The objective of this research is to establish how non-adherence of Amathole District development projects to the Department of Social Development’s Community Development Systems and Operational Manual has contributed to failure of these projects. The background to this research lies in the deliberate policy efforts of the post 1994 democratic dispensation in South Africa to drive development through community-based development approaches. Explicitly pro-poor public policies, development plans and fiscal frameworks were anchored on the concept of community empowerment. The Reconstruction and Development Programme was the first such policy and strategy framework that sought to enshrine the principles of community empowerment and participation. As such, Provincial and Local government are often seen as key strategic drivers of community empowerment initiatives and interventions. South Africa’s governance model is still evolving, but it is clearly committed to local development and service delivery through a decentralised system of government that espouses community involvement. Government strategy has been heavily focused on speed and delivery in order to deal with the historical socio-economic backlogs it inherited. In the focus area of youth development projects, one recognises that poor management has dramatically reduced the effectiveness of many interventions. This research explores how non-adherence of these projects to policy guidelines set out in the Community Development Systems and Operations Manual has contributed to their failure. The research does this by looking at the various management procedures that are supposed to be undertaken during both the initial planning phases and during the subsequent implementation phases of youth development projects. Actual methodologies are compared against this standard. The research is undoubtedly a contribution to the field of strategic management of youth development initiatives which have as their primary intention the reduction of youth unemployment. Research surveys on this topic are limited, and the objective is to enrich the discourse on effective youth projects management practices.

The youth are generally in the peripheral of most development endeavors. This research dealt with factors influencing financial sustainability of youth enterprises funded under the Youth Enterprise Development Fund in Karonga, a district in the Northern Region of Malawi. The study was conducted through a descriptive and analytical survey. Data was collected using questionnaires, interviews and Focus Group Discussions. Questionnaires were analyzed and presented using graphs and in form of percentages. Findings from the questionnaires, interviews and FGDs were analyzed for content and presented in narrative form according to the thematic areas in relation to the variables. This research has revealed that repayment rates of YEDF beneficiary enterprises in the district are at 31 percent and that those that have finished paying back the loans stand at 15 percent. The research shows that political influence and inadequate capacity building skills in business management are some of the major reasons for the low repayment of the YEDF loans. The leaders and members in most groups had no prior experience and capacity for running a business. The challenges have negatively affected the revolving nature of the fund. The study recommends that YEDF should be independent of political influence, group members be given more training to enable them understand key business and financial management skills and, strengthening monitoring and evaluation of these groups by the YEDF officers.

Thesis advisor: Scott C. Seider / Engagement in sociopolitical activism, such as protesting, has important implications for youth of color and for the communities in which they live (Ballard & Ozer, 2016; Ginwright, 2010; Hope & Spencer, 2017). Critical Consciousness (CC; Freire, 1970/1998; Watts et al., 2011) and Youth Sociopolitical Development Theory (Youth SPD; Watts & Flanagan, 2007) are two prominent frameworks for investigating sociopolitical activism among youth of color. Although both frameworks position motivation as one of the key factors influencing youth activism, motivation is narrowly defined as a single construct—one’s sense of efficacy to effect change. Using motivation constructs from two established motivation frameworks, Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT; Higgins, 1997), this dissertation investigated the multidimensional nature of motivation in relation to Black and Latinx adolescents’ commitment to activism. Drawing from a longitudinal data set examining Black and Latinx adolescents’ civic development over four years of high school (N = 733), I used group differential approaches (latent profile analysis, latent profile transition analysis, and latent profile moderation) to (a) identify distinct combinations of motivations among Black and Latinx high school students in ninth, tenth, and twelfth grade, (b) assess whether and the extent to which adolescents changed profile membership across high school, (c) examine motivation profiles in tenth grade as predictors of commitment to activism in twelfth grade, and (d) examine motivation profiles in tenth grade as moderators of the relation between adolescents’ analysis of social problems in tenth grade and their commitment to activism addressing these problems in twelfth grade (controlling for their initial commitment to activism). I identified two motivation profiles in ninth grade, four motivation profiles in tenth grade, and four motivation profiles in twelfth grade. At both tenth and twelfth grade, I named the motivation profiles: “Low Motivation,” “High Motivation,” “Moderate Motivation, Low Autonomy,” and “Moderate Motivation, High Autonomy.” At both time points, the “Low Motivation” profile comprised the smallest proportion of the sample and the “Moderate Motivation, High Autonomy” profile comprised the largest proportion of the sample. Most youth shifted to a different motivation profile over time. Adolescents in the “High Motivation” profile at the end of tenth grade reported the highest average commitment to activism at the end of twelfth grade; however, this number was only statistically significantly higher than the “Moderate Motivation, Low Autonomy” profile. Contrary to expectations, youths’ social analysis in tenth grade was not predictive of their commitment to activism in twelfth grade; thus, there was no latent profile moderation in relation to social analysis and commitment to activism. Instead, I did find evidence that motivation profile membership moderated the relation between commitment to activism at the end of tenth grade on commitment to activism at the end of twelfth grade. Overall, results suggest that adolescents’ motivation is multidimensional and incredibly dynamic. Future CC/Youth SPD research should consider investigating a more complete set of established motivation constructs in relation to youths’ sociopolitical development. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Grow Up is a collection of five short stories that explore the parentification of bourgeois youth and the concerns of growing up in a postmodern, performative culture. The characters are faced with circular situations where the causality of their feelings and actions are often obscured or scattered. Special attention is given to identity through emotion and perception where youth react against the marginalization, homogenization, or the commoditization of their experience. The stories also attempt to describe the condition of neglected youth in social situations and environments that are polarized, paradoxical, and fractured because of isolation among their many parts. The fictional characters and their environment raise the question as to whether their environment is anachronistic in its attitudes and approaches to youth and their relations, or whether youth today is becoming anachronistic in itself.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed February 9, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Maureen E. Angell (chair), James R. Thompson, C. Al Bowman, Stacey Jones Bock, Emily H. Watts. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-216) and abstract. Also available in print.

Despite theoretical and policy advancements in global human and gendered approaches to development, youth in mainstream development policy discourse remains subsumed. The ratification of global best practice models of human development in Nigeria, without contextualizing the probable dividends of youth capability strength in shaping national development realities, will present challenges that are likely to threaten the sustainable future of country. Perhaps if this is sustained, this thesis argues that the capabilities of Nigerian youths will continue to remain trapped or mismatched in areas that they fail to contribute positively to Nigeria's national development. In this regard, this thesis evaluated the extent to which youth capabilities are enhanced in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) for national development in Nigeria. Firstly, this thesis contributes conceptually to understanding, broadly, the social constructions of youth in mainstream policy discourse and their positioning in both global and national development practice in Nigeria. It also critically examines through literature how western epistemological interpretations of development theorizing are reproduced in youth discourse. Succinctly, the theoretical contribution of youth in development explains how development-underdevelopment dualism in mainstream development reproduces similar youth-adult dualisms in conceptualizing how youths are recognized, represented and constituted within policy discourses. Based on this, the theoretical gaps that this thesis bridges, operationalizes the Sen's capability approach (SCA) through the utilization of Narayan-Parker's empowerment framework in order to contextualize how the intersections of youth agency and structural contributions of the NYSC could aid the effective utilization of youth capabilities for national development in Nigeria. Secondly, this thesis contributes methodologically to development practice as it adapts a mixed-method approach (MMA) to researching youth lives, especially from a developing country's context. The application of a qualitative dominant mixed method approach (qual-MMA), suggests how through social constructivist ontology and through poststructuralist epistemology, the understanding of how youths socially construct their identity and the roles they play in national development becomes clearer. Thirdly, the germane and empirical contribution of this thesis especially to mainstream development theorizing is that, youth voices captured through narratives and quantitative data helped explore the experiences of Nigerian youth's transition pathways from education to the NYSC pathway. This further allowed for critical examination of how youths are: absorbed through mobilization into the NYSC; developed through the activities in the scheme; deployed and utilized in addressing national development challenges in Nigeria. This thesis suggests that dominant social constructions based on age and transition patterns, undermine the impact/effective functioning of youth capabilities for addressing national development challenges. It concludes that limited support structures during the youth educational pathways and lack of opportunity structures while youths are in the NYSC pathways continue to limit the functioning of their capabilities in sectors of national development needs. It recommends a need to rethink the current deployment strategy of the NYSC so that youth capabilities fit the national development narrative.

Black youth in South Africa has for decades, been marginalized in development programmes and many young blacks are experiencing poverty. With the advent of the new South Africa in 1994, the government initiated poverty alleviation projects for youth development. These projects offered black youth an opportunity to participate in their own development. The current study aimed at critically analyzing the contribution of a „Poverty Alleviation‟ programme for youth development. The study was conducted at Cala in the Sakhisizwe local municipality in the Chris Hani District of the Eastern Cape. The study utilized qualitative and quantitative research methods and took the form of exploratory research. The study revealed factors that appear to contribute to the ineffectiveness of youth development projects. The identified factors include the lack of participation of project members, lack of a sense of ownership and commitment, insufficient skills and non-use of policy and guiding documents by project members during the implementation stage. Stakeholder participation and sharing of expertise was identified as another important factor in determining the contribution of poverty alleviation projects to youth development. Lastly, the study shows that monitoring and evaluation of the project functions are necessary to ensure that a project like this achieves the desired outcome. A key recommendation made is that project members must be involved and participate fully in all project phases to enhance a sense of ownership and commitment to fellow project members.

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