This qualitative study explores how youth in Tanzania, with low levels of basic education, manage their personal lives and seek opportunities in the workplace or in post-basic education training programs. In Tanzania, Education for All (EFA) has served as a key focal point of coordination between the government and the international donor community. While substantial attention has centered on the challenges of ensuring the sustainability and quality of EFA, there is relatively little known about the socio-economic circumstances of young school leavers and their perceptions of education and its relation to their post-school life trajectories. Using structuration theory as the theoretical framework to illuminate the dynamic interconnectedness of social structures and youth agency, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 young male and female school leavers. Disturbing patterns of social reproduction and a fundamental discontinuity between basic education and post-school challenges were revealed in the research. Yet, in view of their resilience, orientation to the future and entrepreneurial resourcefulness, findings suggest that despite profound qualitative shortcomings, aspects of basic education and the structuring effects of economic liberalization may be contributing to enhanced youth agency. The dissertation contributes to the theoretical discourse in the study of youth phenomena by adapting and advancing Klocker’s (2007) use of the notion of thinners and thickeners of agency within structuration theory. Exploring factors like educational quality and attainment level, in addition to those already established by Klocker (tribe, gender, age, and poverty), my research shows how young people’s agency can be attenuated or accentuated in space and time. This dissertation contributes empirical, hermeneutic and narrative data to illuminate the educational experience and post-basic education realities for a group of Tanzanian youth, reducing what has heretofore been described as a paucity of such qualitative accounts of marginalized African youth and the challenges they face.

plan A / Pacific Islands Studies

Increasing the access to post-secondary education is a top priority around the world, but still many graduates experience serious challenges in entering the labor market. In Tanzania the issue is prominent and partly associated with the skills mismatch, but also with the imbalance of the number of jobs available in relation to the number of graduates seeking for a job. Skills development is acritical element of all efforts in this challenging area, and therefore a number of organizations has emerged to focus on this, especially in Tanzania. The area has been explored in the literature, but mainly quantitatively on a macro-level. Hence, there is a need of more qualitative research regarding the best practices of organizations focusing on skills development. This thesis therefore aims to investigate how skills development organizations can support graduates in entering the labor market in Tanzania. The thesis is a Minor Field Study, implying that semi-structured interviews with graduates and skillsdevelopment organizations were conducted on-site in Tanzania. Further, hypotheses, regarding challenges that graduates experience when entering the labor market, were formulated and tested through qualitative and quantitative data. The findings imply that the challenges graduates experience can be categorized into three groups: structural, skills and attitude. Skills development organizations can therefore support graduates in entering the labor market by addressing these challenges and adopt measures in three different operations: the planning, the execution and the evaluation of skills development activities. Except for specific actions within each operation, the findings accentuate the importance of incorporating both the graduate and employer perspective, as well as viewing the support as a long-term process, from the first years of studies to obtaining employment. / Att öka tillgången till eftergymnasial utbildning har hög prioritet runt om i världen, men trots att fler utbildas är arbetslösheten bland unga fortfarande ett stort problem. I Tanzania är detta särskilt påtagligt och delvis förknippat med kompetens- och kunskapsbrist, men också med obalansen mellan antalet lediga jobb och antalet utexaminerade som söker jobb. Hur organisationer kan stötta unga i övergången från utbildning till arbetsmarknaden har undersökts tidigare, men då främst genom kvantitativ forskning på makronivå. Därför behövs fler kvalitativa studier om hur organisationer effektivt kan stötta unga personer in på arbetsmarknaden, vilket detta arbete syftar till. Studien har utförts som en mindre fältstudie på plats i Tanzania. Den empiriska data som har använts i studien har samlats in genom intervjuer med studenter och organisationer samt genom ett frågeformulär. De empiriska resultaten kombinerades sedan med litteratur för att besvara forskningsfrågorna. Resultaten visar att utmaningar som utexaminerade studenter upplever kan delas in i tre kategorier; strukturella-, kompetens- och attitydutmaningar. Organisationer kan därför stödja utexaminerade studenter att komma in på arbetsmarknaden genom att möta dessa utmaningar och vidta åtgärder inom tre olika områden: planering, genomförande och utvärdering av aktiviteter för kompetensutveckling. Förutom specifika åtgärder inom vardera områden, betonar resultaten vikten av att införa både student- och arbetsgivarperspektivet, samt att se stödet som en långsiktig process, från de första studieåren till anställning eller självanställning

Increasing the access to post-secondary education is a top priority around the world, but still many graduates experience serious challenges in entering the labor market. In Tanzania the issue is prominent and partly associated with the skills mismatch, but also with the imbalance of the number of jobs available in relation to the number of graduates seeking for a job. Skills development is a critical element of all efforts in this challenging area, and therefore a number of organizations has emerged to focus on this, especially in Tanzania. The area has been explored in the literature, but mainly quantitatively on a macro-level. Hence, there is a need of more qualitative research regarding the best practices of organizations focusing on skills development. This thesis therefore aims to investigate how skills development organizations can support graduates in entering the labor market in Tanzania. The thesis is a Minor Field Study, implying that semi-structured interviews with graduates and skills development organizations were conducted on-site in Tanzania. Further, hypotheses, regarding challenges that graduates experience when entering the labor market, were formulated and tested through qualitative and quantitative data. The findings imply that the challenges graduates experience can be categorized into three groups: structural, skills and attitude. Skills development organizations can therefore support graduates in entering the labor market by addressing these challenges and adopt measures in three different operations: the planning, the execution and the evaluation of skills development activities. Except for specific actions within each operation, the findings accentuate the importance of incorporating both the graduate and employer perspective, as well as viewing the support as a long-term process, from the first years of studies to obtaining employment. / Att öka tillgången till eftergymnasial utbildning har hög prioritet runt om i världen, men trots att fler utbildas är arbetslösheten bland unga fortfarande ett stort problem. I Tanzania är detta särskilt påtagligt och delvis förknippat med kompetens- och kunskapsbrist, men också med obalansen mellan antalet lediga jobb och antalet utexaminerade som söker jobb. Hur organisationer kan stötta unga i övergången från utbildning till arbetsmarknaden har undersökts tidigare, men då främst genom kvantitativ forskning på makronivå. Därför behövs fler kvalitativa studier om hur organisationer effektivt kan stötta unga personer in på arbetsmarknaden, vilket detta arbete syftar till. Studien har utförts som en mindre fältstudie på plats i Tanzania. Den empiriska data som har använts i studien har samlats in genom intervjuer med studenter och organisationer samt genom ett frågeformulär. De empiriska resultaten kombinerades sedan med litteratur för att besvara forskningsfrågorna. Resultaten visar att utmaningar som utexaminerade studenter upplever kan delas in i tre kategorier; strukturella-, kompetens- och attitydutmaningar. Organisationer kan därför stödja utexaminerade studenter att komma in på arbetsmarknaden genom att möta dessa utmaningar och vidta åtgärder inom tre olika områden: planering, genomförande och utvärdering av aktiviteter för kompetensutveckling. Förutom specifika åtgärder inom vardera områden, betonar resultaten vikten av att införa både student- och arbetsgivarperspektivet, samt att se stödet som en långsiktig process, från de första studieåren till anställning eller självanställning

While the role of youth in post-conflict settings has increasingly gained policy attention, systematic academic studies on this topic remain scarce. This research adds to existing literature by the youth bulge theory of conflict onset to a post-conflict setting. It hypothesizes that large youth bulges at the time conflict episodes end increase the feasibility for rebel groups to relaunch their insurgence and are therefore associated with a higher risk of conflict recurrence. A global quantitative analysis revealed a statistically significant positive correlation between youth bulges and conflict recurrence. Three conditional hypotheses which focus on elements of economic, political and social exclusion that are argued to interact with youth bulges to influence the risk of conflict recurrence found no empirical support. However, the combination of findings for Hypothesis 1 and non-findings for Hypotheses 2 may indicate that the underlying cause for the relationship between youth bulges and conflict recurrence may not be based on young people’s individual grievances and motives to join a rebel group. Instead, other factors may be at play which could not be tested within the scope of this study. Despite its shortcomings, this study therefore confirms the necessity of continuing to investigate the relationship between the age distribution of a population and the risk of conflict recurrence.

abstract: Armed violence is a contemporary global challenge especially in the developing world. It impacts immigration policies locally and internationally. Uganda experienced a twenty-four year -long civil armed conflict, which the president of Uganda declared ended in 2008. Following government instruction, displaced persons have been returning home since then. Despite this official closure, in the course of resettlement, youth specific needs and concerns have been ignored. Female youth have been the most affected due to the interlocking nature of their undervalued gender, age, and marital and reproductive statuses. Despite the complexity of female youth’s social location, research and frameworks about armed violence have focused on men as the perpetuators, marginalizing the impact armed conflict has on young women. Using the case of northern Uganda, this dissertation draws on feminist and indigenous epistemologies to examine the experiences of formerly displaced female youth. First, I deconstruct the western dominant construction of the stages of human growth and development including childhood, youth and adulthood. In this research, I prioritize local perspectives on human development; emphasizing the ambiguity of the concept youth, highlighting its age and gendered limited applicability to northern Uganda. I also examine the local understanding of armed conflict centering its forms and causes. Further, I explore the challenges female youth face, and the strategies they adopt to cope in situations of distress. I argue that studying formerly displaced female youth from their standpoint is critical since female youth have been marginalized in previous research and programs with gender-neutral perspectives. They thus provide a new perspective to armed violence given their multi dimensional standpoint. Female youth have different needs and concerns, which may not feature in mainstream programming largely informed by traditional male dominated systems and structures. Young women’s experiences thus deserve to be acknowledged if female youth are to benefit from the post-conflict reconstruction phase. To fulfill this objective, I used qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Gender Studies 2016

This thesis offers an account of children's lived experiences in Rwanda (1930s-2016) in four key domains: kinship, education, economic transitions, and marriage. Based on historical and ethnographic fieldwork in rural and urban Rwanda from 2012 to 2014, this work explores how three generations of young people have experienced and navigated childhood and coming of age at the interface of 'traditional' and 'modern' institutional systems. Rather than focusing narrowly on 'crisis' childhoods, individual agency, or exogenous forces, as studies of young Africans and social change tend to, this work examines young people's 'everyday' actions - intentional and unintentional, individual and collective, compliant and non-compliant - and locates them within their broader historical, relational, and institutional environment. By focusing on the intensely reproductive period of childhood and coming of age, on Rwanda's unexceptional majority rather than its exceptionally vulnerable minority, and on children's everyday actions rather than the strategic actions of elites, this thesis shows us how children shape the institutions of childhood and marriage and, in so doing, influence how society is reproduced and changed. Theoretically, this thesis explains how children and their institutional environment are mutually constituting: it examines how and why young people experience rapid change and structural violence differently and it traces how they reproduce and change these structural conditions as they engage with institutional mechanisms in (un)intended ways. The research reveals that children in central Rwanda navigate constraints and opportunities by drawing on established kinship relationships and institutions while also opportunistically engaging with modern institutions and their actors. However, in this context of 'institutional multiplicity', traditional and modern institutional systems each need Rwanda's young majority to reproduce their institutions over others', and as intended, to achieve their power-distributional goals. This makes children's actions particularly consequential and demands that we redefine what political action - and political actors - look like.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / This thesis analyzes adverse demographic trends in the European Union, including sub-replacement birthrates and increasing median ages. It investigates the implications of these trends for the EU's prospects for becoming a stronger and more influential actor in international affairs. Pressures arising from population trends in and near the EU could ultimately affect national and EU cohesion, governmental effectiveness, and social stability. Absent remedial measures, social programs in some EU countries will be unsustainable due to the mounting financial burden of pensions and health care for growing elderly populations. Such financial obligations hinder funding other national programs, including modernized military capabilities. Nationalism and national identity are at issue in immigrant integration and assimilation efforts. The role of population trends with regard to the growing threat of radical Islamic fundamentalism is explored. The thesis concludes with policy recommendations that might be considered to avert the looming economic, social, and security crises that may result from these demographic trends. In short, the security and financial consequences foreshadowed by the current demographic trends of an aging, economically weaker, and socially conflicted European Union could present dramatic implications for the vital national interests of the United States. / Lieutenant, United States Navy