Biocultural perspectives on the role of youth in subsistence societies' responses to market intersections and changing economic conditions

市场经济为社区创造了新的就业机会、技术和贸易实践。这些机会往往涉及改变现有的价值观、规范和习俗，因为机会挑战现有的生存和互动手段。这些转变往往伴随着财富和健康的变化--有些是积极的，有些是消极的。在快速变化的背景下，谁将从这些变化中受益还没有得到很好的理解。特别是，尽管在不断变化的环境中代际信仰的差异已经确立，但我们对青年如何被定位为变革创造者以及这对他们的健康和福祉意味着什么，知之甚少。这项研究提供了关于青年在改变价值观和社区经历经济和社会转型时在健康结果中的作用的新知识。研究小组在两个文化习俗不同的邻近社会调查了这些动态，以了解社会变化和不平等在不同环境中如何与健康相关，这些环境根据对不平等的态度和对不平等的接受而有所不同。该项目在与人类生物学有关的科学方法和实验室技能方面支持和培训本科生研究人员。它还支持和提供STEM学习营，为来自弱势背景的中学生提供STEM学习营，帮助增加代表不足群体的STEM参与。该项目调查邻近社区的青年价值观、行为和与压力相关的生物学，他们在容忍不平等的程度上存在差异，并在市场一体化的经历中存在差异。研究小组将收集来自三个社区的600名年轻人和成年人的数据，这些年轻人和成年人经历了不同程度的基于市场的经济变化，以实现以下研究目标。首先，该项目描述了青年社交网络和对不同类型学习模式的偏好。其次，它调查了社区层面的市场整合是否与社会对不平等的容忍与执行平等主义的社会规范有关。第三，它测试了市场整合和社会规范是否可以预测健康和福祉结果的变化。该项目使用访谈、参与者观察以及生物数据收集和分析来实现这些目标。通过这样做，它有助于对青年对不断变化的经济条件下文化变革的速度和方向的潜在重要性的新的理解，以及通过与压力相关的途径，包括荷尔蒙的产生和基因表达的表观遗传调节，在形成新的健康差距的过程中的潜在重要性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Market economies create new job opportunities, technology, and trade practices to communities. These opportunities often involve changes to existing values, norms, and customs as opportunities challenge existing means of subsisting and interacting. These shifts are often attended by changes in wealth and health – some positive and some negative. Who stands to benefit from these changes in rapidly changing contexts is not well understood. In particular, although the differences in intergenerational beliefs in changing contexts has been well established, we know relatively little about how youth are situated as change-makers and what this means in terms of their health and well-being. This research provides new knowledge about the role of youth in changing values and in health outcomes as communities experience economic and social transitions. The research team investigates these dynamics in two neighboring societies with differing cultural practices to understand how social change and inequality relate to health in settings differing according to attitudes toward and acceptance of inequality. The project supports and trains undergraduate researchers in the scientific method and in laboratory skills related to human biology. It also supports and provides STEM learning camps for middle school children from disadvantaged backgrounds to help increase STEM participation for underrepresented groups.This project investigates youth values, behaviors, and stress-related biology in neighboring communities varying in the extent to which they condone inequality and in experiences of market integration. The research team will collect data from 600 youth and adults in three communities experiencing differing levels of market-based economic change to pursue the following research aims. First, the project describes youth social networks and preferences for different types of learning models. Second, it investigates whether community-level market integration are associated with the social tolerance of inequality versus social norms enforcing egalitarianism. Third, it tests whether market integration and social norms predict variation in health and well-being outcomes. The project uses interviews, participant observation, and biological data collection and analysis to pursue these aims. In doing so, it contributes new understanding of the potential importance of youth to the pace and direction of cultural change under changing economic conditions and in the processes that underlie emerging disparities in health through stress-related pathways, including hormone production and epigenetic regulation of gene expression.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.