Changing Cities: Climate, Youth, and Land Markets in Urban Areas
high-paying job and this certainly influenced their motives to join, EC participation rarely equated with skills needed for a specific occupation, unlike the majority of education programs now targeting youth. However, participation in a youth-led educational initiative proved to impart an abundance of capabilities and skills that urban youth require to flourish and survive, beyond the acquisition of English. The power to speak, to debate, and to create supportive social circles can address aspects of multidimensional poverty—including health, income, security, and empowerment—and thus can serve as an example of education within human-centered development. Through this small scale study of Senegalese ECs, I have shown how CA and CoP supplement each other and provide a functional synthesis between a pedagogical model and a normative framework that can be used to analyze urban educational sites. Learning forms such as ECs exist in urban areas throughout Africa and the developing world, and they should be considered in the processes of educational planning. By employing such frameworks, planners can begin to understand youth learning and translate its aims and outcomes for use in policy and programs. Youth are already engaged in their own educations and are committed to creating better futures. As policymakers and educators, it is our responsibility to validate these grassroots sites of learning and utilize them.
REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Avril. 2007. The Role of Youth Skills Development in the Transition to Work: A Global Review. Human Development Network Children and Youth Department Working Paper 5. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Alkire, Sabina. 2008. The Capability Approach to the Quality of Life. Paris: Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Progress. Antal, Carrie, and Peter Easton. 2009. “Indigenizing Civic Education in Africa: Experience in Madagascar and the Sahel.” International Journal of Educational Development 29: 599–611. Appiah, Elizabeth, and Walter McMahon. 2002. “The Social Outcomes of Education and Feedbacks on Growth in Africa.” Journal of Development Studies 38: 27–68. Auriol, Emmanuelle, and Jean-Luc Demonsant. 2011. Education and Migration Choices in Hierarchical Societies: The Case of Matam, Senegal. Toulouse: Institute de l’Economie Industrielle. Avoseh, Mejai B. 2001. “Learning to Be Active Citizens: Lessons of Traditional Africa for Lifelong Learning.” International Journal of Lifelong Education 20: 479–86.
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