Discussion Paper I Good Governance

Youth and Gender and the Societal Dynamics of Fragility

Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach

The present paper elaborated by Dr. Sabine Kurtenbach has been commissioned by the Sector Programme Promotion of Good Governance / Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). It was prepared as one out of a few background studies to inform the conceptual framework of a Flagship Study by the World Bank on the theme Societal Dynamics And Fragility: Engaging Societies In Responding To Fragile Situations. Within the broader context of a cooperation agreement between the World Bank and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the paper thus constitutes one out of several German contributions to the Flagship Study. The Sector Programme Promotion of Good Governance was assigned by BMZ to support the elaboration process of the Flagship Study providing technical expertise and to commission the present expert background paper on its behalf. Notwithstanding, the views expressed in this paper remain solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of German Development Cooperation. The Flagship Study, in which this papers findings have been fed into, is currently in the drafting process. It is expected to be circulated by the World Bank in mid-2012. In addition, the background papers prepared within the context of elaborating the Flagship Study also await publication by the World Bank. They will soon be issued by the Bank in a separate document complementing the arguments put forward by the Flagship Study.

I. Youth and Gender blind spots in the discussion of fragility and resilience II. Sources and Mechanisms in Socialization
Family Education Peers Media Institutional and Political Processes Religion and cultural belief systems The interaction of socialization sources

2 4
5 6 7 9 10 12 13

III. Gendered Processes of Transition

School to work transitions finding employment Marriage and starting a family Citizenship and civic engagement Violence as an alternative Process of Transition Confronting the Challenges in the Transitions to Adulthood

14
15 16 18 21 21

IV. Socialization, Transitions and the Societal Dynamics of Fragility and Resilience
Rigidity and Exclusion Control and Violence Flexibility and adaptation

23
23 23 24

V. Some consequences for development cooperation 25 Bibliography 26

Graphic: Table 1: Box 1: Box 2: Box 3: Box 4: Box 5: Box 6:

Socialization Sources and their Overlap Participation in the labor force for male and female adults and youths School enrollment as a mirror of gender relations and patterns of exclusion Changing patterns of peer groups the Guatemalan experience Global Self-Socialization via the Internet Intergenerational Conflict and Cooptation Violent life-worlds as a specific form of socialization Male postponement of marriage

4 15 7 8 10 11 12 18

of adulthood (Flanagan/ Syvertsen 2006:11). Growing up in the developed countries of the global North (or in the middle or upper classes of the South) opens a variety of opportunities and options for the future while growing up in poor and marginalized environments of the global South shapes a quite different set of (im-)possibilities. Still across the globe young people face a series of universal challenges in the transitions to adulthood. These pathways and experiences are gendered, as they are different for girls and boys, young women and men.3 The (re-)production of gender relations is an important part of the socialization process reflecting cultural differences as well as changing patterns and global influences. While youth is a phase of transition out of the private into society, experiences are highly gendered and culturally diverse as in most societies young males are sent out to prove themselves while control over young females may increase during adolescence. Shifts in the publicprivate divide of society e.g. through the expansion of public policies (education, health care) influence and change relationships between age and gender groups. This can either strengthen the social fabric and forms of social cohesion or cause tension and conflict not exclusively but to an important degree between generations. Thus youth is both a social position as well as part of a larger societal and generational process, a state of becoming (Christiansen, Utas, Vigh 2006, 11). Under such an interactive perspective, the importance of a focus on youth for understanding societal dynamics of fragility and resilience is quite obvious4: First of all young people mirror broader developments of social change like in a spy glass as they are the link between a societys past and future. Second under a quantitative perspective, the current world population is overwhelmingly young, a trend that will continue at least for the next two decades. How todays 1.5 billion young people (1.2 living in developing coun-

I. Youth and Gender blind spots in the discussion of fragility and resilience
When talking about young people in developing countries a series of images dominates, most of them showing behavior, attitudes or activities adults see as problematic: young warriors with Kalashnikovs from Sierra Leone or Liberia, heavily tattooed street gang members from El Salvador or Honduras, young prostitutes and sex slaves from Southeast Asia or the countries of the former Soviet Union, fanatic Muslim suicide bombers. Although these pictures dominate global media, the majority of young people across the world grow up in rather unspectacular often well-adapted ways even if they have to confront high risks due to poverty, lack of basic services or resources among other challenges.1 Youth is mostly conceived as the life span between puberty and adulthood, including late childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.2 But youth is a social construct and not just a biological process or a life-stage varying according to the context in which people are making transitions from the dependencies of childhood to assume the responsibilities

1 While there is a lot of research on children that is young people up to age 18 according to the International Convention of Children Rights in developing countries, the focus on youth is relatively new. Research on youth has mostly analyzed the individual and collective developments of young people in the industrialized countries, with thematic priorities varying across academic disciplines (most of all development psychology and sociology). Comparative research on youth including experiences from developing countries is just beginning. See most of all the United Nations World Youth Reports (2003, 2005, 2007), Brown/ Larson/ Saraswathi 2002, the publications of the Panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries (Lloyd 2005, Lloyd et al. 2005), the World Development Report 2007 (World Bank 2006) as well as a series of UNDP publications on youth issues in different world regions. The bulk of the existing research consists of case studies with an exploratory character. Many studies on young people in developing countries focus on risky, deviant or anti-social behavior in urban contexts; violence, gangs and HIV/AIDS are the main research topics. There is a lack of longitudinal and comparative studies and of comparable data. Only some middleincome countries like South Africa, Mexico or Chile have begun to conduct national youth surveys. 2 There is no global definition of youth as this is a highly context specific concept. For example according to White (2006: 257) in East Africa there is a gender based distinction of the term youth referring to males between puberty and age 30, but to females between puberty and age 18 or 19. International organizations and institutions use different age boundaries, the United Nations World Youth Reports (UN-DESA 2003,2005, 2007) include the cohort aged 15 to 25, the World Health Organization that from 15 to 29 (WHO 2002), the World Banks World Development Report (2006) young people between 12 and 24. and Russia 72.8 (see UNDP 2009:191-194). 3 Gender here is not exclusively related to ascribed biological status of male and female but is also a cross-cutting social identity, created and recreated in the interactions between women and men that determine gender relations. (World Bank 2005, 28) 4 Fragility and resilience are understood as a continuum in which large scale violence and collapse of societal structures are just one side of the spectrum and even societies perceived as stable can have pockets of fragility (see Chapter 1 Flagship study).

tries) relate and interact with society will define the future not just at the local level but on a global scale too. Surveying the debate on state resilience and fragility so prominent over the last decade a systematic discussion of the relationship between youth/gender and societal dynamics of fragility does not exist.5 There is a direct link to youth as well as to gender issues in the discussion on violent conflict and fragility when specific risk behaviors or structural changes are analyzed.6 With a similar focus bias towards problematic behavior and difficult environments or youth at risk (Cunningham et al. 2008) many recent studies focus on processes of migration and urbanization and their consequences for young people (see UNFPA 2006, Dolby/Rizvi 2008). However our knowledge of the non-violent and nondeviant life-worlds of young people in developing countries is limited. Although migration and urbanization are important for a growing number of youths even today the majority of young people still grow up in rural life-worlds.7 As the aim of this paper is to identify some of the societal dynamics of fragility and resilience related to youth and gender it will focus on the general relationship between youth and society and not just on deviant and problematic experiences. The central interface between youth and society is socialization. At the individual level it is the process by which people acquire the behaviors and beliefs of the social world that is, the culture in which they live (Arnett 1995, 618). At the macro level it is the process of how polities and other political societies and systems inculcate appropriate norms and practices in citizens, residents, or members (Sapiro 2004, 2). Hence socialization is a complex process with a certain conservative bias favoring the internalization of existing forms of social cohesion, norms and rules. At the individual as well as at the collective level it provides elements of societal continuity and path-dependency rooted in historical and cultural experiences as well as day-to-day social practice. Nevertheless socialization is not static but at least theoretically a dynamic process able to adapt and change according to structural as well as to context specific developments and needs. Young people are not passive recipients of socialization but active agents influencing and shaping the process itself as well as the outcome depending on their agency (Youniss/ Yates 1999a, 8).

Most of the socialization patterns and transition processes offer opportunities as well as (old and new) restrictions for young people, most of all for girls and young women. The relation with fragility and resilience is highly ambivalent as socialization can dynamize developments in both directions. Hence a socialization lens allows for the analysis of both of shared challenges in the gendered transition to adulthood and of the varied experiences and pathways shaped by societal specifics and youths agency. At the same time this perspective helps us to identify obstacles as well as opportunities for the constructive management of change leading either to fragility or resilience in society. This may help to develop early warning indicators for increasing fragility or to identify entry points to support resilience and sustainable development. The central hypothesis put forward here can be summarized as follows: Socialization produces expectations about necessary status passages to adulthood. Fragility is caused where these expectations cannot be met, while resilience is based on a certain flexibility and the ability to reconcile expectations with possibilities as well as to thrive in spite of developmental risks. The manifold experiences can be systemized according to three patterns: rigidity and exclusion, control and violence, as well as conflicts between different sources of socialization. The paper is organized along these considerations. The following section II offers an introduction to the various sources of socialization, their variance across contexts and gender as well as their relation to the societal dynamics of fragility and resilience. The gendered transitions to adulthood are discussed in section III focusing on marriage, employment and citizenship as the most important status passages across the globe. Violence is presented as an alternative path to adulthood. A systematization of the relationship between socialization and fragility and resilience is put forward in section IV. On the basis of these considerations section V presents some observations on the consequences of these findings for development cooperation.

5 WThis neglect is also reflected in different quantitative indices where gender is only an indicator in 4, out of eleven indices, while youth is not mentioned at all (see DIE/UNDP 2009:82). On gender some discussion is at least beginning, see Schoofs/Smits 2010 on gender-responsible state-building, FRIDE 2009 in relation to womens citizenship, Baranyi/Powell 2005 in relation to development cooperation. Plan UKs project Because I am a Girl (2007, 2008, 2009) includes some discussion on the impact of fragility on girls. McLean Hilker/ Fraser (2009) link the debates on youth exclusion and fragility providing some empirical evidence. 6 The growing body of research on so-called youth bulges is the most prominent example, gang research another one (see below). 7 Looking at urbanization in the countries with a population over 100 million, the most populated countries have a share of urban population well under 50%: China 44.9, India 30.1, Pakistan 37.0, Bangladesh 28.1 and Nigeria 49.8. Indonesia has 53.7 while urbanization is high in Brazil 86.5, Mexico 77.8 and Russia 72.8 (see UNDP 2009:191-194).

II. Sources and Mechanisms in Socialization

Youth is not the only, but the most important phase in life for socialization, as socialization is a life-long process in which the main patterns are acquired in childhood (primary socialization) and adolescence (secondary socialization). Socialization is a highly gendered experience and varies significantly for girls and boys beyond the acquisition of gender roles.8 While socialization as such is more or less universal, there is an intimate relationship between socialization and the specific cultural, social and political context. As a consequence there will be differences according to the norms and values provided by socialization based on religious or other belief systems as well as different cultures of individualism or collectivism. Likewise the relevant intermediate actors and institutions shaping the process of socialization vary between cultures as well as in time. As a consequence youths life-worlds vary significantly across the globe and show patterns of what S.N. Eisenstadt (2000:2-3) has called multiple modernities. So what are the communalities between socialization and the transition to adulthood of a Chinese single child in Shanghai and a Rwandan war orphan in Kigali, between young Maya women growing corn and a young Indian women working in Indias Silicon Valley Bangalore? Across the globe there is a set of socialization sources in the private as well as in the public sphere influencing and shaping the process as well as the outcome of socialization. The first sources of socialization are family and kinship networks. Depending on the organization of education school becomes the first important institution for socialization outside the private and domestic sphere. During adolescence the spectrum of relevant sources and institutions becomes broader, including peer groups and neighborhoods. This is even more extended when young people begin to work entering the broader community and society. Cultural belief systems and religion influence and shape all other socialization sources to an important extent as they transmit norms and values. The relationships can thus be illustrated as the layers of an onion.

All these sources and mechanisms interact influencing socialization in different forms, degrees, and places at the individual as well as at the collective level while their relative importance varies across space. The following sections will analyze the different sources and mechanisms of socialization, how they are influenced by social change and the most important variations across space and cultures. The focus will be on some general trends notwithstanding the manifold and pronounced differences inside and between the different world regions and countries. Concrete examples will help to illustrate how these socialization sources are related to the societal dynamics of the fragility and resilience continuum.

Socialization Sources and their Overlap

RELIGIONS AND CULTURAL BELIEF SYSTEMS

INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICAL PROCESS

MEDIA

SCHOOL AND PEERS

FAMILY

8 Although with different emphasis, in relation to influence and the specific stage in ones life, different academic disciplines share this set of socialization sources or institutions (Dawson/Prewitt/Dawson 1973, Arnett 1995, Hurrelmann 2004).

Family
Family relations stand at the core of young peoples socialization around the world. Traditionally families have been productive units where the role and participation of children and youth increased gradually and through specific status passages on their way to adulthood. Family is the first relationship and socialization source for the overwhelming majority of people. At the individual level this lays the foundation either for psychosocial wellbeing or under unfavorable conditions can sow the first seeds of anti-social or problematic behavior. Families are age heterogeneous groups between children and parents and/or other relatives and caretakers. The childs learning process includes emotional attachment or detachment from others and specific forms of relating to others (e.g. respect, obedience) important for intergeneration relations of dependence, solidarity or reciprocity. From early childhood on families also introduce children into gender specific role models: Girls are familiarized with care taking roles, have to help in the household and look after younger siblings while boys are either sent outside to prove themselves playing and fighting with their peers or are given chores preparing them for male roles like protection of the house.9 Families can socialize children either into patterns of solidarity and reciprocity or if they are dysfunctional into patterns anti-social or problematic behavior.10 Family socialization thus constitutes an important basis for other social interactions as it is transferred (and adapted) from the core family to extended kinship networks and the broader society. Young people live with their families at least until they are able to start a family themselves but sometimes even afterwards. This can have cultural causes, for example when the eldest son (India) or the eldest daughter (Philippines) is expected to stay with the parents to take care of them or it can have economic reasons because young people lack the financial resources to move out of their parents household (Latin America and Arab countries). Although the extended family remains the most important and stable social unit at the micro-level most of all in relation to social services and intergenerational solidarity, family structures are changing in most developing countries. Two interrelated processes affect family structures and thus the patterns of socialization inside family: demographic change and migration.

Demographic change that is an increase in life expectancy and a decline in fertility rates is well under way in all world regions although there are a lot of differences between and within the regions producing various challenges. While most of the industrialized societies must adapt to the needs of aging societies, most developing societies have to cope with very young populations. Decline in fertility rates has just begun in Sub-Saharan Africa; Latin America and South East Asia already have a so-called youth bulge that is more than 20% of the population is between age 15 and 24 (World Bank 2006, Fussell/ Greene 2002). Family size is important for socialization as roles and functions of families change with their size. This is important for intergenerational as well as for gender relations. Intergenerational solidarity and reciprocity is endangered where families have fewer children in the absence of other forms of securing well-being for the elderly (e.g. pension funds or other social security systems). Demographic sex ratios can be distorted through the increasing use of modern technologies for gender-based abortions. China is a case in point. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China will have 30 to 40 million more men than women in the generation of the 19 years old and younger by 2020 (see Economist 22nd -28th March, 2010). Other countries like India, Taiwan and parts of Central Asia and the Balkans show similar patterns. But the consequences of demographic change go beyond family size and sex ratios. Stevenson and Zusho (2002:147) report for China that todays generation of only child adolescents appear to place greater emphasis on their own satisfaction than on making contributions to society or to other persons. It is paradoxical that a nation that has placed great value on the family for centuries is now faced with a one-child family in which the child appears to be strongly interested in self-advancement. It has to be seen how this will affect traditional patterns of intergenerational solidarity based on children caring for their parents when they are old. As long as there are few alternatives this can be a source of fragility. Another process influencing family structures and thus socialization across the world is ruralurban or transnational migration. Migration affects family structures and gender relations as mostly young men migrate leaving women, children and elders at home.11 The impact of migration on families differs according to migration patterns. Where girls and young women migrate on a daily or part-time basis working in the international textile industry (in Central

9 For an overview see WYR 2007 and the regional chapters in Brown/Larson 2002. 10 Violent behavior is mostly learned during childhood and adolescence in families and peer-groups (see Hodges/Card/ Isaac 2003). 11 South East Asia (the Philippines and Indonesia) are exceptions as mostly young women leave for overseas to work in support of their families while young men are expected to stay home to protect the family. See Santa Maria (2002:181). On age and gender patterns of international migrants see McKenzie 2006. On girls and young women as migrants and as those left behind to take care of younger siblings see Plan UK (2009, 112-121).

America, the Philippines, China and Vietnam) they will still be responsible for most of the domestic work. Where men migrate across borders the share of female led households might increase offering new responsibilities and opportunities for women. Hence the impact of migration on families and the related socialization patterns is manifold on both sides. Migration breaks up traditional family structures even in cases where the whole core family migrates, the relationship across larger generations (with grandparents) and inside the extended family needs to find new forms. Intergenerational relations and patterns of reciprocity and solidarity are highly affected and need to adapt when the young migrate and the older stay. The specific way functions and patterns of family structures adapt or resist the changing environment vary. In relation to belief systems as well as to identity migration can also be a source of tension and conflict in intergenerational and gender relations. Peggy Levitt (1998, 927) has coined the term social remittances referring to: the ideas, behaviors, identities, and social capital that flow from receiving to sending communities. They are the north-to-south equivalent of the social and cultural resources that migrants bring with them which ease their transition from immigrants to ethnics. The introduction of new ideas e.g. the global human rights discourse on gender equality or childrens rights can conflict with traditional structures of subordination and obedience to elders inside the family. Challenging existing norms and patterns of socialization can start up societal dynamics leading to fragility in contexts lacking openness and adaptability and thus trying to enforce the maintenance of the status quo. At the micro level families remain the first and most important source of socialization. In risk-prone or difficult environments families still are the main basis for survival providing intergenerational support and solidarity. Thus changing family structures can be an important indicator for societal dynamics of fragility as well as resilience.

Like families schools socialize children and adolescents into specific forms and modes of social relations. Relationships inside schools are a microcosm of society. While relations to teachers are hierarchical, school is the first place of (mostly supervised and controlled) peer relations outside the family making it an experimental ground for public (inter-) actions. Directly and indirectly schools provide children and youth with a set of norms, values and social practices relevant beyond the time spend in school. Research on peace education provides interesting insight into the positive or negative role schools can play in shaping the patterns of conflict resolution (see Davies 2004). In modernizing societies formal education aims at providing skills and capabilities required for entering the labor market. Nevertheless this can be a controversial issue. In relation to Sub-Sahara Africa Nsamenang (2002:90) criticizes that western models of formal schooling are decontextualized from African local contexts and thus provide little incentive and use for youths. Under a intergenerational perspective Durham (2002:118) has a similar observation: Youth claim extensive knowledge that may or may not be part of seniors repertoire school-based knowledge, knowledge of bureaucracy, scientific agriculture and the means of progress. But they are significantly ignorant of social knowledge that are key to their own success: they see themselves as too foolish to vote (even when of age to do so), and unable to diagnose or treat ailments of social origin (notably witchcraft). Other regions of the world confront similar problems. An interesting development although not exclusively related to this line of critique is the revival of religious schools during the last decades. Religious schools have been the first institutions of teaching and education in many regions of the world, but their influence has been reduced due to the spread of public (and secular) education. Today two different contexts can be distinguished: Religious education can be an important complement to public schools e.g. in contexts where public education lacks resources or has low capacities. Traditionally this has been the case in many rural areas where state infrastructure was absent beyond the church or other religious institutions (or the military). While in Latin America for example the economically better-off send their children to private (catholic) schools, the Cambodian pagodas provide education for poor men from the rural areas. On the other hand religious or faith based schools have (re-)gained importance in contexts where education has been secularized and religious instructions have been banned. Islamic schools are an interesting example with an ambivalent socialization outcome. While they pursue an important social role providing education to marginalized sectors of e.g. the Pakistani society, on the other hand at least some of them are heavily criticized

Education
The spread of formal education has influenced socialization significantly during recent decades. Traditionally children acquired knowledge and capacities inside the larger families through observation, imitation and creative action (Nsamenang 2002, 85-91). Independent from where they live, young people today spend more time in school than their parents emphasizing intergenerational disparities. Formal education has many implications for socialization as hours away from home increase the influence of peers and others beyond the family.

for mobilizing and indoctrinating young fighters for the jihad against western countries. In the end the problem is not the religious character of the school but the interests of those who teach and control some of those schools.12

Box 1: School enrollment as a mirror of gender relations and patterns of exclusion

Levels of school enrollment provide some information on the global spread of formal education. Enrollment is increasing to over 90% in most developing regions, but target two of the Millennium Development Goals universal education will not be achieved by 2015. Gains in education are far from universal and show differences according to gender as well as to wealth, residential status and region. Although the gender gap is rapidly closing, girls literacy rates remain lower than boys. Only in Latin America and the Caribbean do they surpass those of boys. Developments in SubSahara Africa lack behind, as enrollment is just 76% and the region is home of the biggest share (30%) and absolute number (31 million; South Asia 18 million) of out-of-school children as well as the highest portion of school drop-outs (over 30%). At the same time differences according to residence and social status are pronounced: The percentage of out-of-school-children doubles between urban and rural residence, and is even bigger under the criteria of income and gender. Girls in the poorest 20 per cent of the households have the smallest chance to get into school, while boys from the richest households are least likely to be out of school (data for 2008 according to UN, MDG 2010). In India 40.4 percent of female youths living in rural areas are illiterate (18.5 % of male youths; Verma/ Saraswathi 2002:117). Reasons for school drop-out are manifold starting with lacking resources (to pay for school fees or other requirements as well as the need to work for a living and support the family), lack of access (mostly in rural areas or marginalized neighborhoods in the cities), to early pregnancy and motherhood. On the other hand a lack of infrastructure and funds goes hand in hand with insufficient political interest to invest in the education of marginalized youths. This has consequences beyond exclusion from formal education as Tienda and Wilson (2002: 13) note: Poor urban youths are systematically more isolated from mainstream social in-

stitutions (such as schools and job opportunities) that inculcate social norms and responsibility. In turn this not only leads to cultural and societal exclusion, but also encourages them to develop maladaptive strategies as they negotiate the developmental challenges of adolescence. In many countries this is the basis for vicious circles and escalating violence perpetrated by and committed against young people.

Under a perspective of fragility and resilience the essential question on schools as a socialization source is what capabilities and which norms and values does formal schooling provide beyond reading and writing skills? How does education help young people to cope with processes of change, the related instability and uncertainty? Beyond formal skills socialization through schools can either reinforce or conflict with family socialization and intergenerational relations. Across the globe including the industrialized world there are examples how this can lead to conflicts between parents and public authorities. Most prominent are conflicts related to the use of religious symbols in public (or secular) schools, e.g. decisions to abolish or establish prayer in school. These conflicts are closely related to identity patterns, meaning systems and patterns of social cohesion and can be the starting point for disengagement between public authorities and social groups. Schools are an important source of socialization into the norms and values of broader societal contexts. While plurality and variety are not a problem, conflict with other socialization sources can be. Examples are conflicts about religious versus secular curricula or ethnicity-based versus universal forms of identity (exemplified by the acknowledgement or suppression of languages). Formal education can either provide a positive experience for the management of variety or enforce conformism. This can be an indicator for societal dynamics towards fragility or resilience.

Peers
The importance of peer groups depends first of all on the amount of leisure time young people have to get involved with their peers. Poor and rural youth having to work instead of going to school or needing to help sustain their families after school will have few peer relationships.13 On the other hand, across the world young people from middle and upper class backgrounds show relatively similar patterns of using their free time doing sports, listening to music,

12 On education in the Middle East Benard 2006, on madrasahs Evans 2006, Fair 2008. 13 The percentage of working children (age 7-14) varies according to the WDR data (World Bank 2006, 294) between 3.9% in Trinidad and Tobago and 74% in Sierra Leone.

hanging around shopping malls. Secondly, peer relations depend on cultural patterns of relationships like the importance of extended families among others. In India, South East Asia and the Arab world peer groups are a rather new development as parents use to control peer relations and limit them to extended family networks and kinship groups (Verma/Saraswathi 2002: 111-113; Santa Maria 2002:181-185; Booth 2002:220-222). On the other hand, in Western and East Africa children seem to spend plenty of time with peers even before entering adolescence (Nsamenang 2002:77-78). Therefore the role of peers and their influence on socialization is closely related to family structures and formal education varying across different life-worlds. Peers are more important in urban spaces, in industrialized and/or middleclass contexts than in rural areas. But across contexts peer groups are an important space beyond family control providing youths with a specific identity, a sense of belonging and respect. In contexts where family structures are endangered or destroyed (e.g. due to the parents working conditions, migration, displacement or violence) peer groups might serve as a substitute family. For migrant youths peer groups can either serve as a means of integration into the new environment (traditionally sports clubs and other recreational activities have been important here) or as a means of resistance and coping with exclusion and marginalization (e.g. ethnic based gangs). The basis for internal cohesion of peer groups can differ significantly; peers can have shared interest (in sports, culture, politics) or shared experiences of exclusion and marginalization.14 Eisenstadt (2003: 56-114) distinguishes peer groups along membership, internal structure and their location in society, that is their relationship with the adult world. Autonomous and unsupervised peer groups foment different forms of socialization than supervised peer groups due to their horizontal organization (although not due to a lack of hierarchy). These groups enable young people to develop their own ideas and act according to self-given rules. Within peer groups there is a pressure for conformity for example regarding to specific dress codes, tattoos, music preferences, or even drug abuse and violent behavior. Peer socialization can either reinforce socialization from other sources or conflict with them (Arnett 1995a, 620-621). In many societies autonomous peer groups lacking supervision or control by elders provoke skepticism, criticism or even rejection of youth. Claims that (mostly male) youth misbehave and are out of control are made all over the world and mostly directed against these horizontally organized groups of youth operating in the public sphere.

Box 2: Changing patterns of peer groups the Guatemalan experience

Guatemala has a long history of youth organizations. Young people stood at the forefront of protest against the authoritarian regimes throughout the recent decades. The revolution of 1944 started with students demonstrations and the revolutionary governments of the reform decade saw youth as a social vanguard of change. With the overthrow of the democratic regime 1954, the states conception of youth changed fundamentally. While the authoritarian governments of the late 1950s and 1960s allowed the expansion of education, they relied heavily on pedagogical concepts promoting obedience and subordination. Youths were not longer perceived as a vanguard but as potential revolutionaries who needed to be controlled (Levenson 2005, p.8). This perception was based on the fact that students and pupils of secondary schools were the first to organize the struggle against a counterreform in the education system; later they supported the Cuban revolution of 1959. Other young people also showed a high degree of political participation, e.g. juventud obrera which was an anti-communist force supported by catholic priests first, a nucleus for leftist trade unions later. With the political opening in the mid 1980s youth organizations seem to have lost their political background, however (see Levenson-Estrada 1988). The first incidents with violent groups in Guatemala date back to September of 1985 when a protest against increasing bus ticket prices got out of hand. By the mid-1980s, so-called maras became the predominant form of youth gangs in Guatemala. Marginalization and inequality made Guatemala City an appropriate breeding ground for their growth as well as for their spreading to the smaller urban centers. Two surveys on maras from the end of the 1980s revealed the following patterns (Levenson-Estrada 1988: 17-27): First generation mara members did not come from the poorest and most marginalized backgrounds or from recently displaced families. They had some education, but did not see any perspective for the future, neither in relation to existing societal values nor in migration to the United States or other countries. The organizational structure during the late 1980s was rather egalitarian; delimitation between groups was mostly based on territorial control. Thus, Levenson-Estrada (1988: 18) concludes: maras are voluntary organiza-

14 On resistance identities as a formative element of gangs see Hagedorn (2008:53-55)

tions of youths born and grown up mostly in the city that have a positive attitude towards their participation in a group they perceive to be democratic. At the end of the 1980s youth gangs were the only dynamic organizations for youths apart from the churches that showed internal solidarity and mutual assistance towards their members. Since then and most notably after the war some features of maras have changed while others have persisted. Importantly, the participatory nature has remained: despite the public discourse on maras as highly centralized and hierarchical organizations, members themselves perceive the internal structures as participative. Regarding change, there has been a growing assumption of a certain regionalization of Central American youth gangs around two Salvadorian gangs formed by Salvadorian migrants in Los Angeles called Mara Salvatrucha and the Mara 18. They seem to have absorbed many or most of Guatemalas local pandillas and gangs. (Adapted from Kurtenbach 2008)

the highest growth rates between 2000 and 2010, but use and access is still highly uneven reflecting existing disparities according to age, income and residence.15 In rural Africa for example the radio remains the most important form of mass communication (WYR 2003:320). Hence there is not only a global digital divide, but also another one within the developing countries between rural and urban residence and according to income. With the rise of modern communication technologies there has been a notion of the existence of a global youth culture although this is mostly reduced to a convergence of music tastes and consumption patterns of youths belonging to the middle and upper classes. Nevertheless the spread of the world wide web has not only led to globalised forms of culture (music, film, art) but it has also changed patterns of communication itself. Young people are highly overrepresented in the use of the Internet and virtual forms of communication creating and establishing virtual social networks without directly interacting. New media are also important for the diffusion of global norms and values; universal human rights being a case in point. Where international standards (for instance gender equality or child rights) emerge as new reference points, existing gender relations may be devalued and are exposed to considerable pressure to change. As the use of new communication technologies also shows an important generational divide, this can lead either to new forms of socialization (where children teach their parents and grandparents how to use new technologies) or it can be a cause of intergenerational conflict when traditional and new forms of socialization compete or even contradict each other. The downside of the Western dominance in global media for socialization and identity formation of youths from developing countries can be observed in transnational migrant families. Media reports on the developing world are heavily overloaded with stereotypes and negative images. Africa is a case in point: Images of Africa in Western media are mostly reduced to starving children, war, violence and corruption. To counter these pictures and to enable their children to develop a positive relationship with their home country parents try to construct positive images. For the children, their parents attempts to construct a homeland that challenges the popularly constructed Western images of a continent often fall on deaf ears. As parents evoke positive images, children are bombarded outside the home and community with more powerful negative images that construct their lives in terms of disease, war, and corruption, endemic and spreading. (DAlisera 2009:122)

Under the perspective of societal dynamics of fragility and resilience unsupervised peer groups have a certain potential to cause fragility and conflict. Regarding intergenerational relations elders in many contexts perceive them as a threat to existing norms, values and age-based hierarchies. While certain forms of resistance to the status quo by young people may be accepted, in cases where either young people do not grow out of peer groups or where these identities are incompatible and cannot be incorporated or adapted into society they can challenge the existing social status quo. Societies that are able to manage these challenges in a flexible and open way will be more resilient than those with rigid and exclusionary handling of deviant peer groups.

Media
Media differ from other socialization sources because compared to family and education their use is mostly uncontrolled (although their content might be). Young people use media for various reasons: entertainment, identity formation, high sensation, coping, and youth culture identification (Arnett 1995b). Access is highly dependent on social status, place of residence and gender. New communication technologies are expanding rapidly Africa, the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean showing

15 According to Internet world statistics (www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) Internet penetration as % of population is highest in North America (77.4%), Oceania/Australia (61.3%) and Europe (58.4%) followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (34.5%), Asia (21.5%) and Africa (10.9%). In Latin America data on age and Internet use show a decrease of Internet usage with age (Latinobarometro 2008, Table 21, p. 68).

Nevertheless media industry is growing in the developing world too. While regarding popular entertainment Bollywood or Brazilian telenovelas can be seen as a form of cultural adaptation to local tastes and history, the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera is a form of counter public establishing more plurality.

Box 3: Global Self- Socialization via the Internet

Where they have access, new communication technologies allow young people to access geographically distant places and cultures. This affects their socialization in different ways: Most of the Internets content transmits Western cultural norms, values and consumption patterns while other cultures are underrepresented. This begins with language as 80 per cent of the websites are in English. At the same time new technologies change or even replace faceto-face contacts with peers and family. This may help to overcome negative effects of mobility e.g. in cases of migration it allows for regular contacts with home, but it also makes personal engagement more arbitrary and volatile. With reference to Chinese children sent to study in the United States by their parents Zhou (2009:39) characterizes this as a change from direct control to remote control. While parents may be happy to have their adolescents under control via a cell phone, this cannot substitute the processes of negotiation and mediation inside the family (e.g. on the time to be at home at night). New communication platforms also seem to change the quality of the relationships as those are not longer bound to the idea of community having a certain stability, coherence, common history, embeddedness and social recognition. Conversely, network sociality derives not from a common narrative but from informational acts; ... The social bond is created on a project-by-project basis. (WYR 2003: 327) The influence of global communication and media reaches out even to the selection of partners. Where Western dominated media broadcast the ideal of romantic engagement and relationship this clashes with the reality of many young people e.g. in India where most partners are chosen by the family according to criteria beyond the emotional feelings promoted also by Bollywood movies (see Verma/ Saraswathi 2002:115-116).

In relation to societal dynamics of fragility and resilience media socialization is highly ambivalent. It offers opportunities for the diffusion of norms and values promoting human rights as well as for indoctrination. Media can promote inclusive forms of social cohesion as support processes of individualization or boost exclusionary identities e.g. through hate speech. Independently of technology the impact of media depends on its content and the receptivity of those who use it. But modern technologies are faster, have a broader outreach and are more difficult to control than their predecessors. Various examples in different countries show how conflictive this can be: The government of Iran tried to impede Internet information by the political opposition (mostly young people), the Chinese government blocked information provided on the Nobel peace price for dissident writer Liu Xiaobo in 2010.

Institutional and Political Processes

The every day socialization sources of youths family, school, peers and media do not exist in a vacuum. They are interrelated and interact with existing institutional and political processes and the relations between state and society that are an important part of the (re-) production of social and cultural patterns of socialization. These rules and arrangements need continuous support provided by political socialization as the way in which youths are brought into a political society established by preceding generations (Dawson/ Prewitt/ Dawson 1973:27). This is an important part of intergenerational relations, relevant for social cohesion at different levels. Political socialization is closely related to the agency of citizens in the public sphere and the processes of political learning, including the formation of political cultures and the acquisition of norms and values as well as patterns of civic engagement. Although young peoples political activism varies across the globe, it is much higher than those of older generations. Variations across regions are influenced by different historical experiences activism being lowest in former authoritarian countries in Latin America as well as Eastern Europe and the related development of civil society organizations providing opportunities for civic engagement (Tilley 2002, 244-246). Political socialization has been and is provided in many societies through the public (or even religious) education system as well as other state institutions. During the last centuries in the developed countries of the West the armed forces have been one of the most important institution for young men in this respect; similar patterns can be observed today (on numbers see ILO 2009:Table E, 200-204). Hence the armed forces serve as a nations school of socialization promoting obedience and subordination to the regime (either

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a democracy or the leadership in charge) as well as shaping the patterns of mobilization of young people. Legal systems (formal as well as informal, content as well as practice) are another important source of socialization as they reproduce existing relations of power, status and authority according to gender and age. Patterns of governance are a case in point: Growing up in an environment of corruption, lack of transparency and other patterns of bad governance most likely breeds cynicism and disillusionment reinforcing these patterns (Amarasuriya et al 2009:7). Inheritance laws and general access to justice systems are a central mechanism either for exclusion or integration and empowerment. The dominant patriarchy is mostly reflected in these legal structures. Girls and women in some settings will not be able to inherit land the most important material resource in agricultural societies. This has repercussions not only for investments and innovations in land use but also for other economic activities, e.g. the eligibility for credit (Plan UK 2009, 52-59). Marriage laws are another interesting example (see below). Access to justice is also important in processes of societal change. Today it is one of the main mechanisms for the implementation of the global human rights agenda. Consider the fact that domestic violence (against minors, the elderly or women) has only recently become an offence even in industrialized countries. Where young people and especially girls and young women are not able to access justice they will not be able to fight for their (many times newly acquired) rights when and where those are at least formally granted or make sure that restrictions are implemented.16 Legal pluralism can help to provide access to justice but can also be a major obstacle when customary and indigenous law discriminates against women reproducing existing gender relations and the subordination of women and children to patriarchal power.

The example of Cambodia shows how patronage networks adapt to changing contexts und are still able to function in the 21st Century. Since 1979 we have seen an authoritarian reconstruction of patronage networks under CPP dominance, and particularly under Hun Sens control, through which resources are allocated to the extended family network of Hun Sen. Since UNTAC, this has taken place within the triple transformation process of democratization, pacification and marketization. It is here where political instrumentalization of youth comes in. In the form of the Pagoda Boys, Hun Sen ensures a selective integration of a particular group of youth into CPPdominated structures. This allows him to functionalize them for regime support, that is, for the preservation of the status quo. (Hensengerth 2008:49) But examples abound where these intergenerational conflicts lead to fragility and even violent conflict. Politics in many Sub-Saharan African countries e.g. have been dominated by the generation of men that came to power after independence from the colonial powers. Zimbabwes Robert Mugabe is just the most extreme example. As a consequence the potency and potential of youth are extracted to sustain power of those in authority while young people themselves feel increasingly unable to attain the promises of the new economy and society. (Durham 2000:113) Across Africa young people began to protest and riot against their exclusion from public affairs and the blockade of their future. As a consequence youth political participation is mostly perceived as sabotage. For Western Africa the related conflicts have been interpreted as a consequence of the decline of the patrimonial state and its patronage networks which used to redistribute resources as personal favors in highly asymmetric relationships (e.g. Richards 1996:34-60).

Box 4: Intergenerational Conflict and Cooptation

Intergenerational conflicts may arise through a generation gap when children and youth reject the established structures or even challenge them by developing an alternative model, e.g. opposing authoritarian and age based systems by demanding democratization. Societies able to integrate youth into the existing system or to use these challenges as a motor of reform and change can establish a basis for resilience. Particularly in cities young peoples mere appearance in public places can be a source of resentment by elders; especially young men identified as poor, marginalized and belonging to ethnic minorities face rejection when appearing in public. Their visibility is closely related to misconduct and anti-social behavior frequently scandalized on the front pages of the yellow press, reproducing stigma, exclusion and spatial segregation: In many cities throughout the world, there is a growing intolerance of young people in the public arena. They are widely viewed as undesirable in the streets

16 BIAG (2009: 212-215) provides a global legal mapping of laws, policies and court cases that have a particular relevance to girls rights.

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and shops, particularly when they are in groups. Public spaces are seen to be owned by adults, with young peoples presence representing an unwanted intrusion. (WYR 2003, 274) Another important issue for political socialization is related to the shifting public-private divide. Overall the influence of public institutions increases while the specific patterns altering the public-private divide vary across regions and cultures, as well as between urban and rural settings. At least theoretically, the introduction of new rights (e.g. gender equality, childrens rights and other human rights norms) as well as the acquirement of new capacities (education, finance) empower women and youths to enter public spaces and diminish their restriction to the private sphere of the household. This process is intensified by globalization. Under a perspective of societal dynamics of fragility and resilience political socialization through institutions and politics provides the main link between the immediate environment young people grow up in (family, schools, peers) and larger society. Here youths get familiarized with and learn to use the existing mechanisms of society, e.g. how power relations are structured and how they give or deny access to public goods. There is interesting evidence on intergenerational path-dependency reproducing advantages as well as disadvantages. Experiences in Central Asia show how families can translate advantages provided by the old communist system into the changed context reproducing preferential access to higher education for their children while Latin America provides examples for the intergenerational transmission of inequality (see Roberts et al 2009, PNUD 2010).

and Europe. During recent decades Islam or fundamentalist Islamic groups have figured most prominently in the resistance and opposition to western cultural imperialism. In times of rapid social change, of uncertainty and ambiguity across time and space religion is and has been a hoard of security providing people with guidance and leadership to navigate their lives. The relationship between religion and gender is complicated and controversial, as gender has become a central marker in the debates over religion and secularism. While in academic discussion there is an agreement that gender discrimination and patriarchal practices are objectionable because they violate basic democratic and legal norms of equality, the open question remains if this is related to religion (see Casanova 2009). Critics like Phillips (2009) argue that religiously inspired principles weigh heavily on women as they regulate sexuality, marriage and divorce mostly discriminating against women, e.g. allowing multiple marriage partners for men but not for women. In relation to youth morals play a double role. First, moral and normative issues are very important for youths searching for identity and normative reference points. On the other hand youths moral behavior the experimentation with different social roles as well as with risky behavior has forever stood at the core of complaints of a loss of tradition, respect, values lamented by elders. In this complicated context religious groups may offer young people a sense of belonging in fragile environments or situations of personal crisis; in some contexts they might provide a possibility to combat and overcome age-based hierarchies. Religion and cultural belief systems influence family structures and gender roles as well as the content and organization of education. For example education is segregated by gender in space and content in Saudi Arabia right from the beginning while in Egypt curricula are universal although boys and girls are separated after primary school (Booth 2002: 223).

Religion and cultural belief systems

Religions and other cultural belief systems are closely related to all other resources of socialization as they provide the necessary values and norms to legitimize or delegitimize the existing social order. Gender relations and the position of women in society seem to be closely linked to religious beliefs, although there are differences across gender and age. Women and older people tend to be more religious than men and younger people (Tilley 2002, 235). At the same time religious and cultural belief systems may serve as a (positive or negative) reference point for mobilization thus enabling or disenabling collective action (see background paper by Varun and Woolcock). In the Western development model secularization is a central pillar of modernization and development, religious beliefs are substituted or complemented with secular beliefs around the human rights discourse. But there have always been fundamentalist religious-based forms of resistance against these developments just think about fundamentalist protestant sects in the United States
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Box 5: Violent life-worlds as a specific form of socialization

Several forms of direct physical violence can influence or be part of the sources as well as the process of youths socialization. First of all, domestic violence against children does not only lead to physical harm but has severe psychological impacts that may last the whole life. Having been the victim or an observer of violence at the individual level is one of the most important risk factors for violent behavior afterwards.

School violence has similar effects. On the other hand peer groups and media have an ambiguous role. Peer groups can be a means either of providing protection and security in high violence environments or a source of increasing violence. Media may promote cooperation and civic engagement or agitate for violence like the Rwandan hate speeches in radio did before the genocide 1994. Political institutions in violent contexts tend to be militarized and norms and values transmitted in violent contexts are mostly related to protection (of themselves or their family, friends, etc.) or the use of violence. The experience of violence being a victim or a perpetrator in childhood and adolescence has consequences at the personal as well as at the collective level, influencing the status passages, the development of identity17, and forms of social organization with peers. Where youths identities are shaped by the experience of violence and a lack of even rudimentary forms of security, the development of a stable personality resilient towards the use of violence will be much more difficult than in other environments. The necessities of day-to-day survival cause a permanent situation of uncertainty for adults as well as for youths providing little or no models for problem solving and other constructive behavior. Violence against and perpetuated by young people can be a consequence. But violence is a gendered issue: While young men are mostly perceived as perpetrators, women and children are mostly perceived as victims. More recent approaches reveal patterns of resilience and show a more differentiated picture: Young men are not only perpetrators but also the biggest group of violences victims and in some contexts girls and young women may also be perpetrators using violence among other things to break out of traditional role models or age hierarchies.18

The interaction of socialization sources

As socialization is a complex process the question is how the different sources of socialization interact do they establish or reinforce dominant patterns of socialization, do the values and norms provided compete or even contradict each other? Socialization sources and patterns in the 21st Century across the globe are highly influenced and shaped by globalization.19 As a consequence all socialization sources are under increasing pressure from the globalization of universal norms and values (e.g. human rights, gender equality). The effects can vary between adaptation to and integration of these norms promoting change on the one side and an increase in rigidity and resistance against these influences on the other. Important differences remain as the societal context and the capabilities of state and society to deal with these changes differ widely across the globe. This can lead to manifold conflicts and problems of adaptation or open resistance between and inside societies as well as between different sources of socialization.20 Various processes are relevant for intergenerational and gender relations and can cause either fragility or resilience. Some examples can illustrate the challenges that confront societies as well as the consequences under a perspective of fragility and resilience. Ruralurban as well as transnational migration can generate conflicts between sources of socialization either inside the family or between migrants and their new environment. The consequences of migration for socialization are manifold: Young people have to cope with different (in some cases even contradicting) belief systems, values and norms for example in relation to traditional hierarchies, gender roles and self-determination. The impact on girls and young women is different as conflicts in immigrant families show, where parents are stricter with daughters than sons, seeking to keep daughters home or close to home and heavily monitoring and controlling their activities (Foner, 2009: 5). This is most explicit in sexual relations tending to be a source of conflict between generations in migrant families.

17 In various contexts research has emphasized the importance of weapon use or gang membership for getting approval and respect as well as for the construction of sub-cultural identities and/or masculine identities (see Hazlehurst/ Hazlehurst 1998, Barker 2005, Dowdney 2005, Hagedorn 2008, Utas 2003, Keen 2002). 18 See HRW 1996, WHO 2002, the Reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Children (Graa Machel 1996, 2001), Watts 1998, Peters/ Richards/ Vlassenroot 2003, Powers 2003, Boyden/ de Berry 2004, Abbink/ van Kessel 2005, HRW 2005, UNDP 2006, Sommers 2006, McEvoy-Levy 2006, Daiute et al. 2006, IRIN 2007, Rodgers/Jones 2007HRW 2007, HRW 2008, Legge 2008, Kurtenbach 2008. 19 On the social consequences under a youth perspective see WYR (2003, 290-332), Lloyd et al. 2005, on convergence Behrman/Sengupta 2005. In a comparative study (covering most of Europe, Russia, Japan, North America a some Latin American countries) Tilley (2002) shows that although there are generational differences in sociopolitical values the specific national context is still more important. 20 Arnett (1995: 618) distinguishes between broad or narrow socialization models that can either emphasize individualism and self-expression on the one hand and conformity and obedience on the other. These models, the values and norms they promote, constitute a continuum and allow for the identification of variance between different cultures. They are not necessarily based on the distinction between different levels of societal complexity as Japan for example has a narrow model of socialization although it is a highly complex society.

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Changes in the political regime can also lead to conflicts between socialization sources with a high impact potential on gender and intergenerational relations. Democracy promotion for example aims at participation of citizens on a egalitarian basis (although only after having achieved a certain age mostly 18) conceptualized as a fundamental basis of civil conflict regulation. Thus at least in the long run the goal is to support resilience. But in the short and medium term democratization is a highly conflictive process changing existing power relations endangering and undermining traditional patriarchal and age based systems of domination if they are unable to adapt. A very common mechanism is the adaptation of formal procedures while traditional forms of asymmetric power relations (like clientele or patronage networks) remain more or less intact beneath. The integration of youths follows these lines (e.g. in Cambodia). Conflict or disconnect between socialization sources can also be generated by contradictions between state laws and religious principles, e.g. when a state adheres to international regulations (e.g. the International Convention on the Rights of Children or anti-discrimination legislation based on gender). Religious institutions might have contradicting regulations, e.g. in relation to abortion or divorce that might be allowed by a countries law system but forbidden by Catholic or Islamic doctrine (Phillips 2009:46). Adaptation and flexibility here is difficult to achieve beyond the individual level where people may choose to be obedient or not depending on the sanctions. Where these conflicts serve as a source for group cohesion and identity production this may generate patterns of fragility. Debates and legislation on dress codes (e.g. the ambivalence of the veil) can illustrate this in different contexts. To solve or at least to manage the problems arising from theses conflicts between sources of socialization flexibility and openness in intergenerational as well as gender relations are necessary.

III. Gendered Processes of Transition

Socialization aims at the preparation of young people for adulthood and the necessary status passages. But in times of globalization and fundamental social change socialization in many contexts raises expectations about these transitions that might not be viable for different reasons. Socialization may not provide young people with the necessary skills and capacities for the transition either by not allowing their agency or through a mismatch between young peoples aspirations, skills and societys possibilities. The following section will analyze three universal transitions focusing on young women to provide an idea of the gendered character of these challenges. Under a perspective of societal dynamics of fragility and resilience the main question here is related to the (im-)possibilities young people face in the acquisition of the necessary markers to obtain full adulthood and acceptance in society. While these markers and the related pathways of transition vary across cultures and specific contexts, they have changed across the globe during recent decades due to among other reasons prolonged formal education and new requirements to enter the job market. Traditionally transition to adulthood was shaped by a gradual inclusion of young people into adult responsibilities and a certain number of culturally or religious specific rites des passage. (e.g. catholic first communion, Jewish bar mitzvah for boys or Latin American quinceaeras for girls). These are highly gendered processes although gender role models are not as rigid as they used to be some decades ago. Nevertheless the main features of gender related roles remain intact across the world. Gender specific role models increase when children reach puberty in patriarchal cultures (e.g. India, Arab countries, to a lesser extent in Latin America) as girls life-worlds become more restricted to the private sphere securing parental (or other male kin like brothers, uncles) control (see Booth 2002, 213-216; Verma/ Saraswathi 2002:107-109).21 Under the conditions of social change and even more so in the context of developing countries the transition to adulthood is neither a unidirectional nor a smooth process. Transitions may not only be postponed but blocked or impossible to achieve as required by the socialization processes. Hence it is important to include possible reversals, twists and changes into conceptualizations of the transition from adolescence to adulthood.22 Analyzing the transitions helps us to identify the challenges and opportunities young people confront at the interface between historically and

21 South East Asia is an interesting counterexample with more egalitarian gender relations allowing for a greater level of autonomy for girls and young women (Santa Maria 2002: 176-181). 22 Although they have a focus on youth in the Western industrialized countries, Hendry and Kloep (2007) advocate for the development of a framework that is able to include reversals in the transition towards adulthood e.g. going back to live with parents after the breakup of a relationship or becoming unemployed.

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culturally engrained expectations, norms and values and the rapidly changing globalized realities. Focusing on young women provides even more insight into possible sources of fragility and resilience as gender relations not only stand at the very core of the socialization processes but influence and shape the transition to adulthood to a high degree. The following section will analyze three transitions into adulthood that are universal and at the same time show very specific problems and variations across the globe: school to work transitions and economic independence; marriage and starting a family; and citizenship and full membership in society.

School to work transitions finding employment

The feasibility of school to work transitions and the related patterns of youths inclusion or marginalization depend on the interaction of different factors. On the youths side individual skills and abilities acquired in formal and informal education (family, schools, peers) are the foundation for employability. This encounters the necessities of the specific job market as well as formal and informal prerequisites established by employers. This interaction is shaped by different factors at the local, national and global level like economic resources, demographic development and economic cycles. Formal (and informal) education aims among other things at providing young people with the necessary skills for a productive life (in the household or the labor market). But besides increasing levels of schooling young people currently face severe problems in their school to work transition although youth participation in the labor market shows a high level of variation between the worlds regions (see Table 1).

Table 1: Participation in the labor force for male and female adults and youths 2000 Male East Asia South-East Asia and Pacific South Asia Latin America and the Caribbean Middle East North Africa Sub-Saharan Africa 83.1 82.9 Female 69.6 57.5 Youth 67.2 55.8 Male 80.5 82.5 2005 Female 67.5 57.2 Youth 60.6 53.8 Male 79.4 82.0 2009 Female 66.5 57.4 Youth 59.2 51.6

82.7 80.4

34.1 46.8

48.0 54.2

82.1 80.1

34.2 50.0

47.2 53.3

81.6 79.7

34.9 51.7

46.6 52.3

75.7 76.2 81.4

22.8 26.6 60.8

36.9 39.4 57.8

75.7 75.7 81.2

24.4 26.9 61.8

37.5 38.9 57.6

75.3 76.4 81.2

25.4 27.4 62.6

36.4 38.0 57.5

Source: ILO 2010, youth data for age 15 to 24 are not differentiated by sex but overall patterns between female and male participation will not be very different for youth; 2009 preliminary estimates.

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These data show two interesting features: First of all, youth participation is significantly lower than those of adults caused by a postponement of entering the labor market due to longer schooling among other developments. But according to ILO data (2010, 2008, 2006) unemployment rates of youth across the globe are much higher than for adults. This can have different reasons: There might be a mismatch between youths skills and the necessities of the labor market. This is discussed for Latin America with a focus on inadequate schooling and a need to increase educations quality and for many countries in the Middle East in relation to youth with high levels of education that is not compatible with job requirements in the private sector.23 Gaps between youths aspirations and accessibility of the labor market can be another cause. Urban youths, e.g. in Sub-Saharan Africa, show little disposition to return to rural livelihoods even when unemployed (Sommers 2003). A similar pattern seems to increase waithood in the Middle East when university alumni prefer to wait for jobs in the public administration instead of working in the private sector.24 High rates of male youth unemployment in relation to a demographic youth bulge have become a wildly popular theses in relation to insecurity25. Even the UN High Panel on Security embraced this perspective in 2004: While it may not reach the level of war, the combination of a surging youth population, poverty, urbanization and unemployment has resulted in increased gang violence in many cities of the developing world. (UN 2004:24) This discussion is not only gendered but in many cases also based on racist prejudices regarding violent black or indigenous males. Despite its popularity the youth bulge thesis is not really sustained by empirical research. Urdal has shown (2006, 2008, Barakat/ Urdal 2009) that there is no direct causation between youth bulges and armed conflict or internal wars indicating that other factors have to step in like the lack of secondary education and job opportunities. And even then results of macro-quantitative research have to be read very carefully, as violence is a multifaceted and complex problem and only constitutes one end of the fragilityresilience continuum. The second evident feature looking at employment data is that womens participation in the labor market is lower than mens. This reflects first of all the general underestimation of domestic work across all regions. On the other hand gender differences mirror two other patterns like the culturally engrained restrictions for women to work outside

the house. This is most pronounced in the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Asia where patriarchal patterns dominate from family structures to religious and cultural belief systems. Female labor force participation is highest in South-East Asia, East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa reflecting a higher level of autonomy for women as well as specific developments in the regional economies. In Southeast and East Asia the growth of international manufacturing industries has increased job opportunities specifically for women during recent decades. In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa high levels of female labor participation seem to be caused by high levels of poverty. This leads not only to a high level of women working outside the house but to the second highest participation of youths in the labor force.26 The importance of entering the labor market even under adverse conditions can be illustrated by differences across the regions. While in East Asia and South-East Asia autonomy and agency of young, working women have increased, in North and Sub-Saharan Africa as well as in Latin America new structures of inequality can be observed. The problems girls and young women have to confront in school-to-work transitions seem to be even harder in countries where girls education attainments surpass those of boys like Latin America.27 Restrictions for young women have effects on their own and their familys social mobility as double incomes low as they might be would make a difference. Thus there is at least an indirect link to poverty and fragility. Limitations for young women are caused by a variety of factors closely related to socialization patterns:
Education and skills: There still is a gender gap in educa-

tion related to secondary and tertiary education. As secondary or tertiary education is an advantage in terms of income as well as in relation to job stability and upward mobility, girls and young women are disfavored. And due to the perception that young women will only stay a short time in the labor force before having children, employers do not invest in their training and skills (ILO 2009: 84).
Family and cultural belief systems: Traditionally as-

cribed role models and the related mobility restrictions influence female youths labor participation in two ways. Either they are not allowed to work outside the household or expected to withdraw as soon as they get married.28 While young women increasingly participate in rural to urban migration inside developing countries, only

23 For Latin America see Welti 2002 and Hopenhayn 2008, for the Middle East Dhillon/ Dyer/ Yousef 2010 and Silver 2007. 24 In the MENA region for example unemployment is lowest (!) for those not ending primary education (WYR 2007:121; on unemployment for university students see also ILO 2008, World Bank 2006). 25 Mostly due to the writings of Fuller 1995, Huntington 1997, Cincotta et al. 2003, Manwaring 2005, 2007 among others. 26 See WYR (2007: 22+96-97). In the Africa chapter the WYR cites a regional youth participation rate for 2006 of 74% (ILO 57.5) and for Burundi 90.9%. 27 Although there is little data it seems that a large share of young women still work in agriculture (e.g. in the Middle East and North Africa see ILO 2008:19). 28 For the MENA region the WYR (2007:129) states that the most relevant factor influencing young womens participation in the labor force are family dynamics

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in South-East Asia (Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka) do young women send home the bulk of transnational migrants remittances (WYR 2007:31-33). Hence the transition from school to work is influenced most of all by socialization provided by family, schools and political processes and institutions as well as religions and cultural belief systems. Media and peers seem to play a minor role. But unemployment or restrictions to work outside the house are not the only problem in school-to-work-transitions: Across the globe there is a significant group of working young people not able to survive on what they get paid. According to ILO data (2006) one out of five youths is working but living in extreme poverty at 1 US-$ a day. Here Sub-Saharan Africa is leading with 60% of working youths unable to live of their wages. The feminization of labor in the export-oriented assembling and manufacturing industry (e.g. textile and computer) is another example. Export-producing zones (including tourism) provide possibilities for young women to enter the labor market: Nicaragua and Jamaica are leading with 90 per cent females, followed by Cape Verde (88%) and Bangladesh (85%) (Boyenge 2007). But most of these female workers are not allowed to establish unions, have to work long extra hours, lack health and safety regulations and can easily be dismissed due to pregnancy, marriage or misbehavior.29 This makes them easy victims of forced labor as well as of sexual harassment as the supervisors are mostly men. Another important sector for workingwomen is domestic services with 100 million employees, 90% of them young women and girls (Plan UK 2009, 107-108). Working inside a private house makes them invisible and keeps them in the realm of the private sphere although they are part of the labor force. It leaves them without a minimum of protection and with no or little access to social security and basic social services. As a consequence most young women work in unstable and badly paid jobs in the informal sector or work only part time. The double burden of bad working conditions outside the house and the main responsibility for housework increases tensions inside the family and between spouses (Boehm 2006: 168-170).

Young peoples exclusion from the labor market as well as instable and insecure work conditions have not only severe impacts on the current life-worlds and future perspectives for the viability of young peoples livelihoods. They cause permanent insecurity and thus fragility as young people are neither able to make plans for the future nor to accomplish other essential status passages. This leads to postponement in their most important status passages into adulthood marriage.

Marriage and starting a family

Marriage and starting a family has been and still is the most important marker on the way to adulthood across the globe (Boehm 2006, Booth 2002), at the same time it is intimately related to school to work transitions and different for male and female youths. As White (2006:257) indicates for SubSaharan Africa: Female youth become women when they marry or, in many societies, when they deliver children; male youth become men when they are settled and accepted by the generation of patres familiae who are also their competition in the market for marriageable girls.30 Marriage patterns are highly influenced by socialization, by social norms and expectations about the social role as spouse and parent. Marriage patterns are changing across the globe, postponing the age of womens marriage while first marriage age of young men has been quite stable. The relationship between the marriage and starting a family and societal dynamics of fragility and resilience is seldom discussed due to its perception of a private matter of individual concern. But public health approaches and research on young peoples problematic or anti-social behavior provide some interesting links: Marriage and starting a family are considered important exit-options out of gangs and other anti-social groups thus helping young people (women as well as men) to grow or mature out of problematic peer groups taking over new responsibilities for themselves and others. Public health research shows that across the globe living in a stable family is an important factor for physical as well as psychological health.31 Hence possibilities of marriage and starting a family are related to societal patterns of resilience or in case these processes are delayed or blocked to fragility.

29 There are many reports on the harsh work conditions in export producing zones (see e.g. ICFTU 2004). 30 At the same time differences in status imply specific forms of social control of young women as Waage (2006:71) describes for Northern Cameroon: In general women are classified as unmarried, married, widowed or divorced. The first three categories constitute women under the titular control of a man who is either the father or husband. 31 On public health approaches see WHO 2002, PAHO/ GTZ 2009.

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Current trends in marriage are provided in a quantitative study of Mensch, Singh and Casterlina (2005) comparing trends in age at marriage between the years 1970 and 1989 to those between 1990 and 2000:
The number of teenage marriages of girls has decreased

around the world (except for South America and the Asian part of the former Soviet Union where they have already been low before). Still a third of women in their twenties has been married since before they are 18.
At age 25 to 29 most women are married although in

South America, the Caribbean, Central America, the Middle East and the Asian part of the former Soviet Union 15 to 25 per cent stay single in their late twenties.
Most men are married at age 25 to 29 although in some

regions they only get married when over 30 (South America, the Middle East and the Asian part of the former Soviet Union). How is this related to societal dynamics of fragility and resilience? There are various reasons for these changes and arguments can be made in both directions: Increase in education for youth seems to be an important driver for delaying marriage. Women and men with more than eight years of schooling will rarely marry early compared to those with no or only three years in school. Education is a more important predictor than residence. But the relationship is not as simple as it seems at first sight. Educational gains for girls for example have been greatest in South and SouthEast Asia but the postponement in first marriage age was longest in the Middle East while there is hardly a change in Latin America despite significant educational gains. On the other hand girls that want to marry later will stay longer at school. Taking fertility as an indicator for the status passage of starting a family, Latin American data show that this is closely related to the size of town of residence as well as to the educational level of girls and young women. In Mexico 60 percent of women who did not attend school were pregnant before age 20 (Welti 2002:290). But on the other hand education can also be a hindrance for marriage: there is some evidence that educated women will have difficulties to find a partner or a man whose parents were ready to accept an old and educated woman (Waage 2006,72). A few other factors related to social change and socialization delay marriage although there is no statistical evidence (Mensch, Singh, Casterlina 2005: 153-158): Urbanization seems to play a role through changing norms and decreasing social

control on timing and partner selection. This shows also in the decreasing portion of arranged marriages that often led to early marriage to preserve purity and obedience of the girls. Another factor is related to the economy of marriage, that is dowry and bride price. Here demographic changes are important leading to a marriage squeeze due to a lack of young men in marriageable age. Changing norms and legal provisions have also contributed to marriage delay. The ratification of the international Convention on the Rights of Children for example influenced a change in the legal age of marriage across the world.32 Iran is an exception, as the legal age for girls was lowered from 16 to 9 after the revolution. Legal provisions on marriage reflect altered role models as well as changes in fertility and mortality. As more children survive age 5 couples can marry and start a family later. Role models and marriage patterns provided by mass media seem also to influence timing and partner selection through the promotion of the love-marriage paradigm for example in Asia (WYR 2007:26). Latin American data show that early motherhood contributes to intergenerational poverty as fewer years of schooling and early pregnancy are highly correlated to socio-economic and geographic factors: poor rural girls are four to ten times more likely to have a child at age 17 than urban middle class or rich girls (WYR 2007:58). On the other hand in SubSaharan Africa early pregnancy and marriage are less important for school-drop-out than a lack of financial resources. In this context marriage can be an escape from poverty (WYR 2007:94-95). Summarizing we can conclude that patterns of marriage and family formation are influenced by different socialization sources in contradicting ways. Family, religion and cultural belief systems mostly advocate for path dependent traditional patterns, while schools, peers, media as well as political and legal institutions are more influenced by global changes. But delayed marriage will only be a source of concern (or if it affects larger groups feed into societal dynamics of fragility) if it is an involuntary consequence of other societal developments, e.g. a lack of economic viability for starting a family (see box). At the same time marriage and starting a family are not per se indicators for resilience although stable primary social networks are an important source of resilience at the individual as well as at the collective level.

32 According to ILO (2009: Table D) from 39 countries with data 13 have a legal age for marriage below 16, 13 between 16 and 17, the rest above. Mensch, Singh and Casterlina (2005:157) report that 23 out of 55 countries have elevated the legal age.

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Box 6: Male postponement of marriage

According to Mensch, Singh and Casterlina (2005: 159-161) the explanation for male postponement of marriage is neither related to education nor urbanization but mostly to economic reasons like poverty, lack of financial security and lack of access to land. The Middle East is an interesting case in point (Singerman 2007): here adulthood and sexuality are traditionally closely linked to marriage. But demographic change, the greater participation of women in the labor force and education as well as changing gender norms delay marriages. Another important factor for postponing marriage seems to be the financial costs like housing, celebrations, furniture. This is a problem most of all for unemployed educated young people trapped in a situation of waithood placing young people in an adolescent, liminal state where they are neither children nor adults. In this liminal state, young people remain financially dependent on their families (who in large part finance the cost of marriage) far longer than previous generations and they must live by the rules and morality of their parents and the dominant values of society, which frown on unchaperoned fraternization and unmarried relationships. Yet as more and more men and women delay marriage, the institution of marriage is changing and new marriage substitutes and sexual norms are emerging beyond the margins of society. (Singerman 2007:6)

young women participate less in public affairs than their male peers (World Bank 2006:163, Tilley 2002). For the Middle East and North Africa the WYR (2007:129) states that the hierarchies of gender and age that permeate the family, social, political and economic structures are constant, and they define the nature and breadth of female citizenship and participation. Currently in relation to youth activism the main perspective of researchers as well as of practitioners is either on violent and other extreme forms of behavior or on political apathy both considered as a source of fragility.33 But most young people do not turn to violence, they engage in a variety of commonplace activities in their neighborhood, communities or even at the national level. Formal political participation of young people like voting and being a candidate is dependent on existing legal frameworks defining the criteria of full citizenship and associated legal rights and responsibilities. The proliferation of democratic regimes holding elections widens the legal forms of participation for youths above age 18. But citizenship is more than the right to vote, it includes voice as well as agency (Lloyd 2005, 347). Civic engagement and citizenship can be an important source of resilience where young people are able to have a say and participate in decisions over their future. In many contexts political engagement of young people is low either due to the high percentage of youths living in rural areas or through the prevalence of social practices restricting participation to full adulthood. At the same time in places where young people engage, adults and elders may perceive this as problematic and a challenge to their status leading to policies of control (Santa Maria 2002:200-202). All three patterns can feed into societal dynamics of fragility.
Low levels of participation: Across the globe there is a

Citizenship and civic engagement

Citizenship is closely related to and influenced by socialization as well as political and legal structures on one side and youths civic engagement on the other (Youniss/ Yates 1999). Recent research on youth in the United States has shown that a variety of socialization influences during adolescence family interest and involvement, school climate and civic education, community engagement, media, religiosity as well as class and race relates to civic behavior such as voting or participation in civil society organizations (Sherrod 2006). Regarding developing countries research on youth activism and political engagement has focused rather on young peoples engagement in anti-colonial and independence struggles during the 1960s and 1970s. While there is little research on civic engagement of youth in developing countries for recent periods, there is even less with a gender focus. But there is a common understanding that girls and

perception of diminishing youth engagement in politics and community affairs. For the United States Robert Putnams study Bowling alone (2000:247-276) identifies an intergenerational decrease of civic engagement across educational disparities and other influencing factors. He holds various developments responsible that are also relevant for developing countries: pressures of time and money in two-career families (the equivalent in developing countries being the need to have two incomes to survive), changes in residence patterns like suburbanization and commuting; effects of electronic entertainment; generational change that is the replacement of a engaged generation by their less involved children and grandchildren (Putnam 2000:283). Other researchers have contradicted

33 See Kassimir 2006: 21, Verma/ Saraswathi 2002:124; on violence as an alternative path to adulthood see next section.

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these findings and indicated that young peoples forms of civic engagement have simply changed, e.g. to social movements, environmental activities and modern communications as evident in the 2008 presidential campaign in the United States. This debate is reflected in developing countries, where political engagement of young people, for example their participation in elections, is low (see Welti 2002 on Latin America, Tilley 2002).
Engagement: Opportunities and forms of engagement

Unable or unwilling to implement necessary changes politicians leave the task for future generations. This neglect of young peoples current needs and future livelihoods is problematic not only regarding the outcome of public policies but retroacts on youths socialization by impeding a process of learning by doing. The problem is even more pronounced for girls and young women, as they tend to participate even less in political and public affairs than males in their age-strata. The local level could and should provide youths with experiences for participation in the formulation and implementation of public policies as well as in mechanisms of transparency and accountability. But youth participation in local governments is low, too, although there are some interesting exceptions. At least in some regions there is a growing awareness of the necessity to include youth as active agents shaping the future. The New Partnership for Africa (NEPAD) for example has recognized this and established a youth desk participating in peer review processes. In 2006 an African Youth Charter was established creating a legally binding framework for governments to develop supportive policies and programs for young people (see Economci Commission for Africa 2009:84-87). In 1992 Latin American governments joined by Spain and Portugal have established an Iberoamerican Youth Organization to promote dialogue, consultation and cooperation in youth policies between the countries. The relationship between the transition to full citizenship fragility and resilience is complex. Socialization in all relevant institutions provides the basis for expectations on how to engage in the broader society. But youth participation in civic life not only differs along issues (community services, cultural activities, sports, human rights, ecology among others) but also according to the form in which youths participate. In many cases there will be adults (guiding, even controlling) youth activities, e.g. youth wings of political parties, labor unions or religious groups. These hierarchical organizations tend to aim at the integration of youths into existing forms of social cohesion, participation and civic life. Horizontal, autonomous self-organized peer groups may lead to different forms of socialization because youths are not subordinated to age-based hierarchies. Here young people may develop their own ideas and act according to self-given rules. This might cause intergenerational conflict in the short-term but can also provide important lessons learned and a basis for resilience. The participation of young people as constructive agents based on the respect of their needs as well as the inclusion of their perspectives is likely to be a source of resilience while fragility is caused either by a foreclosure of traditional path-

vary according to the political regime. Democratic political systems at least theoretically accept the equality of all citizens and thus need to offer youths and other citizens a minimum of participation (e.g. access to education, jobs, and the basic social infrastructure) to gain output legitimacy. Booth (2002:234-236) observes for the Arab countries that democratization seems to favor girls and women of all ages most. Asked if they are interested in politics, it is surprising that young people (age 18 to 29) in authoritarian regimes are more interested than those in democracies. In China 74.7 percent and Vietnam 76.9 percent said they care about politics while the percentage in India has been significantly lower with 46.3 percent. In Argentina only a minority of 13.0 percent is interested (see World Bank 2006:163, Table 7.1).
Control: While authoritarian regimes restrict access to

political participation based on membership to a specific political, social, ethnic or religious group or a clientele network there are other forms of integration and participation although mostly controlled and supervised by the regime and /or by elders. Cambodian youth scouts are a case in point: The National Association of Cambodian Scouts, which is located in the Directorate General, provides a good example of how youth are politicized by political parties: originally created in 1934, Sihanouk abolished the scouts in the 1960s. Instead, he created his own organization: the Jeunesse Socialiste Royaliste Khmre (JSRK). After the 1970 coup, the JSRK was abolished and the scouts recreated. In 1975, the scouts were abolished again. In 1979, the pioneer movement was created. In 1993, the scouts were recreated as CPP-affiliated organization. Significantly, the JSRK were recreated, too, as part of FUNCINPEC (Hensengerth 2008: 37). Similar experiences can be found across the world. These patterns lead to a high potential for fragility due to a mismatch between demographic change and social practices of participation and decision making as public policies mostly reflect the priorities and interests of adults and marginalize those of youths. Examples abound in a variety of contexts and sectors from health policies in aging societies to decisions about ecological sustainability and public debt.

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ways for youths to become fully integrated adults or by their systematic exclusion from existing or new opportunities.

Protection: Girls and young women may seek protection

Violence as an alternative Process of Transition

In recent years violent and other problematic or antisocial behavior by youths has received a high level of attention. Youths have been perceived either as victims (mostly in the child soldier debate34) or perpetrators (in the youth bulge and gang violence discussion35). Research as well as policy debates on these issues are separated although there is a big overlap (see Hauswedell/ Kurtenbach 2008). At the same time these debates have a geographical divide as gang research focuses mostly on youth violence in the cities of the Western developed countries while youth in armed conflict research addresses young peoples participation in violence in the global South. Girls and young women have long been perceived as victims either in the child soldier discourse or in the gender violence context. Recently there has been more research into the participations, motivations as well as consequences of girls attachment to different forms of violent groups showing that girls and young women are a quantitatively important group in various armed groups where they perform a varied set of roles in armed groups: They are important for the daily provision with food, they serve as messengers and spies but they are also part of the fighting forces.36 Motives and risk factors for violent behavior do not differ across gender. Girls and young women are either forcefully recruited or join due to the need for protection or thirst for revenge or because their participation enables them to pursue political, social or economic goals. The debate has given relatively little attention to the functions violence may have for youths and especially for girls and young women in the transition to adulthood. This might be related to the fact that fighting women contradict existing gender stereotypes of aggressive males and peaceful women. But violence can serve different functions for young people from changes of the environment through revolution or classical guerrilla wars to personal economic gain through organized crime, looting and plundering. As to girls and women four functions seem to be of central importance (although they can be important for boys and young men too):

either from domestic violence or violence in their immediate environment or from other armed groups. Sexual abuse and violence seem to play a major role in the case of girls (Small Arms Survey 2010:191). Research on risk factors has shown that there seems to be a close relationship between victimization and becoming a perpetrator at the individual level (for both girls and boys).
Survival: In violent contexts joining an armed group

might be a necessity for day-to-day survival as those groups provide their members with food, solidarity and respect (although this might be through looting and violence against non-combatants).
Social mobility: At least individually girls and young

women can achieve social mobility through armed violence when they ascend to commanding positions. Here an interesting difference seems to exist between todays armed groups and the revolutionary movements fighting for independence or social change as those movements viewed womens rights and equality as an integral part of the overall struggle for independence (Coulter, Persson, Utas 2008:15).37
Alternative role models: Several case studies (Coulter, Pers-

son, Utas 2008, Specht 2006) show that violence does pro-

vide opportunities for girls and young women to escape traditional gender roles. Female suicide bombers seem to be an exception as they do not contradict existing gender norms but rather operate under them by sacrificing themselves (Bloom 2007). At the same time it has to be noted that most female fighters remain subordinated to male commanders and many are subject to sexual harassment. Sexuality of female fighters and gang members is a controversial issue as it is overloaded by stereotypes. They are either portrayed as highly adopting male attitudes and behavior (drug and alcohol consumption) or as over-sexed sluts and bitches. This stigmatization does not end after they leave a gang or an armed group and is one of the basic causes for female underrepresentation in official programs of demobilization and reintegration. Most female combatants try to hide their participation and seek to adapt individually to new circumstances (Specht 2006).

34 Following the international convention of childrens rights child soldiers are defined as combatants younger than 18 years. UNICEF estimates give a number of between 200.000 and 300.000 young combatants participating in war and other forms of armed conflict. Including those between age 18 and 24 the number would be much higher; but there is no evidence as to the accuracy of the numbers that are cited all over the last two decades. See Graa Machel (1996, 2001), Watchlist on Children in Armed Conflict (www.watchlist.org), UNICEF Factsheet Child Soldiers, www.unicef.org/emerg/files/childsoldiers.pdf. On gender based violence see Bastick/ Grimm/ Kunz 2007, Wood 2009. 35 On youth bulge see FN 25, on gangs see Hagedorn 2007, 2008 and Small Arms Survey 2010 among others. 36 On female fighters in African wars see West 2004, Coulter/ Persson/ Utas 2008, Specht 2006, on girls in gangs Moore 2007, Nurge/ Shively 2008, Small Arms Survey 2010: 184-207. 37 At the same time not even in these cases ore equal gender relations were maintained after the wars end.

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The complexity of young peoples agency in violence makes external interventions difficult as they need to be comprehensive, but at the same time complexity is an opportunity as it allows for interventions at different levels and junctures of development (WHO 2002, 38-47). This is even more the case in relation to girls and young women after the end of armed conflict or when they want to exit gangs. Hence we have to understand not only the causes and triggers of violence but also its functions. Regarding the exit out of violence interventions mostly focus on individual ways of rehabilitation and reintegration. This underestimates the importance of peer groups stigmatizing and re-marginalizing young people. Postwar developments in Sierra Leone are an interesting counter-experience where youths demobilized collectively and successfully founded motor bike micro enterprises as a new livelihood (see Peters 2006, Brge/ Peters 2010).

for male youth in rural Rwanda, why did they continue striving to buy roof tiles? A common answer to this question was, We have no choice. The cultural requirements of manhood (and womanhood) in Rwanda appear to be unyielding and nearly impossible for many if not most youth to achieve. Navigating Fragile environments shape, change and (in many contexts) reduce the possibilities and options young people have to prepare for and to acquire socially accepted adult roles. But many case studies on children and youths in fragile contexts have shown the high amount of resilience and agency young people can have even in adverse environments. They adapt existing forms of solidarity or develop new mechanisms of belonging. In relation to African youth Christiansen, Utas and Vigh (2006, 16) call this navigating, focusing on the interaction between young people and their life-worlds. The specific outcome of this process is open. Waage (2006, 82) identifies young peoples options: Young people in Ngaoundr, whatever background they come from, need useful relations. They require patrons to help them get started. To establish relations with a patron, two interlinked possibilities are open: the youths can either market their respectability or their knowledge. Agency Youths agency can strengthen social cohesion (and intergenerational relations) and provide basis for societal resilience. On the other hand youths agency can be a source of (intergenerational) conflict and lead to fragility in specific situations even to violence. Non-violent agency is possible where socialization provides young people with the necessary skills to participate in society and to articulate and advocate for their needs and visions for the future. This is difficult when the demands of survival limit people to basic functions of existence that permit little scope for imagining a different future. It is when the conditions of life are seen to be amenable to human control and influence that risk management takes over fatalism. (Mamphela Rampehele 2002, 28). That this is a factor of major importance can be observed in the differences of youths perception of the future in Burundi (Uvin 2009) and Rwanda (Sommers 2010). While Burundis youth have a positive attitude towards their future in spite of a series of difficult challenges, the main goal of Rwandan youth is to avoid slipping further down the social ladder leading to wide-spread pessimism and apathy.

Confronting the Challenges in the Transitions to Adulthood

The gendered transitions to adulthood besides the pronounced differences across geographic and social spaces show how socialization patterns create specific expectations towards the transitions to adulthood. At the same time different developments closely linked to internally as well as externally induced processes of social change make the traditional transitions difficult if not impossible. In these contexts young people have different possibilities: They can just try to cope adapting themselves to difficult circumstances, they can seek to navigate or try to change the contexts they live in. Coping Rwandan youth seem to be an example for coping in spite of lacking access to resources and livelihoods (land and housing) making transitions to adulthood difficult or even impossible. Young Rwandan men are required to built a house with expensive roof tiles before they are allowed to marry. Thus male and female youths work to save money even if this means leaving school early. But most of the times this is an impossible endeavor as Sommers (2010) explains: What was striking about this situation was how many male youth in rural Rwanda stated that they knew they might never complete a roof for their house in their lifetime. It can take 600-800 roof tiles to make one house roof. Given their current age and rates of accumulation, many youth who were interviewed might not gather much more than half of the required roof tiles in their lives. Which summons the question: if the situation was so dire

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IV. Socialization, Transitions and the Societal Dynamics of Fragility and Resilience
Transitions to adulthood are a specific form of social mobility. Most socialization patterns and transition processes offer opportunities as well as (old and new) restrictions for young people. Their relationship between socialization, transition and the societal dynamics of fragility and resilience is highly ambivalent. Many sources of the socialization processes have a rather conservative bias producing expectations towards adult life and the transitions into adulthood that are difficult to fulfill under the current conditions of social change. This can be a major source of fragility and a starting point for dynamics towards fragility even leading to violence in contexts not able to adapt constructively. On the other hand resilience is based on a societal flexibility confronting these challenges by reconciling expectations and possibilities in constructive ways.

To overcome exclusion and rigidity interventions need to address both sides of the process: While young people need some capacities to participate (in the labor market or in the political process), the relevant institutions must also allow young people to be an active part of development. Hence, the question is if young people are perceived as and allowed to be active members of society with a right to citizenship or if their role is restricted and their activities controlled. Here, a gender gap is obvious as active roles in the public are mostly performed by men and not by women. Most socialization processes reproduce existing gender gaps. If socialization processes are to be a basis for the constructive management of the individual and collective transitions to adulthood providing a basis for constructive social change young people have to be allowed agency beyond the culturally defined (and some times rigid) role models. To navigate rapidly changing environments, new challenges and difficult contexts young people as well as adults need to be able to perceive changes scary as they might be not as a danger but as an opportunity and win-win situations.

Rigidity and Exclusion

A severe problem for young peoples transition towards adulthood is related to the rigidity of intergenerational relations and the exclusion of young people although causes and patterns vary across regions.38 The relationship with societal dynamics towards fragility or resilience is twofold: Fragility in a societys capacity to provide access to functional systems (education, work) will probably cause more exclusion and marginalization as they provide a basis for participation in public life. The specific forms of participation in public life vary significantly with social change, migration and urbanization as well as according to changing political contexts. Exclusion and rigidity are not necessarily related to a certain geographical space. Migration can be an exit but can also reproduce the related problems for youths when they are marginalized and excluded from the receiving community or society. This can reinforce identities based on existing or traditional forms of social cohesion and thus cause rigidity in the expectations for transitions to adulthood. Research on second migrant generations abounds, many gangs in the urban slums are formed along these lines providing resistance identities along ethnic and/or social identities, as is the case for many gangs based on a shared experience of exclusion and marginalization. Thus exclusion and rigidity can be a source of maladaptive strategies and anti-social behavior of young people.

Control and Violence

A second pattern in intergenerational and gender relations concerns the questions of control and violence. Social change and the related challenges are perceived as a loss of control by elders over youth, by men over women as these processes today enhance young peoples and womens autonomy. The (real or perceived) loss of control is closely related to the shifting public-private divide affecting gender as well as intergenerational relations. Many aspects of life have traditionally been family affairs restricted to the household and primary social networks like education and social services. Conflicts on public education and the parental right to determine the form as well as the content of their childrens education are widespread across the globe (e.g. the discussion on religious symbols in public schools). The increasing importance of socialization sources outside the family due to prolonged schooling and more hours spend outside the household among other developments is a highly conflictive issue that can lead to resistance and fragility undermining existing forms of social cohesion, obedience and reciprocity. The increasing influence of religious institutions Islamic and Pentecostal among others across the world is also a reaction to these developments. These groups express their disagreement with the loss of

38 With a regional focus on Europe and the Middle East Silver (2007, 11-17) develops a framework allowing for the inclusion of context-specific developments under a relational rather than a redistributive perspective as exclusion produces winners and losers. This allows for the distinction between the dimensions of exclusion from adult roles and the consequences of exclusion itself (poverty, delayed household formation, etc.).

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traditional hierarchies and values openly and try to regain traditional values and/or to maintain a given social order. That gender relations are a central part of the conflict on the shifting public-private divide is no coincidence either. As we have seen in section III gender relations, sexuality, reproduction and marriage stand at the core of gendered transitions to adulthood. A lack of adaptation to new challenges (like economic pressures or demographic change) can be a source of fragility most of all where the changes are perceived as a zero-sum-game. Across the globe in intergenerational relations, the parent, especially the father, is the net loser. His once undisputed authority is declining as teenagers and their mothers find their ways around the world without depending on his guidance or intervention. (Nsamenang 2002,75) This observation for Sub-Sahara Africa is reflected in other regions although to different degrees. Southeast Asia seems to be able to adapt more easily to the related changes in part because traditional gender relations have admitted women a higher level of autonomy than in other regions (Santa Maria 2002:181). Violence can be a result of a (perceived or real) loss of control and it can be used to establish control. This is a mechanism that can be observed in many contexts at the local as well as at the national level. Where identities are constructed in a process of explicit separation from the other and are thus exclusive violence can be an option to establish or keep up internal control and cohesion. Increasing levels of domestic violence can be another indicator for societal dynamics towards fragility although this is difficult to prove due to a lack of data and because motives for domestic violence are complex. According to Amnesty International approximately 400 young women have been murdered or abducted in the cities of Jurez and Chihuahua, Mexico since 1993. In Guatemala, over 2,500 women and girls have been murdered since 2001. In Mexico, the brutality with which the assailants abduct and murder the women goes further than the act of killing in a significant number of cases. A range of motives are reflected and both state and non-state actors are involved, but in all cases the victims gender is a significant factor, in both the kind of violence perpetrated and in the level of response by authorities. (see amnesty international 2007) Some researchers have argued that domestic violence can be the last resort to maintain traditional gender and intergenerational relations. For Latin America high levels of interpersonal violence are interpreted as a crisis of masculinity and as a result of exclusion and marginalization leading toward a violent version of manhood (Barker 2005:10).39

Flexibility and adaptation

Under a perspective of resilience as the basis for the constructive management of social change, flexibility and adaption in intergenerational and gender relations need to be promoted. Requisites for marriage are a case in point. In the Middle East substitutes for traditional marriages have developed like secret, summer or transitional marriages. In the latter the husband is not contractually and legally obligated to provide housing for the wife but only visits her. Women in this type of marriage can also forego their rights to maintenance and equitable sexual access to their husbandif he has other wivesand having a child if both parties agree to add specific conditions to their marriage contract. Any children from the union are considered legitimate. It seems to be financially independent unmarried women who agree to these marriages. (Singerman 2007, 29). It is obvious that there is a lot resistance under moral and/or religious arguments. But societies need to be flexible regarding the difficulties young people have to face. Burundi seems to be another interesting example of societal flexibility as Uvin (2009, 181) observes for gender relations: Failure to achieve normative masculinity does leave young men unhappy and frustrated. These are dynamics wherein girls and women are encouraged to study as long as they can, where female dynamism and mutual respect between spouses are increasingly sought, where traditional marriage expectations are relaxed. In relation to intergenerational solidarity remittances show how migration can offer opportunities beyond those migrating. Financial remittances can be an important source of daily survival, enable children to got to school, enable the elderly to see a doctor as well as a possibility for investment in local development. Transfers play a major role in Southern and South-East Europe, as well as in India, China, Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mexico and Central America (Orozco 2003, Orozco/ Garca-Zanello 2009). There is no inevitability towards societal dynamics favoring fragility but there are a lot of possibilities to promote resilience even in adverse environments. On the individual level it is the existence and the interaction with a trusted person that can enhance resilience in difficult situations or critical junctures (e.g. to drop out of school, to quit a first job, to enter a gang). At the societal level politics, political will and creativity are necessary to develop inclusive forms of social cohesion open to adapt to changing environments.

39 A similar argument is put forwards for other forms of violence and other contexts, e.g. in relation to hooliganism. On masculinity and changing patterns of violence in South Africa see Marks 2001.

24

V. Some consequences for development

Including gender and youth approaches systematically is a must to counter the societal dynamics towards fragility. Youths are an important social group in most developing societies due to their quantitative importance as well as their role for future development. Under a perspective of the societal dynamics of fragility and resilience and social cohesion the central question is how societies cope with and manage change constructively. This will depend on a communitys (state as well as society) capacities to transform or substitute existing relations of solidarity, reciprocity and inclusion. Development cooperation can play a major role in promoting constructive solutions for individual as well as societal resilience. Currently youth and gender are addressed mostly through policies of empowerment and inclusion of women and youths. This is important but often disregards the unintended effects for gender and intergenerational relations. An example are entitlement approaches related to the International Convention of Childrens Rights right to education, physical security, economic opportunity; the human capital approach on the development of young peoples capabilities for successful transitions to adulthood another. Policy interventions in intergenerational and gender relations face two dilemmas:
1. In relation to the target group the question is if policy needs to address individual young people, youth as a collective group and/or the context of broader society shaping the perspectives of young people. While e.g. committed youth policies under a human capital perspective would make a difference for youth their implementation and success are highly dependent on context, that is a societys and states capacities (material and technical) and the political will to enforce youth friendly policies. These issues are closely linked to existing power relations and intergenerational conflicts. 2. Sequencing, context and time frames: Intergenerational and gender relations stand at the core of the private sphere where public (and even more external) interventions are very conflict prone all over the globe. Examples for this can be found in education policies and domestic violence among many others. Promoting change needs to have a long-term perspective and at the same time must be complemented with short-term options to address non-intended consequences e.g. crises of masculinity or violence following an empowerment of young people and women.

Family: promoting stable environments supporting young

peoples transitions as well as helping them to cope with stress and other challenges in the immediate environment.
Education: while capacity development is important, it

has to be complemented by other life-skills, most of all competences in resolving problems and conflicts. At the same time existing patterns of exclusion and marginalization need to be addressed supporting win-win situations across gender and generations.
Peers groups are important for youths agency and should

be seen as part of the solution and not as part of the problem. Engaging young people collectively can make a difference beyond productive use of recreational time. It can be a basis for inclusive and bridging forms of social cohesion.
Media should promote transparency, accountability and

participation.
Political and legal institutions: recently a series of institu-

tional mechanisms (e.g. national or local youth councils participating in planning and giving priority to development projects at the local level) has been created that can function as an important link across generations and gender helping both to adapt to new challenges and find constructive ways to cope with restrains.
Religion and cultural belief systems can be valuable sup-

porting dialogue and understanding as well as promoting respect and providing a sense of belonging.
Violence: integrated approaches to violence prevention

(public health among others) exist and should be promoted. Due to the high level of interrelation between different sources of socialization punctual changes or interventions like increased access for girls to schooling alone will have little impact as long as other parts of the system (e.g. the cultural restrictions of school-to-work transitions) remain unchanged. Integrated approaches are necessary to address issues connected with socialization. What should stand at the core is first of all promotion of young peoples (and most of all girls and young womens) agency not just to increase political and social participation and inclusion. Secondly, support of an environment at the different levels (family, neighborhoods, community, nation) capable of dealing constructively with this agency. Policy interventions need to be based on a profound context analysis, and must be highly culture and conflict sensitive
25

As we have seen socialization processes and transitions are highly complex processes whose effects on the societal dynamics of fragility and resilience are rather ambivalent. Entry points for this exist at different levels:

and rather comprehensive. Several developments can serve as indicators (and be monitored) for changing gender or intergenerational relations:
profound changes in family structures; increase in conflicts on the content of public education; changing requirements related to young peoples status

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