ABSTRACT
Critical agency (CA) refers to an individual's feeling of power in relation to social inequalities. Research has demonstrated that high CA is associated with positive adolescent outcomes, however, less is known about what supports are important for its development. Moreover, a large majority of the literature is based on studies from the US and various countries in Africa; although the UK is saturated with inequalities there is little research within a UK context. In this paper we examine (a) the validity of using an existing measure of CA with a sample of UK adolescents and (b) the extent to which resilience supports account for variance in CA. Our analysis identified two distinct factors of CA: justice-oriented and community-oriented. High CA in both factors was explained by resilience supports associated with peer relationships (p < 0.01). Our findings push us towards new relational, ecological ways of understanding adolescent CA. We close by instantiating a translational framework for those devising policies in support of youth resilience and CA. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04578-1.
ABSTRACT
Young adults are often scapegoated for not complying with COVID-19 mitigation strategies. While studies have investigated what predicts this population's compliance and non-compliance, they have largely excluded the insights of African young people living in South African townships. Given this, it is unclear what places young adult South African township dwellers at risk for not complying with physical distancing, face masking and handwashing, or what enables resilience to those risks. To remedy this uncertainty, the current article reports a secondary analysis of transcripts (n=119) that document telephonic interviews in June and October 2020 with 24 emerging adults (average age: 20 years) who participated in the Resilient Youth in Stressed Environments (RYSE) study. The secondary analysis, which was inductively thematic, pointed to compliance being threatened by forgetfulness;preventive measures conflicting with personal/collective style;and structural constraints. Resilience to these compliance risks lay in young people's capacity to regulate their behaviour and in the immediate social ecology's capacity to co-regulate young people's health behaviours. These findings discourage health interventions that are focused on the individual. More optimal public health initiatives will be responsive to the risks and resilience-enablers associated with young people and the social, institutional, and physical ecologies to which young people are connected.