Wellbeing Reconceptualized: Findings from a Qualitative Study In East Oakland with Urban Youth of Color

Background and Purpose: Over the past several decades, increased attention has been given to strengthening youth wellbeing. The Healthy People 2030 Initiative has named youth wellbeing as a developmental priority while the State of California has committed 4.4 billion dollars to the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative to promote wellbeing. This investment reflects a paradigm shift away from deficit-based framing towards strength-based models that center psychological facets of development such as happiness and optimism. However, psychological models of wellbeing insufficiently attend to the structural and cultural conditions that bi-directionally shape youth flourishing. Furthermore, youth of color have been notably excluded from the processes through which youth well-being models are developed and validated, resulting in frameworks that lack generalizability. Though interest in youth wellbeing has grown, a consensus on its definition remains elusive. Thus, our study fills this gap in the empirical literature and answers the following research question: how do urban youth of color define wellbeing?

Methods: Our study used a descriptive qualitative design. Data were collected through 29 semi-structured interviews with youth aged 14-20 residing in East Oakland, CA. Recruitment combined convenience and snowball approaches across four youth-serving organizations. Interviews were conducted virtually via Zoom during the summer and fall of 2022. Inductive thematic coding was applied to identify patterns across interviews. Codes were organized into a codebook through iterative rounds of coding, using memos to trace the logics of the process. Coding counts, descriptive context, and co-occurrences were assessed to define the themes and to elucidate the structural relationship between them.

Findings: Five themes emerged that define our model of wellbeing. Safety and material stability were foundational pre-requisites for holistic flourishing, with youth sequencing material resources before other aspects of wellbeing could be realized. Trusted relationships emerged as the medium through which opportunity and identity affirmation become possible, functioning as the social capital rather than solely emotional support. Racial and cultural identity appeared as a felt condition of wellbeing, with youth describing racially affirming spaces and relationships as necessary for flourishing rather than an outcome of it. Future orientation and hope were grounded in perceived opportunity and relationships, with youth describing hope as produced by their environments, not a trait held individually. Agency emerged as a socially produced capacity, defined by choice, self-determination, and the ability to advocate for oneself across contexts.

Implications: We find that for urban youth of color wellbeing is not a psychological state, but rather, a relational process that requires material, social, and institutional resources to grow. Social workers at youth-serving organizations must ensure that urban youth of color have the material resources necessary to thrive. These findings call for policy advocacy to ensure that stable housing, food security, and community-based organizations are available to all youth, regardless of socio-economic standing. Future research should assess the applicability of this model across diverse contexts to inform the continued development of culturally grounded models of well-being, informed and guided by urban youth of color.