A Narrative Identity Approach to Understanding Meaning-Making in Summer Camp Employment

Summer camp is a common seasonal employment setting for emerging adults in North America (American Camp Association, 2016), and although scholars have identified camp as a developmental setting for youth participants (e.g., Garst et al., 2009), far less is known about camp as a developmental employment setting that supports emerging adults' identity development (Johnson et al., 2011; Povilaitis & Sibthorp, 2022; Warner, Godwin et al., 2021). Using narrative identity as a theoret-ical framework, the purpose of this study was to compare the meaning emerging adults associated with camp employment and non-camp employment, as well as examine the developmental characteristics of employment linked to how emerg-ing adults make meaning about these experiences. To this end, former emerging adult summer camp staff (N = 66) were asked to share an account of a specific experience that made them think about who they were and who they wanted to be-come when working at a camp and a non-camp employment setting. Participants were also asked to identify whether developmental characteristics were present for each employment setting. The results suggested that there was evidence of more complex meaning-making in participants' accounts of camp employment than their accounts of non-camp employment experiences. The results also suggested that when participants reported having supportive coworkers and feeling they made a difference their camp employment narratives contained more evidence of complex meaning-making than the narratives of participants that did not report these characteristics. No developmental characteristics were significant predic-tors of meaning-making complexity present in non-camp employment narratives. The results provide support for camp employment as a developmental setting by identifying characteristics linked to the meaning emerging adults draw from their experiences working in this setting. Camp administrators may use these results as evidence of the potential non-monetary value of camp employment. Further, these results suggest that when emerging adult staff perceive their camp employment as having a supportive social environment and providing them opportunities to make a difference, the seasonal employment experience is more likely to become an experience that supports their development. These key findings can be used to communicate the value of camp employment to potential employees and those advising them, such as parents or mentors; further, increasing the perceived value of camp employment amongst current staff members only serves to bolster the advocacy for camp work as a developmental setting.