Recent labour market research has shown that a good education comprises investment in both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. We examine the impact of a long-term programme designed to raise non-cognitive skills of children and adolescents in slums in Bombay. We use a cross-cutting design with two comparison groups of peers for young adults who have attended the programme until leaving high school to analyse whether, compared to those from a similar environment and background, enrollment in the programme demonstrably raises such skills. We find evidence of substantial impacts on both self-esteem and self-efficacy (of about one standard deviation), as well as evidence of a smaller impact on life evaluation and aspirations. Furthermore, in line with the literature, both self-esteem and self-efficacy are positively related to success in school-leaving examinations and initial labour market outcomes.

Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility--especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative, conceptual, and methodological advances. If forms of mobility have slowed in the West, then we might be entering an age of rigid stratification with defined boundaries between the always-haves and the never-haves-which does not augur well for social stability. Social mobility research is ongoing, with substantive findings in different disciplines--typically with researchers in isolation from each other. A key contribution of this book is the pulling together of the emerging streams of knowledge. Generating policy-relevant knowledge is a principal concern. Three basic questions frame the study of diverse aspects of social mobility in the book. How to assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets by conventional measurement techniques are unavailable? How to identify drivers and inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts? How to acquire the knowledge required to design interventions to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?

ePDF and ePUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND license. The perpetuation of poverty across generations damages lives. It weakens social cohesion and the economy and undermines environmental sustainability. This book examines why poverty is carried on from one generation to the next and what needs to be done to eradicate it. This book draws on a wide variety of sources and academic disciplines (social sciences, economics, law, community development, neuroscience and developmental psychology) along with the lived experience of people in poverty. Challenging the myths and prejudices about poverty that hinder progress, it calls for a comprehensive approach based on ensuring real equality of opportunity for all. It stresses the need to intervene early to combat child poverty and break the vicious cycles that perpetuate poverty and disadvantage.

For a long time, economic research on Africa was not seen as a profitable venture intellectually or professionally-few researchers in top-ranked institutions around the world chose to become experts in the field. This was understandable: the reputation of Africa-centered economic research was not enhanced by the well-known limitations of economic data across the continent. Moreover, development economics itself was not always fashionable, and the broader discipline of economics has had its ups and downs, and has been undergoing a major identity crisis because it failed to predict the Great Recession. Times have changed: many leading researchers-including a few Nobel laureates-have taken the subject of Africa and economics seriously enough to devote their expertise and creativity to it. They have been amply rewarded: the richness, complexities, and subtleties of African societies, civilizations, rationalities, and ways of living, have helped renew the humanities and the social sciences-and economics in particular-to the point that the continent has become the next major intellectual frontier to researchers from around the world. In collecting some of the most authoritative statements about the science of economics and its concepts in the African context, this ^lhandbook (the first of two volumes) opens up the diverse acuity of commentary on exciting topics, and in the process challenges and stimulates the quest for knowledge. Wide-ranging in its scope, themes, language, and approaches, this volume explores, examines, and assesses economic thinking on Africa, and Africa's contribution to the discipline. The editors bring a set of powerful resources to this endeavor, most notably a team of internationally-renowned economists whose diverse viewpoints are complemented by the perspectives of philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists.

Self-efficacy (SE) is the critical link between environment, culture, institutions, modernization, and development. It enables adaptive learning from environmental stimuli, and fosters agency, cooperation, goal setting, openness, opportunity recognition, and longer-term planning. SE can be regarded as fertilizer for any policy measure. Research amongst smallholder farmers in South Ghana shows that historical return on investment culturally bequeathed investment SE, which largely influences today's farming investment and household income. SE is well malleable and perceptive to intentional promotion.

"Many young people around the world --- especially the disadvantaged --- are leaving school without the skills they need to thrive in society and find decent jobs. As well as thwarting young people's hopes, these education failures are jeopardizing equitable economic growth and social cohesion, and preventing many countries from reaping the potential benefits of their growing youth populations. The 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report examines how skills development programmes can be improved to boost young people's opportunities for decent jobs and better lives."--Publisher's description

The conditions for strategic health communication campaigns as a public health tool are examined for low-income contexts. The theoretical framework drafts a socioecological model with an extension of poverty influences to bring into focus the dynamics of a resource-poor environment and its impact on health-related behaviours and health campaigns. The research design includes two studies conducted in Sierra Leone. Study 1 triangulated three qualitative methods to explore past and current health communication practice in Sierra Leone. Study 2 is a mixed-methods field experiment on handwashing which explored the effects of different campaign strategies. Results show that a community-based participatory approach with the inclusion of local leaders as health messengers was associated with higher chances of behaviour change than a non-treated setting. Further pathways for context-sensitive approaches for deprived audiences are suggested.

Youth Without Family to Lean On draws together interdisciplinary, global perspectives to provide a comprehensive review of the characteristics, dynamics, and development of youth (aged 15–25) who have no family to lean on, either practically or psychologically. In this timely volume, Mozes and Israelashvili bring together leading international experts to present updated knowledge, information on existing interventions, and unanswered questions in relation to youth without family to lean on, in pursuit of fostering these youth’s positive development. The various chapters in this book include discussions on different topics such as social support, developing a sense of belonging, parental involvement, and internalized vs. externalized problems; on populations, including homeless youth, residential care-leavers, refugees, asylum-seekers, young women coming from vulnerable families, and school dropouts; and interventions to promote these youths' mentoring relationships, labor market attainment, out-of-home living placements, use of IT communication, and participation in community-based programs. Additionally, various problems and challenges are presented and elaborated on, such as: Who needs support? Who is qualified to provide support? How should related interventions be developed? The book takes a preventive approach and aims to emphasize steps that can be taken in order to promote young people’s positive development in spite of the absence of a family to rely on in their life and examines the best practices in this context, as well as the international lessons that deserve further dissemination and exploration. This book is essential reading for those in psychology, sociology, public health, social work, law, criminology, public policy, economics, and education and is highly enriching for scholars and practitioners, as well as higher education students, who wish to understand and help the gradually increasing number of youth who are forced, too early, to manage their life alone.