Putting youth’s voices at the center of the decision making process: the Youth-led Barrier Analysis in Guatemala

• In Event: Research Localization: Methods for Promoting Meaningful Youth-Led Research

Proposal

The transition from primary to secondary education is a critical period in the life of a young person. While millions of adolescents in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) transition from primary to secondary school each academic year, some face more significant challenges than others. These challenges may result in a difficult transition and eventual dropout. Unsuccessful transition from primary to secondary education is a complex phenomenon, as the causes are driven by interactions between individual factors, social norms and structures, and local environments. Factors influencing the transition in LMICs are also likely to vary across countries, regions, and communities. Unfortunately, only a few studies incorporate the perspectives of youth regarding the challenges they face and their views on supportive measures that can influence their prospects of transitioning to secondary education.

To empower youth in identifying local factors that influence transition from primary to secondary education, the University of Notre Dame, in collaboration with Khanti Consulting, supported a Youth-led Barrier Analysis in Guatemala (YLBA) . Youth-researchers residing in the communities where the barrier analysis was undertaken engaged local students enrolled in secondary education as well adolescents who completed primary education but did not enroll in secondary school in a series of workshops. The workshops employed systems science through participatory engagement of youth and provided a novel way of eliciting from young people the individual-level and system-based barriers to transition that are relevant to them. Specifically, it focused on youth's conceptualization, understanding, and perception of transition to secondary education and identified which barriers and motivators have the biggest influence on whether youth enroll in secondary education.

This presentation will explore the YLBA process for empowering local youth-researchers to use system science to generate findings that address a pressing educational challenge in Guatemala. It will describe how the findings are presented by the youth-researchers in a subsequent series of workshops with institutional stakeholders to inform their understanding of the critical factors affecting student transition, putting youth’s voices at the center of the decision-making process. Finally, this presentation will reflect on challenges and successes to elicit adolescents’ perspectives through the use of qualitative methods that confront the power dynamics that traditionally marginalize and inhibit youth’s voices.

Authors

• Fernanda Soares, University of Notre Dame

• Bethany Little, Notre Dame Pulte Institute for Global Development