engleski

Are boys more confident? Are girls more caring? Gender and educational level differences in domains of positive youth development among croatian youth

Positive Youth Development (PYD) is an approach to youth development focused on developmental strengths, instead of weaknesses and difficulties. The “Five Cs model” of PYD describes five such strengths in the domains of confidence, competence, caring, character, and connection. Contribution to the community has often been referred to as the sixth C of the PYD model. The aims of this study were to investigate the psychometric properties of the scales measuring these six Cs of PYD, as well as to examine gender and educational level differences in these six domains of PYD. The sample included 728 high school and university students (62% girls, mean age 18.4 years, SD=2.29) from Croatia. Students filled out the Croatian version of the PYD-short form and the community contribution scale anonymously on paper during their regular classes at school. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the Croatian version of the PYD-short form showed that these factors describe the data best: confidence, competence, caring, character, connection to adults, and connection to friends. Cronbach’s α index of internal consistency ranged between α= .70 and .87. In line with findings from other studies using the PYD-short form in other languages, we found significantly higher scores for confidence and competence among boys, while girls had significantly higher scores for caring and character. Moreover, female high-school students reported more frequent community contribution than male high-school students, while there was no gender difference among university students. Finally, female university students had stronger connection to friends than male university students, while there was no gender difference among high-school students. These results indicated perpetuation of gender differences in certain areas and revealed some developmental trends. They also showed satisfactory psychometric properties of the Croatian version of the PYD-short form and the community contribution scale that encourage their administration on a population level, allowing further validation of the scales. Their wider use can contribute to a shift in focus in both research and policies from developmental difficulties to developmental strengths.

Positive Youth Development (PYD), youth, gender, contribution, Five Cs model

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