Date of Award

2025

Degree Type

Restricted to Claremont Colleges Dissertation

Degree Name

Psychology, PhD

Program

School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation

Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair

Tiffany Berry

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Kendall Cotton Bronk

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Dakota W. Cintron

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Jonathan M. Tirrell

Terms of Use & License Information

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Rights Information

© 2025 Prina Patel

Keywords

Adolescents, Africa, Contribution, Positive youth development, Uganda

Subject Categories

Psychology

Abstract

Contribution, generally considered an emergent outcome of positive youth development (PYD) in the Lerner and Lerner Five Cs model of PYD is described as a commitment by youth to give back to the world around them in personally meaningful ways following sufficient development of the five Cs - competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring (e.g. Lerner et al., 2005; Lerner et al., 2019). The Five Cs model has been extensively tested and validated in the United States and other Western or industrialized contexts, but it remains unclear how contribution and the other five Cs co-develop for youth growing up in more communalistic African countries such as Uganda. This dissertation study drew on three waves of data from the Compassion International Study of PYD in Uganda to determine the extent to which the Lerner Five Cs model of PYD fitted in the Ugandan context and whether Ugandan youth aged between 9 and 16 years (in Wave One) demonstrated the social-emotional Cs of character, caring, and connection more than the efficacy-related Cs of confidence and competence. Exploratory structural equation modeling using data from youth in Uganda found that there was a good fit with competence, confidence, caring, connection and contribution, but highlighted challenges with the measurement of character in later waves as the cohort moved toward late adolescence. There were few gender differences in reported levels of the Cs, despite Ugandan girls and young women facing multiple gender equity-related challenges, which limit their access to education and other development opportunities (Ndidde et al., 2020). Finally, auto-regressive cross-lagged panel models were used to explore whether contribution predicted subsequent development of the other five Cs in this sample of Ugandan adolescents and evaluate other effects between the Cs. Despite a context where cultural traditions encourage early and active participation in the social and economic activities of family and community (Nsamenang, 2011), it was found that contribution at earlier time points did not predict development of the other Cs. These results highlight the need for the development and validation of more culturally relevant measures for the assessment of PYD constructs such as character and contribution in understudied contexts such as Uganda.

ISBN

9798291549759

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