Search Results (173)

Uniquely rooted in regenerative leadership and complemented by Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT), this conceptual essay offers a theoretical exploration of how educational institutions can act as dynamic systems that catalyze adaptive, community-led responses to anthropocentric socio-environmental crises. Rather than sustaining existing structures, educational leadership for regeneration seeks to restore ecological balance and nurture emergent capacities for long-term resilience. Positioned as key sites of influence, educational institutions are explored as engines of innovation capable of mobilizing students, educators, and communities toward collective environmental action. CLT offers a valuable lens for understanding how leadership emerges from nonlinear, adaptive processes within schools, enabling the development of innovative, collaborative, and responsive strategies required for navigating complexity and leading planetary-positive change. Drawing on a synthesis of the recent global literature, this paper begins by outlining the need to go beyond sustainability in envisioning regenerative futures, followed by an introduction to regenerative principles. It then examines the current and evolving role of educational leadership, the relevance in enabling whole-institution transformation, and how this relates to regenerative practices. The theoretical frameworks of systems thinking and CLT are introduced before noting their application within regenerative educational leadership. The final sections identify implementation challenges and offer practical recommendations, including curriculum innovation, professional development, and youth-led advocacy, before concluding with a call for education as a vehicle for cultivating planetary-conscious citizens and systemic change. This work contributes a timely and theoretically grounded model for reimagining educational leadership in an era of global turbulence. Full article

This paper examines how Marley Dias’ activism on Instagram promotes racial justice, Black feminist thought, and youth mobilization through digital storytelling, representation, and audience engagement. Using a mixed-methods analysis of 744 posts published between 2016 and 2025, the study combined critical thematic coding, temporal mapping, and engagement metrics to analyze the discursive and emotional strategies behind Dias’ activism. Five key themes were identified as central to her activist work: diversity in literature, lack girl empowerment, racial justice, Black representation, and educational advocacy. The findings reveal that Dias strategically tailors her messages to suit Instagram’s unique features, using carousels and videos to enhance visibility, foster intimacy, and provide depth in education. Posts that focused on identity, aesthetics, and empowerment garnered the highest levels of engagement, while posts that concentrated on structural issues received lower, yet still significant, interaction. The paper argues that Dias’ Instagram account serves as a dynamic platform for youth-led Black feminist resistance, where cultural production, civic education, and emotional impact converge. This case underscores the political potential of digital literacies and encourages a reconsideration of how youth-driven digital activism is reshaping contemporary public discourse, agency, and knowledge production in the social media age. Full article

Young people are frustrated and disheartened with the lack of adult leadership and action to address the climate crisis. Although youth representation in global, regional, and local decision-making contexts on climate change is steadily growing, the desired role and effect of youth in environmental and climate decision-making has shifted from a focus on having youth voices heard, to having a direct and meaningful impact on policy and action. To meaningfully integrate youth perspectives into climate policies and programs, intergenerational approaches and youth–adult partnerships are key. This paper explores strategies to support youth action and engagement as adult partners by investigating youth perspectives on what adults and adult-led organizations should consider when engaging young people in climate-related work. This qualitative research study introduces a revised version of the 7P youth participation framework, developed through focus groups with high school youth. This paper provides reflective questions and practical recommendations for participants engaged in youth–adult partnerships to help guide engagement beyond token representation and create meaningfully participatory conditions for youth agency in climate organizing spaces. Full article

Participatory action research (PAR) has been increasingly used in sport for development research due to its potential to challenge hegemonic forms of knowledge production within sport contexts. Drawing on the youth and feminist action literature, we explore the methodological and ethical challenges of conducting participatory research as young academic researchers collaborating with young coaches as community collaborators. This article calls for greater transparency in how researchers conduct YPAR, whether it is youth-centred or youth-led, and underscores the utility of a feminist lens and trauma- and violence-informed framework in grounding critical reflexivity throughout the research process. These contributions aim to advance ethically grounded, trauma-informed action research projects with young people in sport and physical activity settings. Full article

YouthMappers chapters, utilizing OpenStreetMap (OSM), play a pivotal role in tackling climate challenges through education and activism. This study investigates the influence of a booster grant project on enhancing Climate Activism and Education efforts through YouthMappers chapters in Sri Lanka. Through a geometric approach, the research integrates measurable survey data from OSM platform data from 223 YouthMappers chapter respondents at four (04) universities in Sri Lanka to evaluate five critical factors/dimensions: Capacity Building and Funding Support (CBFS), Climate Activism and Education (CAE), Community Engagement and Collaboration (CEC), Technical Skills and Resources (TSR), and Sustainability and Policy Integration (SPI). The Friedman test confirmed statistically significant differences across all factors’ variables (p < 0.001), highlighting strengths in technical competence and educational integration, with gaps identified in community engagement and sustainability. A Radial Basis Function (RBF) model revealed moderate predictive accuracy, excelling in variables like CAE and TSR but indicating higher error rates in SPI and CEC. Practical outcomes include flood risk maps, curriculum-integrated teaching schemes, and localized mapping workshops. These results underscore the booster grant’s role in enabling impactful, youth-led geospatial initiatives. However, challenges such as internet access, training gaps, and language barriers remain. This study recommends expanding student and community participation, refining training strategies, and integrating OSM into university curricula. These scalable interventions offer valuable insights for replication in other vulnerable regions, enhancing climate resilience through community-driven, data-informed youth engagement. Full article

Background The COVID-19 epidemic had a deleterious impact on mental health and substance abuse and led to an increase in several forms of violence, including self-harm and interpersonal violence among youth from low- and middle-income countries. Nevertheless, the relationship between the variables and their directionality has not been recognized. This study describes the relationship directionality between these variables among 18- to 20-year-old Mexican youths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods The longitudinal cohort study comprises an evolving group of young Mexican adults: 1390 participants aged 18 in 2021, 654 aged 19 in 2022, and 442 aged 20 in 2023. Proportions by sex—50% were matched in every cohort, and the evolution–age sample accomplishment accounted for 47% in 2022 and 32% in 2023. Results According to a structural equation model, which fit the data from 195 iterations with 246 parameters (X²[2722] = 8327.33, p < 0.001), yielding a CFI of 0.946, a TLI of 0.943, and an RMSEA of 0.029 [0.028–0.029]), perpetrating intimate violence, preceded by suffering intimate violence, combined with suffering anxiety symptoms, was associated with self-harm–suicide thoughts and behaviors (ShSTB), marked distress, dysfunction, and somatization symptoms. The relationship was stronger in women and 20-year-old Mexicans. In men, this pathway was exclusively associated with ShSTB. Suffering from intimate violence has been associated with depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms, as well as harmful alcohol use. Conclusions During an epidemic, prevention programs should be designed to warn about self-harm–suicide thoughts and behaviors, not only to ensure the safety of the victims of intimate personal-violence but also to prevent the suicidal behavior of perpetrators. Full article

Youth sport participation provides undeniable physical, emotional, and social benefits. However, the current landscape of pediatric athletics has shifted toward early sports specialization (ESS), year-round training, and heightened competitive pressures. This has led to an increased prevalence of overuse-related traumatic injuries in adolescent patients, as well as increased risk of worsening mental health due to burnout, depression, suicide, and general psychological distress. There are numerous innovations and solutions aimed at addressing the increased risk of injury associated with current sporting trends, such as neuromuscular training programs, delayed specialization, promotion of free play, and pediatric specific surgical techniques mindful of future growth, such as those seen for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACL-R). However, the social factors associated with an injury remain problematic and are not adequately addressed; these include social isolation, depression, anxiety, and academic decline. Sport psychology is a promising solution to address many risk factors associated with poor performance, address the challenges associated with injury, and increase return-to-play in adolescent sports medicine. Integrating sport psychology into pediatric sports medicine offers the ability to directly address the emotional and cognitive demands of injury and recovery. Emphasizing mental health support and redefining success in youth sports—prioritizing enjoyment, personal growth, and long-term health over scholarships and professional aspirations—are key steps in preserving the overall benefits of pediatric sport participation. Yet sport psychology remains often underutilized and has been slow to gain traction, particularly in youth sports. This editorial serves to highlight the current state of mental health advocacy in pediatric sports medicine and how sport psychology can help young athletes manage the mental stress of high-performance athletics and mitigate the detrimental effect of injury and delayed return to sport. Full article

Child First (CF), the approach to youth justice now endorsed by the Youth Justice Board in England and Wales, centres around seeing children as children and meeting their needs in a child-focused way. CF opposes its predecessor, the risk-based approach, which focused on actuarial measurements of risk and led to net-widening, the overuse of custody, and harsher sentencing. As the current strategic approach for youth justice in England and Wales, it is essential to consider its applicability for all offence types, including the most serious. This study aimed to begin the exploration of this under-researched area by identifying the opinions of youth justice professionals on the application of theory to practice. This small-scale exploratory study, comprising five in-depth interviews with youth justice practitioners based in rural Wales, found a consensus amongst respondents that CF should apply to all offences, regardless of their seriousness, but with recognition that some factors centred around the child themselves and their relationship with their youth justice worker and with other services/the public may have an impact on this. Respondents suggested recommendations to counter these problems, leading to recommendations for future research to further embed CF at all levels of youth justice operation. Full article

This study examines the role of creative resistance, or “artivism”, in Nigeria’s #EndSARS movement, a youth-led campaign against police brutality that peaked in October 2020. Drawing on Robert Entman’s Framing Theory, it analyzes how different art forms reframed public perceptions of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and countered government efforts to delegitimize the protests. Using a qualitative approach, the research employs purposive sampling of Twitter-sourced art forms to explore how these pieces exposed systemic injustice, amplified protester voices, and mobilized local and global support. Findings reveal that artivists personalized SARS brutality, dismantled narratives portraying protesters as criminals, and invoked moral urgency through evocative symbolism, leveraging social media’s virality to sustain the movement’s momentum. The study highlights SARS’ paradoxical role as a state-sanctioned yet reviled entity, demonstrating how creative expressions clarified this ambiguity into a clarion call for reform. By situating #EndSARS within Nigeria’s protest legacy, this analysis underscores art’s transformative power in digital-age activism, offering a blueprint for resistance against oppression. It contributes to scholarship on social movements by illustrating how art and technology intersect to challenge power, preserve collective memory, and demand accountability, with implications for future struggles in Nigeria and beyond. Full article

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing have fostered physical, social, and emotional wellbeing for millenia, forming a foundation of strength and resilience. However, colonisation, systemic violence and discrimination—including the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, which continues today—have disrupted this foundation, leading to compounding cycles of intergenerational and complex trauma. The enduring impact of intergenerational and complex trauma is exemplified in increasing proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being removed from their families and involved in the child protection and youth justice system—which represents a national crisis. Despite this crisis, the national response remains insufficient. To address these urgent issues, over 200 predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders, participated in Gathering the Seeds Symposium, the inaugural meeting for the Replanting the Birthing Trees project held in Perth in April 2023. This meeting marked the beginning of a public dialogue aimed at Closing the Gap by advancing community-led strategies to break cycles of trauma and foster cycles of nurturing, recovery, and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents and children across the first 2000 days. We outline critical shortcomings in the current child protection and youth justice systems, and the urgent need for child wellbeing reform. Importantly we highlight recommendations made in submissions in 2023 to two key Australian inquiries—the National Early Years Strategy and the Human Rights Commission inquiry into out of home care and youth justice systems. We argue that structural reforms and culturally safe and skillful care for parents experiencing trauma and violence is a serious gap, and a national priority. The first 2000 days represents a critical window of opportunity to transform cycles of trauma into cycles of healing. It is time to ‘replant the birthing trees’ and ensure that all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies and families can have the best possible start to life through comprehensive models of care grounded in recognition of the right to self-determination and culture. Full article

This paper proposes the application of Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework, rooted in the critical race theory (CRT), as a transformative lens for sport-based youth development (SBYD) research. Moving beyond traditional deficit-based models, which often depict youth as problematic or at-risk, CCW emphasizes recognizing and building upon the cultural strengths and assets of marginalized youth. We begin by reviewing the development of theoretical applications within the youth development, positive youth development (PYD), and SBYD literature to highlight the criticisms against conventional deficit-focused approaches. CCW offers an asset-oriented lens by offering six forms of capital—aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistant—that are typically overlooked in mainstream frameworks. We illustrate how these forms of capital can reposition SBYD programs as spaces for cultivating resilience, identity, and social justice while addressing systemic inequities. By incorporating CCW with participatory research methods and critical theories, such as intersectionality and CRT, researchers can broaden the theoretical and methodological scope of SBYD. This paper concludes by suggesting practical implications for program design, organizational advocacy, and policy development, advocating for culturally responsive, community-led initiatives that prioritize the active engagement and empowerment of marginalized youth. In sum, CCW provides the “why” for critical SBYD research and practice. Full article

Background: The existing literature often oversimplifies the complex relationship between religion and Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health (AYSRH), particularly regarding church-based interventions. This study aimed to investigate the nature and implementation strategies of church AYSRH programmes within their belief systems to inform effective programme development. Methodology: An interpretive descriptive design was employed. Data were collected in the Vaal Triangle region of South Africa (Vanderbijlpark, Vereeniging, and Sasolburg) between August 2019 and February 2020. In-depth interviews were conducted with pastors, government officials, and school principals. Focus group discussions were held with parent and youth church groups alongside youth groups from Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges. Data were analyzed using Atlas.ti v.23. Results: Church-based AYSRH interventions primarily emphasize information provision and abstinence until marriage, aligned with prevailing moral values. These interventions are delivered through integration into existing church programmes and collaborations with external stakeholders for specialized areas like contraception. Limitations identified included ineffectiveness, superficiality, impracticality, tensions between religious doctrine and lived realities, a reductionist focus, a singular information-sharing approach, and limited pastor understanding and openness regarding AYSRH. Conclusions: Churches possess valuable communication platforms and partnerships that could be leveraged for AYSRH interventions. However, this study highlights a one-sided focus on church teachings and significant tensions between idealized approaches and practical implementation, raising critical questions about the overall efficacy of church-led AYSRH projects. This research validates prior findings on church-based AYSRH interventions while offering nuanced insights and heuristic perspectives for a more comprehensive and less simplistic understanding of church-driven AYSRH services. Full article

The decline in the young population in rural areas has led to a shortage of skilled labor in agriculture. While the use of technology and capital is often suggested as a solution, it may not be sufficient, especially with the aging rural population. The goal of this study was to examine the factors influencing young people’s decisions to stay in agriculture, and propose solutions. On the other hand, this study presents policy recommendations aimed at strengthening implementation tools for sustainable development and revitalizing global partnerships under SDG 17. Data were collected through surveys with 2398 young individuals aged 15–29 across 27 rural settlements in Turkey. A binary logit regression model was used to analyze the probability of young people remaining in agriculture. The results show that, similar to studies in developing economies, young men were more likely to stay in agriculture than young women. Additionally, having personal income or assets, as well as larger land and livestock holdings in the household, increased the likelihood of staying in agriculture. Conversely, migration from households and higher education levels decreased the probability. The study emphasizes the need for projects that improve the welfare of rural youth. Economic development alone is insufficient; policies integrating agricultural and social factors, including family dynamics, could be more effective in ensuring youth retention in agriculture and supporting sustainable agricultural production. Full article

This paper details how, in partnership with young people, community workshops centred on queer joy can offer queer and trans youth sexuality education (SE) that is relevant to their experiences, lived realities, and desires. In the data, young people discuss how tailored content, queer pedagogies, youth-centric approaches, and affirming spaces that are responsive to their questions might improve their sexuality knowledge as well as their mental health. A total of 22 youth participants from a mid-size Canadian city, the vast majority of whom identified as queer and/or trans, registered in a weekend workshop to evaluate SE video lessons created by educators enrolled in our partner organization’s sexuality education training program. Through this process, young people leaned on both their expertise and experience to critically reflect on the content and pedagogies employed by the educators. Additionally, 14 youth participated in post-workshop interviews where they continued these conversations and reflected on their SE experiences. In contrast to queer and trans young people’s more violent experiences in classrooms, public spaces, and political discourses, this community intervention workshop cultivated community, knowledge, power, and solidarity between and among youth participants. As they used and created memes to laugh in the face of structures and situations that attempt to erase their bodies and experiences, young people reached for a vision of sexuality education that not only includes them but centres on their desires and curiosities. Full article

Social media usage among adolescents has significantly increased in recent years, playing a crucial role in contemporary youth culture. The increasing adoption of the internet across all age groups has led to numerous benefits, but also concerns regarding its misuse, particularly among adolescents. However, alongside these benefits, problems related to internet misuse have also escalated. Background/Objectives: A review of the literature reveals a lack of studies examining the long-term effects of childhood experiences on later social media addiction. This study aims to investigate the impact of childhood experiences on social media addiction during adolescence. Methods: This study employs a relational survey model, a quantitative research method. Data were collected using the Childhood Experiences Scale and the Social Media Addiction Scale for Adolescents. This study’s participants included 371 adolescents attending secondary education institutions under the Ministry of National Education of Türkiye during the 2024–2025 academic year. Participants were selected through simple random sampling. Relationship and impact tests were used to analyze the data. Results: This study found that adolescents with adverse school experiences exhibited social media addiction. A significant relationship was found between adverse school experiences and the time spent on social media. Furthermore, in terms of the gender variable, it was found that females scored significantly higher on the Social Media Addiction Scale for Adolescents compared to males. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, it is observed that adverse experiences encountered in children’s school life may influence social media addiction in their future lives. In future studies, researchers may identify different childhood experiences that impact social media addiction. Full article