‘From school to adulthood’? A systematic mixed methods approach to young people’s pathways through schooling

Laura CamfieldYoung Lives, University of Oxford/

DEV, University of East Anglia

l.camfield@uea.ac.uk

Education – an Ethiopian success story?

• Striking improvements in enrolment for boys and girls nationwide (with the usual caveats)

• Shift in the agenda from access to quality• Universally positive attitudes towards education among Young Lives

sample, parents and children• Children moving slowly and determinedly through the school system• But what happens at the other end?

• 3% in higher education – half the percentage in the rest of SSA• 50% youth unemployment in urban areas• Under-employment and growing dissatisfaction in rural areas,

due partly to land shortages • Limited opportunities for internal or external migration (govt.

restrictions, security of land tenure, etc.)

What the paper does • Sets changes in aspirations & experiences of schooling since the

1990s in context, using a case study of a rapidly changing urban community (data from two cohorts, eight years apart & their parents)

• Illustrates the value of a systematic mixed methods approach by juxtaposing individual and household level data with data collected through school and community-based research• Explores the place of schooling in children's understandings of

well-being and social mobility using data from group activities• Presents experiences of two boys from similar backgrounds, but

different age groups, and their parents, to illustrate the speed of recent change

• Concludes that while education is central to children’s understandings of well-being and well-becoming, its ability to fulfil their aspirations is limited by declining opportunities for employment

Questions from a (selective) review of the literature

• Extensive literature on youth transitions, education and aspirations – well-covered by other papers in this panel

• This paper focuses on implications of the gap between youth aspirations and achievements, e.g.

• A “lost generation”? (Cruise O'Brien, 1996, W. Africa)

• Young men “living in exile” within their own country? (Piot, 2005, Togo)

• Emergence of new understandings of agency & subjectivity from promotion of education, empowerment & entrepreneurialism ? (Durham, 2007, Botswana)

Ethnographic approaches to these questions in other settings...

• Behrend, 2002 – Kenya, self-creation through photographs

• Cole, 2005 – Madagascar, emergence of Jaombilo (pimps)

• Gondola, 1999 – DRC, history of Sapeurs (fashionistas, flaneurs)

• Wiess, 2002 – Tanzania, hip-hop music and barbershops

• Moyer, 2004 – Tanzania, street entrepreneurs engagement with rastafari

And within Ethiopia...

• Ellison (2006, 2009) - young men in Konso in S Ethiopia redefining themselves as members of the previously stigmatised merchant class (Xauta) to take advantage of new economic opportunities

• Getnet (2006) – sexuality and sexual practices of unemployed young men in Dessie

• HIV infection reflects ‘structural oppression’ (Farmer, 2004) where youths have a gloomy future and do not aspire to have a tomorrow and live only for today. .. They see 30- and 35-year-old people still being dependent on their families and, therefore, none of them want to postpone sex until the age they become economically independent (Ibid:193, Chairman of an Anti-AIDS club)

• Link between high youth unemployment and ‘streetism', and sexual harassment and sexual violence against women

And within Ethiopia...• Mains (2007) – unemployed young men in Jimma

• Linear trajectories through schooling created (false) expectations of progress and better futures

• Employment choices inflexible as driven by how working or not working would shift the manner in which they related to others (yilunnta - shame)

• So even though the decrease in the value of education has created a gap between young people’s probable life trajectories and their aspirations [...] for the most part, values surrounding occupational status and education appeared to be quite rigid. In the absence of jobs that young people believed fit with their education status, urban Ethiopian youth of all class backgrounds frequently accepted extended periods of unemployment (ibid:662)

And within Ethiopia...• Di Nunzio (2010) – unemployed young men in Arada, Addis Ababa

encountering multiple and mixed messages, e.g.

• Education – study hard and emerge from poverty • Family – show respect and be supported • Govt. – work hard and develop the nation, no shame in tinish sra -

low jobs• Social and physical environment of Addis Ababa –

The big Dubai–style buildings in the richest neighbourhoods of the city have suggested visions of wealth and abundance that is altering what is considered to be respectable and desirable. Moreover, discourses on entrepreneurship and social success, dreams of being a billionaire and a self-made man are encouraging people to think that poverty is the result of idleness and a lack of self-confidence. At the same time, the unprecedented availability of goods and these images of success are matched by an equally unprecedented rise in living costs, hence, a relative impoverishment of households

• Combination of new models of consumption & social success with poverty & underemployment create new forms of social & political marginality where poverty results from laziness & lack of self-confidence

Good jobs and bad jobs? Segmentation within the Ethiopian labour market

• Youth unemployment in urban areas higher than in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa (18.4% vs. 50%), or rural Ethiopia where underemployment more of a problem (1/3 rural youth working less than 12 hrs per week)

• Why? ‘Youth bulge’ (28% of Ethiopian population aged 15-29), appeal of urban centres (a higher proportion of young people live there than of the population as a whole), lack of capital, limited markets, etc. etc.

• But also - ‘queuing' for govt. jobs because these offer highest salaries (median govt. income 1,335 ETB per month vs. 800 for private sector/ NGOs)

• Unemployment perceived as better than private sector (Krishnan 1996, 1998)

• And people prepared to wait, especially if they have a household wealthy enough to support them - mean duration of unemployment four years (Sierneels 2004, 2007, 2008) 7x times mean in developed countries (Dendir, 2007)

• Duration is higher for people aspiring to a public sector job, unless they have a father working as a civil servant

• Not exclusively a problem of educated males (c.f. Jeffrey ea, 2008, North India) - lower education and female gender increases the likelihood of unemployment and employment in the informal sector (70% of informal sector workers are female)

• However, 22 per cent of unemployed urban youth graduated grade 12• Why?

• Academic orientation of the education system during the Derg (1974-1991) changed aspirations and attitudes towards work, e.g. increased preference for white-collar jobs

• Competition - in 2004, 15% of young urban males had completed at least upper secondary education (grade 10)

• IMF-imposed public sector reductions post-1991 broke link between higher education and employment

• Limited opportunities overseas - employment still regulated (US DV lottery only 4,000) & most migrants young women in their twenties with secondary education working as domestic maids in the Middle East

• Structures to support young people highly political, e.g. Regional Youth Associations, and Youth policy (2004) "seeks to deliver a democratically oriented, knowledgeable and skilled, organized and disciplined youth generation [...] to play an active role in building a democratic society"

• National data sets, e.g. Census, Labour force or Demographic and Health surveys – but purely cross-sectional and data insufficiently disaggregated

• Ethnographies – rich, but spatially limited• Other methods –

– Carefully sampled focus groups – In-depth interviews – Community observation

• Most valuable – longitudinal qualitative and quantitative data at household, individual and community level, from birth to youth and beyond, e.g. Perlman – Brazil, Birth-to-20, S Africa, Young Lives’s ‘mosaic approach’

How researchers can better understand these processes

• Young Lives - international research project, investigating the changing nature of childhood poverty

• Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam

• Longitudinal design…over 15 years• Quantitative and qualitative methods• Research and policy components

This paper: where the data comes from

• 12,000 children through a 15-year period • Two groups of children in each country:

• 2000 children aged between 6 months and 17 months in 2002 (now 8-9 years)

• 1000 children aged between 7.5 years old and 8.5 years old in 1995 (now 15-16 years)

Sentinel site sampling - 20 sites per country - pro-poor sample, selected by location, ethnicity, educational participation, etc

What does Young Lives do?

One child’s data ‘mosaic’

child interview

caregiver interview

wellbeing exercise school transitions

who is important?

community mapping

child-led tour

photo elicitation

daily activities/time-use

observations (home, school, etc)

teacher interview

group teacher interview

group community interview

group caregiver interview

life course timeline

body mapping daily diaries

happy day/sad dayR1 household survey R2 household survey

R1 8 year old child survey R2 12 year old child survey

Supplemented by school survey data...

• End of same school year as R3 survey - Spring 2010

• Census of rural schools & sub-sample of urban schools attended by Young Lives children

• Combines questionnaires with school principals, teachers of Young Lives children, and children, with school and classroom observation & teachers’ tests

• Further qualitative research in a subsample of 15 schools (three per region)

• National / regional level research on educational policies and interventions

• Densely populated urban community with high rural in-migration; ethnically & religiously diverse

• Within rapidly developing Southern regional capital• But community infrastructure and economic

opportunities limited (daily labour, street vending, driving a cart)

This neighbourhood is a neighbourhood of poor people; there are no children who are educated and reached to a good position, and as you can see there are no rich people here. The neighbourhood is full of poor and worthless people. And the children spend their time in playing and in other different things [mother of Adugna]

The setting: Leku

Local economic opportunities

Schooling in Leku

Kindergartens (grades KG1-3) - two private (90 ETB per month), two NGO (45 ETB), numerous informal pre-schools (5 ETB) Primary schools (grades1-8) - three government, two private and two NGO Secondary/ High school (grades 9-12) – one government

Numerous local NGOs supporting education, e.g. Mary Joy constructed a primary school, kindergarten, and youth recreational centre and provides financial assistance for schooling

Teachers’ perspectives: Future opportunities

[Secondary school] helps them to know more about their economic and social life, it will help them in their future life […] because as they mature, they know a lot of things

A teacher in school ET429, Awassa

[If they only attend primary school] they may only know about calculation. This is not enough. [If they only complete high school] it will not be useful a bit. It would help them to read and write, to answer questions and to ask questions. It would also help them to calculate and to speak with others. But if they learn in the future they will be a good citizen. Otherwise, they will not be successful. He could pass to grade10, 11 or 12 without knowing anything. Instead, it is better to work hard to be effective in the future

A teacher in school ET269, Awassa

Great expectations

Education and well-being Group activities with older boys in Leku (transitions, wellbeing, poverty); child questionnaire

Wellbeing• Children living well attend a private school with good teachers and a

recreation area, have school materials, and access to books at home– Oqbay: He attends at private school where teachers are good, disciplined and

students are ethically good since the family has money to pay the fee. The school has a playing field for students to play, inside home compound it is common to see trees which helps for the child to get fresh air. In his school everything exists, water for drinking, books are available and teachers teach properly

• Children not living well don’t go to school or go to government schools, perform poorly and lack school materials– Oqbay: He learns in a school with no chair, even if there is chair it is not well

done, it is a government school with no water for drinking, no books, and no place for studying

• All participants rank education as one of the best indicators of wellbeing as it makes children’s futures better

Poverty• Key indicator of wealth and poverty is whether families can send children to

private schools (monthly cost 100-120 ETB)• Being educated seen as a cause of wealth as after they are educated, they will

be hired and they will become rich. And if someone is hard working his salary will increase and he will become rich. This is possible if he saves the salary he makes. All people who are educated cannot be rich though [facilitators’ notes]

• To move out of poverty children need to have the interest and desire for learning and they have to learn and study very hard, they should not miss classes [ibid]

Transitions• Aged 18-23 some may reach grade 12 and few can join university, [they] may get

employment opportunity, boys may marry at 20 or later, most of the time both sexes become fully independent via work or marriage [ibid]

Educational aspirations (Child questionnaire, 2006, n= 47)• 100% reported that formal schooling was essential for future life• 92% would like to go to university and 96% expect to be able to do this • 37% of fathers and 60% mothers didn't complete primary school • 27% of fathers and 34% of mothers are illiterate

Case Studies (data mosaic, n=2)

Two male students, Leku

Adugna Hagos

Age 15 8

Background Amhara, Protestant Amhara, Orthodox

Household composition Second youngest child of 5. Lives with his parents and his cousin

Lives with his brother, mother, grandparents, aunt and two uncles

Consumption pc $ (2006 $1=8.75 ETB)

133 110

Caregiver education & occupation

Didn’t complete primary (3rd grade), petty trade

Completed primary and secondary, homemaker

School grade 4 (2009 – grade 7) KG1 (2009 – grade 1)

Hrs per day working 2.75 0

Hrs per day studying 7 0

Academic achievement Literate, PPVT 105 PPVT 93

Adugna, 15 years old

Mother: if he finishes his school, gets a good job and get a good salary, he will live a good life […and] have a good chance in the future. […] I tell him that the time is very bad and it is very hard for people even while they are educated and have good results, let alone while they are not educated. I also tell him that his future is not known and that he has to study hard if he wants to be good in the future Adugna: I said I would be better [than my parents] because I will study hard and I will graduate and start to work. And I will be better because I will be engaged in paid work. […] There is nothing that worries me [about my future]. I will study hard and I will confidently work the job that I will get, as the work I will do has a guarantee; there is nothing that worries me

Hagos, 8 years old

I:What do you expect Hagos’s future will be like?Mother: I do not know his talent, but he sometimes says that he will be a policeman and a doctor at other times. I think he will decide on his choice when he reaches on the age and on a given level of education  I: Why do children go to school?Hagos: To become clever.I:What will happen after becoming clever?Hagos: They will graduate with degrees.I: What would a person who has a degree get?Hagos: He will get a house and he will be given land. Then he builds a swing.

How do their lives differ from their parents?

Hagos’s mother, aged 42

How do you compare your childhood with that of Hagos?

It cannot be compared. I was enrolled in school when I was much older and I remember when I was sent to school. I was about eight years old when I was learning the Amharic alphabets. And I was learning in ‘qes’ (priest) school. I did not learn in a private school as Hagos. I did not know much by then. There is a difference. […] I can say that I used to work as a child in the house. I am a girl and I am the eldest girl. […] He is a boy, and they spend much of their time playing, they do not obey anything.

Adugna’s mother, aged 25I did not get formal education initially, but I was involved in basic education during the previous political regime. There was a plan in every Kebele to teach people who were illiterate. I followed that and after I was able to read and write […] Then I went to a private school and I learnt there by paying up to grade four. I was not comfortable by the time with the responsibility of married life and I stopped attending school. We did not know that education was very important as it is now though.  Adugna’s life is better than mine. […] For one thing, he is learning with freedom; he has time to go to school. We did not have time and girls were not attending school in our area. […] When I compare my life with that of Adugna, the difference is like the sky and the earth. He goes to school, he has freedom, he is living in an urban area, and he could study during the night, as there is electricity. He could also study during the daytime, as he does not need to go up and down and he does not have to travel to distant places. […] I did not have time even to wash my body. And if time was available, the water had to be fetched from remote area on the back of donkeys. […] He changes his clothing, while there were times when we were wearing only a single [set of] clothes for a week. So for all these reasons his time is better.

Conclusions

• For the children in this study schooling is part of what good lives and good futures mean

• Teachers promote higher levels of education as a route to prosperity, citing the two or three children who make it to university as examples

• But while Ethiopia has seen incredible increases in primary & secondary enrolment since the mid 1990s, evidenced by the different experiences of Hagos (age 8) & his mother (25), what happens when children emerge at the end to find economic structures unchanged?

• Ethnographies from other parts of Africa report increasing disaffection, especially among young men, and in Ethiopia young men are experiencing the gap between expectations and reality as an attack on their identity to be managed through inertia, consumption, political activism, violence, risky behaviours, etc. etc.

Methodological reflections

• How can these tensions be researched sensitively and ethically?• Young Lives ‘mosaic approach’ offers polyvocality and

the dimension of time through its use of mixed methods and longitudinal data collection, but cannot provide the depth of ethnography

• That ‘deep hanging out’ might risk (further) altering the way the participants see their lives

• But in survey rounds 5 and 6 if imagined futures are not realised, and Young Lives cannot help, how will Young Lives youth react to the university educated, metropolitan fieldworkers who want to discuss their disaffection?

AcknowledgementsYoung Lives is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and based on a collaborative partnership between the University of

Oxford, Save the Children UK, the Open University and a series of prominent national research and policy institutes in four study countries. It receives partial

funding from the Bernard van Leer Foundation.

Laura Camfield l.camfield@uea.ac.uk