Within the school, youth were sorted by community of origin and there was little mixing between youngsters from different communities and traveling on different busses. The effects of this isolation, and the concomitant tendency to withdraw, were also apparent in interviews with the youngsters and in their career expectations. Not only is there diversity in communities and in the needs of their youth, but there is also considerable diversity in the types of programs designed to respond to these needs. Other programs see their potential influence on young lives as much broader, seeking to transform character, instill moral values, and direct youth toward socially rewarding and fulfilling lives. But while they may differ in approach and take place in a variety of contexts, all programs attempting to meet youth needs, like all patterns of human relationships, are interactive with and affected by their environment.
Different communities can provide very different values and expectations to youngsters.
Even within the same community, different social contexts, such as the home, the school, or the peer group can provide different standards or models for behavior. This places a special burden on professional and volunteer program developers alike to understand how the youth they work with experience those contextual differences and how the services they provide can be facilitated or confounded by those differences.