Browsing by Subject "Sub-Saharan Africa"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Examining the Role of Aggression and Victimization in the Development of Psychopathology in Ugandan Adolescents
    (2015-06) Hecht, Kathryn
    Positive peer relationships play an important role in child development, serving not only as protective factors during and after exposure to adversity such as war or armed conflict, but also providing a training ground to develop the wide range of social skills and behaviors necessary for effective functioning within any given cultural context. Alternately, negative peer experiences such as relational and physical aggression and victimization can serve as powerful risk factors for later psychopathology; in particular, research supports a link between depression and forms of aggression as well as victimization. However, this relation has primarily been explored in North American and European contexts. Further, child aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms both appear to be more prevalent in contexts where children have been exposed to armed conflict. Little information is available on how different forms of aggression and victimization relate to depression in youth in more diverse cultural contexts, particularly in war-affected populations. The present study addresses this gap through examinations exploring the prevalence and gender differences of different forms of aggression as well as the relationship between relational and overt forms aggression/victimization and depression in a sub-Saharan, war-affected setting. Participants include a cross-sectional sample of 258 adolescents (M=16.26 years of age) to examine prevalence and gender differences in forms of aggression and victimization, as well as 96 adolescents (M=15.71 years of age) studied longitudinally over one calendar year to examine the relation between aggression, victimization and depression. Findings indicate that self-reported relational aggression as well as overt aggression each uniquely predicts depression symptoms, controlling for the alternate form of aggression. Relational victimization also uniquely predicts depression symptoms after controlling for overt victimization. Overt victimization did not significantly predict depression after controlling for the contribution of relational victimization. Implications of findings, limitations and future directions are discussed.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Imagining and Navigating the Future: Educational Aspirations and Agency of Economically Disadvantaged Ethiopian Secondary School Students
    (2022-05) Wedajo, Hanna
    In Ethiopia, economically disadvantaged students are not equally represented in the education system, in terms of enrollment and attendance. A high drop out and low completion rates of these groups widen the educational inequalities in the country. The government of Ethiopia has sought to allocate resources to narrow the educational inequality, but the policy framework is not based on the capabilities of students or their ability to utilize resources to move forward to their aspired futures. This dissertation examines how economically disadvantaged secondary school age youth in Ethiopia imagine and pursue their aspired future amidst supporting and constraining conditions. My study also explores how these students exercise their agency towards choosing and pursuing their educational aspirations. I situate the capability to aspire (the degree of freedom the youth have to aspire) and capacity to aspire (the ability to explore the future) within a relational capability theory, where aspirations are imagined with and for others. In this dissertation, I narrate the life history of six secondary school age youth in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, exploring their educational aspirations and their abilities to work towards their aspired futures. The stories reveal that economically disadvantaged youth do have aspirations to improve their overall socio-economic well-being and the well-being of others, ranging from supporting one’s parents and positively contributing to their community. Nonetheless, they might be constrained in their navigational capacity to explore alternative futures without the support of family, teachers, and society, and availability of meaningful opportunities. The youths’ accounts further demonstrate that personal conditions, especially family economic situations, are mainly limiting, and societal support and teachers’ guidance are crucial for economically disadvantaged youth to pursue their desired futures. Therefore, I argue that there is a need to shift the emphasis from equality of resources in the Ethiopian context to equality of capabilities (real opportunities). This includes considering familial and socio-economic conditions influencing students’ education and their educational aspirations. Keywords: capability approach; aspirations; agency; the capability to aspire; the capacity to aspire; narrative inquiry; Ethiopia; Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Landscape of Farming: An Exploration of Spatial Bio-Economic Characterization Approaches
    (2015-11) Joglekar, Alison
    This dissertation consists of three inter-related but standalone papers focused on the theme of measuring the spatial, bio-economic attributes of production agriculture. Hitherto most of the agricultural development literature dealing with production agriculture has relied on data delineated in geopolitical (i.e., administrative district) boundaries of varying spatial resolutions, with some (increasingly of late) data reported for farm households. In some cases the household level data are geo-referenced, but in a majority of the studies the data are essentially aspatial. Many of the realities facing farmers however, including the agro-ecological (climate, soil, terrain and so on) attributes with which farmers have to work and their proximity to markets, are intrinsically spatial. Thus the location of farms and their physical and economic access to markets have a whole host of agricultural production and consumption implications that profoundly affect the economic circumstances of farm families. Spatially delineated data to facilitate analysis of the effects of location and its associated attributes on farm economies is still limited, but beginning to grow. This dissertation casts a critical eye over the nature and empirical plausibility of some key, spatially explicit datasets, including efforts to form spatially granular estimates of the location of crop production, area and yield worldwide; estimates of the proximity of African crop production to markets of varying sizes; and finally, the retail-level prices of key inputs (specifically fertilizer) faced by farmers throughout Tanzania.