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、技术和贸易惯例。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方式。这些变化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。在迅速变化的情况下，谁将从这些变化中受益，这一点还不清楚。特别是，虽然在不断变化的背景下代际信念的差异已经得到了很好的确立，但我们对青年作为变革者的地位以及这对他们的健康和福祉意味着什么知之甚少。这项研究提供了新的知识，青年在不断变化的价值观和健康结果的作用，因为社区经历经济和社会转型。研究小组调查了两个具有不同文化习俗的相邻社会的这些动态，以了解社会变革和不平等如何与不同环境中的健康相关，这些环境根据对不平等的态度和接受程度而不同。该项目支持和培训本科研究人员掌握科学方法和与人类生物学有关的实验室技能。它还支持并为来自弱势背景的中学生提供STEM学习营，以帮助提高代表性不足的群体对STEM的参与。该项目调查了邻近社区的青少年价值观，行为和与压力相关的生物学，这些社区在容忍不平等的程度和市场一体化的经验方面各不相同。研究小组将从三个社区的600名青年和成年人那里收集数据，这些社区经历了不同程度的市场经济变革，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。第二，它调查是否社区一级的市场整合与社会容忍的不平等与社会规范执行平等主义。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。该项目采用访谈、参与者观察、生物数据收集和分析来实现这些目标。在这样做的过程中，它帮助人们重新认识到，在不断变化的经济条件下，以及在通过与压力有关的途径造成健康方面新出现的差距的过程中，青年对文化变革的速度和方向的潜在重要性，包括激素的产生和基因表达的表观遗传调控。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的评估支持。知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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.