'Tomar decisiones es el futuro de uno' [To make decisions is one's future]: The gendering of youth agency within two Honduran communities

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the ways that young women and young men from two peri-urban communities outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras conceptualized and enacted their agency vis-à-vis non-formal education programs. The study examines the ways in which nineteen focal participants' gender identities were re-produced and/or transgressed in how they confronted, negotiated, and asserted influence, choice, and action. Furthermore, the research explores the ways participants' demonstrated agency in relation to cultural constructs of femininity and masculinity. This six-month comparative case study additionally examines the role of a non-formal education program in cultivating youth agency. One of the communities in this study was home to a youth program run by the Education Unit of CARE Honduras. The CARE Education Unit encouraged participants to be self-reflexive through participatory action research, which further informs the way CARE cultivated youths' understanding of choice and influence. Findings from the study indicate that social discourses and interventions across local community and national spaces are influential in the ways that youths cultivate, construct, and enact their agency both in response to and reaction against local gender norms.