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Angela S. Bushati
the other hand, and what is often failed to acknowledge, is the fact that youth occupies
an important social role in the society in terms of exercising active citizenship and social
equity in terms of participatory rights, and therefore, active youth participation needs to
be better promoted. Having said all this, the paper will focus on the notion of participa-
tion, particularly referring to the ways how youth empowerment and youth participation
contributes to community empowerment and well-being.
Youth Development and Participation
With the emergence of the children’s rights movement as well as more specifically youth
rights movements, a much greater attention has been dedicated to the category of “ad-
olescents” and “youth”. The vision and vocabulary used towards youth have evolved on
multiple levels that encircle the developmental system. Lerner et al. (2005:20) articulate
on how “developmental systems theory stresses the inherent plasticity of human de-
velopment, that is, the potential for systematic change throughout development”. Such
potential is hammered and constructed through mutual relationships between the devel-
oping individual and his nucleus, comprising the biological, psychological, ecological and
historical level. When the interplays between the individual and environmental context
result in mutually beneficial outcomes, this occurs as a result of adaptive developmental
regulations that support such positive outcomes (Lerner et al, 2005:20). When the envi-
ronment contributes to positive development, the individual is likely to develop a better
set of assets and therefore, the society in general benefits as well. Bronfenbrenner (2005)
argues about the bioecological theory of human development, where individuals and
environments interact with each other contributing to development. The bioecological
theory presents how “human development is defined as the phenomenon of continuity
and change in the biopsychological characteristics of human beings, both as individuals
and as groups” (Bronfenbrenner, 2005: xxviii). The human characteristics get shaped and
moulded in interaction with the inputs given from the environment, it is a mutual give and
take relationship. The environment plays an important role starting early childhood and
it impacts their development till they reach youth and adulthood. Lately, there has been
evidenced that the way how young people might spend their time outside the frames of
formal schooling might affect their development and specifically speaking about their in-
terest in organised activities or youth organisations, which recently have been promoted
in different pedagogical settings. Youth engagement and participation in extracurricular
activities can result to be very beneficial on the developmental level. As Mahoney et al.
(2006:3) argues how “research on organised activities has shown positive consequences
of participation for academic, educational, social civic and physical development”. In
addition, research also shows that participation can be used as a strong tool to empower
