A possible selves intervention to enhance school involvement

We developed a 9-week after-school, small group, activities-based intervention focused on enhancing youth's abilities to imagine themselves as successful adults and connecting these future imagines to current school involvement. We describe and evaluate this programme comparing three cohorts of urban African American middle school students (n=62 experimental, n=146 control), controlling for sex and previous school involvement. By the end of the school year, intervention youth reported more bonding to school, concern about doing well in school, "balanced" possible selves, plausible strategies to attain these possible selves, better school attendance, and for boys, less trouble at school.