Measuring youth empowerment: validation of a Sociopolitical Control Scale for Youth in an urban community context

Sociopolitical control (SPC) is generally considered to be a vital element of the intrapersonal component of psychological empowerment, despite contradictory findings concerning the dimensionality of the construct when applied to a youth population. This study tested the Sociopolitical Control Scale for Youth (SPCS-Y), which was designed to represent the two hypothesized dimensions of leadership competence and policy control, using data from a sample of urban youth (n=865) located in the northeastern United States. Results indicated that the hypothesized 2-factor model provided an adequate model-to-data fit, and that this model was a significantly better fit to the data than the 1-factor model. Further analysis showed that SPC profile groups differed significantly on measures of community and school participation, neighborhood attachment, perceived school importance, and drug use. Findings provide empirical support for the validity of the SPCS-Y and its underlying bidimensional model of SPC. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.