At-risk youth face many difficulties including higher dropout rates, lack of positive adult support, poor neighborhood conditions, exposure to violence, and a lack of parental support and family stability. Mentoring programs for at-risk youth may help mitigate these difficulties, but the quality of the mentor-mentee relationship is predictive of…

The empowerment literature has tended to focus on reinforcing the capacity of local populations to act effectively in promoting change on their own behalf. Borrowing from the social capital literature, achieving greater empowerment might be linked also to the actions and aims of the already powerful. A group might endeavor to exert its ability to…