) Schenk

With the transition to adulthood comes a higher chance of mismatch between intra-individual needs and environmental factors. Successful shifts in roles (e.g., increasing independence) and settings (e.g., out of home and school settings), are dependent on the existence and nature of social connections in and between the different ecological levels of influence (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The transition to adulthood is dependent on the structural opportunities and obstacles, as well as resources and individual characteristics. Youths who experience multiple problems in various life domains (multi-problem youths) and who have less sources to compensate existing risk factors (at-risk youths) can often take less advantage of opportunities available (Schoon & Schulenberg, 2013). Transitions may not only be harder for these youths to go through, but the encountered obstacles may even be self-enforcing (Schuyt, 1995) and deviation amplifying (Sameroff & Mackenzie, 2003). In these transitional periods of adolescence and young adulthood, social support is known to protect youths from risks, provide them with opportunities, and ultimately, increase youths’ wellbeing (Dodge, et al., 2012; Gallupe et al., 2019; Mikkonen & Raphael, 2010; Sijtsema & Lindenberg, 2018; Spendelow et al., 2017; Taylor, 2011; Vaux et al., 1986). As such, social support may play a vital role in protecting youths from not being able to successfully participate in society or reach their full potential. The overall aim of the current dissertation was to explore the role of the social network in supporting urban at-risk youths, adding to the literature on how processes of self-enforcement occur and are perceived by youths themselves. Two research questions were formulated to address this aim for which, situated in Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second largest city and known for its social and cultural dynamic context, four studies were conducted. First, I studied how social network characteristics of at-risk youths are related to their wellbeing (chapter 2 and 3). Second, I studied how non-parental adults can provide social support to youths in formal mentoring programs (chapter 4 and 5). In this final chapter I summarize the main findings, answer the two research questions, and imbed the findings in a broader societal and theoretical frame.

Due to corona, the PhD defences do not take place publicly in the usual way in the Senate Hall or in the Professor Andries Querido Room. The candidates will defend their dissertation either in a small group or online.