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Positive Youth Development and Environmental Concerns Among Youth and Emerging Adults in Ghana

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Handbook of Positive Youth Development

Part of the book series: Springer Series on Child and Family Studies ((SSCFS))

Abstract

Positive Youth Development (PYD) indicators have been investigated across global contexts but have yet to be compared to the realm of attitudes toward environmental sustainability. Ghana is a unique and understudied cultural context to explore such relations as the population is notably young and the government actively seeks out strategic outcomes for youth policy. This chapter presents a cross-sectional study with 995 youth and emerging adults from Ghana who completed measures on the 5Cs of PYD (competence, confidence, character, connection and caring) and environmental concerns. The results from structural equation modelling indicated that character showed a significant positive path to sense of consumer and government environmental responsibility, and competence showed a significant negative path to the belief that pollution cannot be considered as a requisite for industrial growth. Individual differences in confidence and caring were positively related to the belief that pollution is not a prerequisite for industrial growth, whereas confidence was negatively related to conservation intentions. Caring was positively related to the belief that pollution has dangers. Overall, this chapter established preliminary relations between the 5Cs of PYD and attitudes toward pollution, environmental conservation and environmental responsibility in an understudied African context.

The research reported in this chapter was supported by the Faculty of Psychology of University of Bergen and the Strategic Programme for International Research and Education (SPIRE) grant awarded to Nora Wiium. The authors would like to acknowledge all participants in Ghana for providing the data reported in the chapter.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan

    Russell Sarwar Kabir

  2. Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Nora Wiium

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  1. Russell Sarwar Kabir
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  2. Nora Wiium
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Radosveta Dimitrova

  2. Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Nora Wiium

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Kabir, R.S., Wiium, N. (2021). Positive Youth Development and Environmental Concerns Among Youth and Emerging Adults in Ghana. In: Dimitrova, R., Wiium, N. (eds) Handbook of Positive Youth Development. Springer Series on Child and Family Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70262-5_6

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