From surviving to thriving: characterizing positive youth development among youth in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Studies that characterize youth from a strengths-based perspective are lacking in Africa and specifically in Ethiopia. This study examined the positive development of youth in Ethiopia focusing on their assets profile and corresponding thriving outcomes. Six hundred and thirty-six students (349 girls, 287 boys; Mage = 17.00 years, SD = 1.53; with age range of 13–21 years) drawn from secondary and college preparatory schools in Addis Ababa completed measures on developmental assets and thriving outcomes. Results indicated that students had vulnerable assets profile, mainly lacking external and contextual assets with gender and living arrangements accounting for differences in the report of the assets. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that external and internal assets significantly contributed to youth thriving. Though the youth were living in asset-depleted contexts, they demonstrated adequate possession of internal assets implying that the youth were going beyond survival and demonstrating signs of thriving.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth in Addis Ababa
• youth assets
• youth thriving
• Ethiopia

Introduction

The contemporary prolific scholarship on youth development has more than a century and a decade experience. This long scientific tradition on the ‘second decade of life’ (Steinberg, 2002) has been characterized by significant changes both in its conceptualization as well as research paradigm (Arnett & Cravens, 2006; Lerner, 2009; Shanahan, Erickson, & Bauer, 2005).

Hall’s (1904) portrayal of adolescence as a time of ‘storm and stress’ has been the normative characterization and foundation for the scientific study of this stage of life till date. Grand theorists of human development (e.g. Erikson, 1968; Freud, 1969) have also adopted Hall’s negative view and propagated it in developmental literature. However, theorists in the West began to challenge the problem focused conception of youth in the 1960s (e.g. Bandura, 1964; Offer, 1969; Offer & Schonert-Reichl, 1992). Bandura refuted the view of stormy decade after examining important dimensions of youth development. Offer and Schonert-Reichl also debunked the notion of storm and stress by revealing that 80% of the adolescents in their studies did not experience severe emotional disturbances but managed their transition quite well.

The problem-oriented way of researching and understanding youth is still prevalent across the world. Available studies on Ethiopian youth seem to substantiate the same view. Studies conducted on Ethiopian youth either in academic settings for scholarly activities or by government and non-government offices for assessment and intervention purposes have heavily concentrated on liabilities of the youth (Belay, 2008; Belay & Yekoyealem, 2015). Today, however, there is an increasing effort in the field of human development to study and understand youth from a strengths-based approach using the Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective.

The PYD perspective, theoretically grounded in developmental systems models (Damon & Lerner, 2008), is an optimistic vision about young people (Benson, Scales, Hamilton, & Sesma, 2006; Damon, 2004; Lerner, Almerigi, Theokas, & Lerner, 2005). PYD represents a theoretical, research, and practice paradigm change from the long held pathology-oriented to a modern positive view of youth development. According to Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, and Hawkins (2004) PYD is a viewpoint that emphasizes the behavioural, cognitive, emotional, and social competencies of youth. By conceptualizing development as a transactional process between the developing person and the multi-layered ecology, PYD underscores the potential in every individual for thriving. Furthermore, the PYD perspective considers youth as resources to be valued and cultivated instead of problems to be solved (Roth, Brooks-Gunn, Murray, & Foster, 1998).

PYD perspective has been conceived based on the premise that all adolescents have the potential for thriving if they are nurtured with growth promoting resources, which are widely known as developmental assets (Benson, 1998; Benson & Scales, 1990; Benson, Scales, Leffert, & Roehlkepartain, 1999; Leffert et al., 1998). As described in a series of literature, developmental assets are opportunities, skills, relationships, values, and self-perceptions that youth need to thrive (Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth, 2000).

The assets framework integrates two types of assets: external/ecological and internal/personal (Benson, 2003; Scales & Leffert, 1999). External assets refer to affirmative developmental experiences of support and opportunity that youth get from their multiple developmental ecologies. They are categorized into four asset types as support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, and constructive use of time. The internal assets, on the other hand, are intrapersonal competencies, skills, and self-perceptions that young people develop gradually overtime. They are categorized into four asset types as commitment to learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity. Overall, the assets framework provides a theoretically based and empirically tested set of developmental nourishments believed to promote youth thriving.

Thriving has been introduced in the developmental literature as a construct that reflects optimal youth development and has been operationalized in terms of school success, leadership skills, helping others, maintenance of physical health, delay of gratification, valuing diversity, and overcoming adversity (Benson & Saito, 2001; Benson & Scales, 2009; Scales et al., 2000). Studies on PYD across diverse cultural settings have shown the importance of assets for youth thriving (Benson et al., 1999; Benson, Scales, & Syvertsen, 2011; Scales, 2011; Scales et al., 2000; Scales, Roehlkepartain, & Fraher, 2012). Existing studies on African youth, such as Ugandan adolescents (Drescher, Chin, Johnson, & Johnson-Pynn, 2012), rural South African youth (Schwartz, Theron, & Scales, 2017), and East African youth (Drescher, Johnson, Kurz, Scales, & Kiliho, 2018; Schwartz et al., 2017) have also confirmed the power of assets in predicting youth thriving. Though the notion, research, and practice of PYD have burgeoned in the West, studies that characterize youth from this affirmative perspective are very much lacking in Africa and particularly in Ethiopia. The present study was therefore, sought to characterize PYD of youth in Ethiopia, paying attention to the developmental assets profile and corresponding thriving outcomes.

The present study

Ethiopia is a country of young people in which about 80% of its population is under the age of 35 years (CSA, 2007). Youngsters in the age range of 10–19, an age category commonly designated by human developmentalists as adolescence or youth (Steinberg, 2002), constitute more than a quarter (26%) of the total population (CSA, 2007). Close examination of the demographic transition of the country also implies that the share of the youth population will continue to rise in the future.

Though Ethiopia is currently considered as one of the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, its youth are living under difficult situations. Poverty, recurrent droughts, political unrest and ethnic conflicts, poor quality education, health problems, shortage of food and water, unemployment, displacement, and migration are among the major challenges that seem to seriously compromise youth’s optimal development. Studying youth from a strengths-based perspective is thus a precondition for cultivating youth capacity for Ethiopia that aspires to achieve a lower middle income economy by 2030.

However, earlier account suggests that Ethiopian youth have not attracted sufficient attention of scholars and policymakers. It is just recently that the National Youth Policy and other youth related development packages were formulated at government level (MoYSC, 2004). Available studies on Ethiopian youth also focused almost exclusively on the deficiencies (e.g. school dropouts, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse, behavioural problems, delinquency) of youth (Belay & Yekoyealem, 2015). Organizations, government as well as NGOs, working in the area of youth seemed to dwell more on youth problems than competencies. In total, the positive development of Ethiopian youth is not yet studied. Contemporary human developmentalists strongly recommend researchers and practitioners to focus on what makes youth healthy and contributing instead of what makes them ill and problematic (Larson, 2000). The objective of the present study was therefore, to explore PYD among youth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The study involved examining overall assets profile, experience of assets in the external and internal asset categories, and in the personal, social, family, school, and community asset contexts. Furthermore, the contribution of assets to the prediction of youth thriving in four outcomes: school success, leadership skills, helping others, and valuing diversity was determined.

Method

Context and participants

The study was conducted in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia and the political seat of Africa. Currently Addis Ababa is witnessing the largest-ever youth population in history partly due to high rural–urban migration and internal displacements. Close to 40% of the total population of the City is youth between ages 10 and 24, which make Addis Ababa characteristically a city of youngsters (CSA, 2007). Urban youth in Ethiopia in general and in Addis Ababa in particular are facing numerous challenges. According to the Ethiopian Youth Policy (MoYSC, 2004), urban youth are suffering from economic, social, psychological, and political-related problems. Studies also indicated that youth in Addis Ababa did not have access to quality youth oriented services and were not involved in meaningfully organized school clubs and after school programmes (Belay & Sintayehu, 2011).

Participants of the study were 636 school youth (349 girls, 287 boys; Mage = 17.00 years, SD = 1.53; between ages 13 and 21) drawn from four government secondary and college preparatory schools in Addis Ababa. About 25% of the samples were ninth graders, 28% tenth graders, 26% eleventh, and 21% twelfth graders. Concerning the living arrangements of the participants in the past 6 months before the data collection, 53% reported living with both of their parents while the rest reported their living arrangement as other.

Measures

This study utilized a self-report questionnaire containing three parts.

Demographic data were obtained about participants gender, age, grade level, and living arrangement.

Developmental Assets Profile (DAP) is a 58 item survey developed to measure youth’s experience of developmental assets (Search Institute, 2005). Twenty six of the items were designed to measure external assets and 32 items were set to measure internal assets. The items can also be re-grouped to determine youth’s experience of assets in five contexts: personal, social, family, school, and community. Thirteen items each were set to measure the personal and social asset contexts; 10 items each to measure family and school asset contexts, and 12 items to measure the community asset context. Participants were asked to rate their experience of assets in the previous 6 months using four response options as Not at All = 0, Sometimes = 1, Often = 2, and Almost Always = 3. Youths assets profile was determined by computing DAP total assets score that is by summing the Internal asset score (maximum 30 points) and the External asset score (maximum 30 points). The DAP total asset score ranges from 0 to 60 and interpreted in four levels as: 52–60 = Good, 42–51 = Adequate; 30–41 = Vulnerable; and <30 = highly vulnerable. DAP has been contextualized and widely used in more than 30 countries and numerous languages (Scales, Roehlkepartain, & Shramko, 2017) including in African settings (Drescher et al., 2018) and has demonstrated acceptable to excellent alpha reliabilities. It was adapted to the local language – Amharic and tried on randomly selected 200 youth as part of the current study and showed a very strong overall interrelatedness (α = 0.91). The internal consistency reliabilities for the external (α = 0.85) and internal (α = 0.87) asset categories, and personal (α = 0.78), social (α = 0.71), family (α = 0.86), school (α = 0.78), and community (α = 0.69) asset context subscales were all in the acceptable range.

Thriving outcome was measured by four outcomes: school success, leadership skills, helping others, and valuing diversity. The measure comprises of 20 items with a 5-point Likert type scale ranging from Strongly Disagree = 1 to Strongly Agree = 5. Five of the items that measure school success was adapted from the Profile of Student Life: Attitude and Behaviour Survey (A&B) (Benson, Leffert, Scales, & Blyth, 2012) and the remaining 15 items that measure youth’s leadership skills, diversity affirmation, and helping others, five items for each outcome, were adapted from the Civic Attitudes and Skills Questionnaire (CASQ) (Moely, Mercer, Ilustre, Miron, & McFarland, 2002). The four outcomes are believed to be important aspects of youth thriving since they collectively reflect fundamental developmental tasks of youth (Scales et al., 2000). Pilot results showed that the internal consistency reliability for the overall thriving outcome was (α = 0.83), and the reliabilities for the school success (α = 0.81), leadership skills (α = 0.71), helping others (α = 0.76), and valuing diversity (α = 0.75) outcomes were all in the acceptable ranges, suggesting that the measure could fairly be used to assess youth thriving in Ethiopia. The bivariate correlations among the four thriving outcome variables were ranged from small to moderate (r = .14 to .35) suggesting that the four thriving outcomes are independent of each other and therefore analyses were done independently for each thriving outcome.

Ethical consideration and procedures

A letter of approval to conduct the study was secured from the Research Ethics Committee of the School of Psychology, Addis Ababa University. In addition, a support letter from the School of Psychology was presented to respective directors of the selected schools and explanation about the purpose of the study was given to them. Then, the directors provided permission to continue the data collection. The data collection was done during regular class programme with the help of unit leaders and guidance and counselling officers in each school in classrooms temporarily arranged for this purpose. Before the data collection, participants were briefed about the purpose of the study and were requested to endorse participation. After getting their written consent, questionnaires were distributed to the participants. In order to avoid response biases and non-responses to individual items, the data collector read all the instructions and the items aloud and participants were guided to follow and indicate their responses. 720 questionnaires were distributed and 692 were retrieved from the participants out of which 636 were properly completed and used for analyses. The remaining 56 were discarded as they were not properly completed. The response rate was 88.33%. Finally, participants were appreciated and thanked for their involvement in the study.

Data analysis

The study followed a descriptive survey research design as its major purpose was to explore the presence and correlates of developmental assets and thriving among school youth in Ethiopia. Data computation was carried out with the help of SPSS version 20. After the data were entered and cleaned different statistical analyses were carried out for different purposes. In order to describe the developmental assets profile of the youth in terms of overall assets profile, asset categories (internal and external) and asset contexts (personal, social, family, school, and community) and to determine the proportion of youth in the four asset quartiles (highly vulnerable, vulnerable, adequate, and good) descriptive statistics were computed. To examine differences in youth’s developmental assets profile across gender and living arrangements, independent samples t-tests were used. To check the interrelationship between the developmental assets variables and thriving outcomes, Pearson’s correlation was run. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine the contribution of assets to youth thriving.

Results

Developmental assets profile (DAP) of youth

The mean DAP score for the present sample youth was 37.81 (SD = 7.39) out of the possible 60 (see Table 1) which according to the interpretive ranges of Search Institute (2005), place the youth in the vulnerable assets range. Based on the mean DAP score, majority of the participants (61.1%) were either in the vulnerable (51.5%) or highly vulnerable (9.6%) asset range. In contrast, the share of the youth who reported having assets in the good range was very small (2%) (see Table 1).

Table 1. Youth’s experience of developmental assets (n = 636)

	Descriptive Statistics				Proportion of Youth/Level of assets (%)
DAP^a	Min	Max	M	SD	Highly Vulnerable	Vulnerable	Adequate	Good
DAP total score	21	57	37.81	7.39	9.6	51.5	36.9	2.0
External asset	3.46	27.69	17.29	4.58	24.5	39.3	34.0	2.2
Internal asset	9.69	29.06	20.51	3.67	3.5	28.4	53.8	14.3
Asset Contexts
Personal	6.15	30	22.14	4.34	5.1	24.2	43.4	27.3
Social	7.69	30	19.86	4.18	9.1	46.0	33.3	11.6
Family	2.00	30	21.73	6.44	15.7	16.7	32.3	35.4
School	4.00	30	20.30	5.27	15.7	32.8	34.3	17.2
Community	3.33	25.83	14.28	4.62	45.5	44.4	8.6	1.5

^aDevelopmental Assets Profile

In relation to youth experience of assets in the two asset categories, youth reported better possession of internal assets (M = 20.51, SD = 3.67) than external assets (M = 17.29, SD = 4.58). Majority of them (68.1%) had internal assets in the adequate (53.8%) or good (14.3%) range but. 63.8% of the youth reported external assets in the highly vulnerable (24.5%) or vulnerable (39.3%) range (see Table 1).

In terms of youth’s ratings of their assets contexts, participants indicated their personal (M = 22.14, SD = 4.34) and family (M = 21.73, SD = 6.44) contexts as asset rich but community (M = 14.28, SD = 4.62) as asset poor context. The majority of the youth (89.9%) reported their community asset either in the highly vulnerable (45.5%) or vulnerable (44.4%) ranges. Furthermore, significant proportion of the youth 55.1% and 48.5% reported their social and school contexts in or below the vulnerable range, respectively.

Assets profile of youth across demographic background

Youth’s experience of assets were examined across gender and living arrangements. The data are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Youth developmental assets profile by gender and living arrangements

	Gender				Living arrangement
DAP	Female (N = 349)	Male (N = 287)	t	p	With both parents (N = 335)	Other arrangements (N = 301)	t	p
DAP total score	39.60 (6.55)	36.08 (7.76)	3.45	.001	40.04 (6.77)	36.56 (7.14)	5.24	.000
External assets	18.40 (4.18)	16.23 (4.71)	3.43	.001	19.15 (4.38)	16.00 (4.66)	6.14	.000
Internal assets	21.20 (3.18)	19.85 (3.99)	2.65	.009	21.89 (3.38)	21.06 (3.56)	2.51	.012
Asset contexts
Personal	22.89 (3.94)	21.41 (4.68)	2.42	.016	22.70 (3.65)	21.17 (4.16)	3.04	.000
Social	20.92 (3.46)	18.85 (4.55)	3.61	.000	20.61 (4.17)	19.51 (3.94)	3.08	.002
Family	23.13 (5.73)	20.38 (6.81)	3.09	.002	23.53 (5.15)	18.71 (7.47)	7.92	.000
School	21.35 (4.75)	19.30 (5.57)	2.80	.006	20.98 (4.92)	20.32 (5.320)	1.36	.174
Community	14.90 (4.34)	13.68 (4.82)	1.87	.063	14.97 (4.33)	13.95 (4.29)	2.09	.037

Standard deviations are in parentheses.

Table 3. Intercorrelations between developmental assets and thriving outcomes

	School Success	Leadership Skills	Valuing Diversity	Helping Others
External assets	.33^a	.08	.13^b	.40^a
Internal assets	.67^a	.22^a	.23^a	.49^a
Personal	.52^a	.18^a	.18^a	.36^a
Social	.37^a	.16^a	.25^a	.42^a
Family	.25^a	.05	.04	.23^a
School	.74^a	.09	.21^a	.42^a
Community	.26^a	.15^a	.11^b	.46^a
DAP total	.55^a	.16^a	.20^a	.50^a

^ap < .001

^bp < .05

Table 4. Summary of hierarchical regression analyses for predicting youth thriving

	School Success			Leadership Skills			Valuing Diversity			Helping Others
Variable and Entry	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
Model 1
Gender	−1.10	.24	−.22^a	.53	.314	.081	.17	.30	.028	−1.48	.384	−.183^a
Living Arrangement	−.69	.24	−.14^a	−1.10	.31	−.168^a	−.22	.30	−.036	−.34	.380	−.042
R^2		.059			.038			.002			.033
F for change in R^2		13.58^a			8.52^a			.495			7.48a
Model 2
External assets	.15	.03	.29^a	.04	.035	.058	.09	.03	.141^a	.34	.039	.403a
R^2		.131			.041			.02			.177
R^2 change		.072			.003			.02			.143
F for change in R^2		36.01^a			1.27			7.738^a			75.29a
Model 3
Internal assets	.48	.03	.67^a	.26	.050	.272^a	.19	.048	.218	.44	.054	.382^a
R^2		.459			.095			.055			.284
R^2 change		.328			.054			.035			.107
F for change in R^2		261.22^a			25.86^a			15.99^a			64.66^a

^ap < .005

Girls had statistically significantly t(634) = 3.45, p < .001) higher mean DAP score 39.60 (SD = 6.55) than boys 36.08 (SD = 7.76). They also scored statistically significantly higher mean both in the external (18.40 (4.18) t(634) = 3.43, p < .001) and internal (21.20 (3.18) t(634) = 2.65, p < .009) asset categories than boys. Furthermore, girls scored statistically significantly higher mean in the personal, social, family, and school (see Table 2).

Youth also differ in their experience of developmental assets across their living arrangements. Those youth living with both of their parents scored a statistically significantly higher mean DAP score of 40.04 (6.77), t(634) = 5.24, p < .000 compared with youth in other living arrangements 36.56 (SD = 7.14). Statistically significant mean differences were also noted in youth’s experiences of all asset types across living arrangements except the school context asset.

Bivariate correlations among assets and thriving outcomes

From the 32 inter-correlations computed between assets and thriving outcomes, 28 of them demonstrated significant and positive relationship (see Table 3). The remaining four correlations were positive although not statistically significant. DAP score significantly and positively correlated with all the four thriving outcomes.

Contribution of assets to thriving

Three hierarchical regression models were analysed for each of the four thriving outcomes. Because previous studies suggested that socio-demographic variables would moderate the effects of developmental assets on thriving, gender and living arrangements were included in the first model as control variables in all the four regressions. The demographic variables accounted for 5.9%, 3.8%, and 3.3% of the variations in youth’s school success, leadership skills, and helping others, respectively (Table 4).

The external asset category was entered in the second model of all the four regressions. The inclusion of this asset category significantly enhanced the prediction of youth thriving accounting for 17.7% of the variation in youth’s helping others and13.11% of the variation in youth’s school success. In addition, external assets explained 4.1% and 2% of the variation in youth’s leadership skills and valuing diversity, respectively (Table 4).

The addition of internal asset category into the third hierarchical regression model significantly boosted the prediction for all the thriving outcomes. It particularly enhanced the prediction of youth’s school success by 32.8%, accounting for 45.9% of the variation and it increased the prediction of helping others by 10.7%, explaining a total of 28.4% of the variation in it. The addition of internal asset into the model also increased the prediction of leadership skills by 5.4%, accounting for 9.5% of the variation and improved the prediction of valuing diversity by 3.5%, accounting for 5.5% of the variation (Table 4).

Discussion

This study was conceived to characterize Ethiopian youth’s positive development profile from a strengths-based approach and particularly to examine the youth’s developmental assets profile and associated thriving outcomes. The results indicated that youth were in the vulnerable assets range, deficient in external assets and assets in the community, social, and school contexts. The study also showed that female youth and youth living with both of their parents had better experience of assets than males and youth in other living arrangements. The result further showed the presence of strong and positive correlations between assets and thriving outcomes and confirmed the utility of developmental assets in the prediction of youth thriving.

The finding that indicated youth’s experience of assets in a vulnerable range is congruent with results of other international studies across diverse groups of youth. For instance, studies on youth in developing countries, such as Bangladesh, Honduras, Jordan, and Rwanda (Scales et al., 2012), Albania, Bangladesh, Japan, Lebanon and the Philippines (Scales, 2011), and Zulu youth in South Africa (Drescher et al., 2018) revealed similar asset profile of youth. However, the proportion of youth who reported assets in the good range (only 2%) was markedly lower in this study than youth studied in other countries. Majority (61.1%) of the youth in the current study were in or below the vulnerable asset range. This might be due to Ethiopian youth’s exposure to multiple adversities, deprivations and extreme poverty compared to youth in other countries.

Youth in the present study reported better experience of internal than external assets. This result is also consistent with findings from other studies (Alvarado & Ricard, 2013; Drescher et al., 2012; Scales et al., 2012; Theokas et al., 2005). Majority of the youth in the present study (68.1%) reported internal assets in the adequate (53.8%) or good (14.3%) range but significant proportion of them (63.8%) were lacking external assets. With regard to experience of assets in the five contexts, youth in this study characterized their community, social and school contexts as asset depleted but evaluated their personal context as asset rich. Youth’s report of inadequate external assets and ratings of their social, school, and community contexts as asset poor suggest that the support and empowerment opportunities that youth receive from their surroundings, availability of youth-focused programmes, and the involvement of other adults (e.g. teachers, relatives, and neighbours) in the cultivation of healthy and responsible youth of the society is minimal. In contrast, youth’s better report of the personal and internal assets despite living in asset poor or developmentally inattentive contexts imply that youth in this study were resilient and demonstrating signs of thriving.

The current study also revealed demographic variations in youth’s experience of assets. Girls reported statistically significantly higher mean scores on DAP, asset categories, and asset contexts than their counter part boys did. The finding is consistent with results of other international studies (Benson et al., 1999; Drescher et al., 2012; Leffert et al., 1998; Scales et al., 2005), although it was somewhat unanticipated given the status of women in Ethiopia. Historically Ethiopian females have been in disadvantage in many ways and are still facing numerous threats to their life including poverty, several forms of gender based violence, migration, and illiteracy to mention a few. A likely explanation for this unexpected result might be related to the characteristics of the study participants. The girls in this study were urban school adolescent girls who had relatively better access to education, information and other resources than majority of the girls who are out of school and living in rural Ethiopia. Consistent with other studies (Benson et al., 1999), youth living with both of their parents had better asset profile than those with other living arrangements.

This study also showed significant and positive correlations between assets and thriving outcomes. Youth’s DAP score was significantly and positively associated with all the four thriving outcomes (school success, leadership skills, valuing diversity, and helping others). Furthermore, significant and positive correlations were noted between almost all the asset contexts and thriving outcomes. These results are consistent with findings from previous studies showing that youth thriving is strongly associated with assets that youth experience in different ecologies (Schwartz et al., 2017).

Strengthening the idea that assets are building blocks of thriving, this study has confirmed the contribution of developmental assets to thriving. Internal assets were especially predictive of youth’s school success and helping others by explaining 45.9% and 28.4% of the variations, respectively. External assets were also significant predictors of youth’s helping others and school success, accounting for 17.7% and 13.1% of the variation, respectively. Overall, the findings in this study are consistent with the research literature on developmental assets and their contribution to thriving (Alvarado & Ricard, 2013; Scales et al., 2000; Theokas et al., 2005; Wang, Chen, Tang, Lee, & Jian, 2011). In all these studies, including the present one, developmental assets were consistently reported as important predictors of youth thriving beyond socio-demographic factors.

Despite the positive finding, the present study has to be interpreted with the following limitations in mind. The study did not consider private school students and youth who were out of school. This may not allow generalization to all groups of youth in the city of Addis Ababa. Future researchers need to consider more diverse groups of youth. Furthermore, no triangulation of measurement of youth assets and thriving outcomes from other sources such as parents, teachers, or youth serving organizations were made. Forthcoming researchers need to consider the significance of the involvement of socializing agencies in researching adolescents’ positive development.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all those who provided help in the preparation of this manuscript. I am particularly indebted to Professor Nora Wiuum of Bergen University, Norway for her critical comments on the manuscript. I am also thankful to the school directors, unit leaders, and counselling officers for their help in the data collection. I extend my special acknowledgements to all the students who partook in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no funding for this research

Notes on contributors

Yekoyealem Desie

Yekoyealem Desie PhD, is a faculty in the School of Psychology, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. His research interest focuses on adolescent/youth positive development, development of youth under difficult circumstances, and the influence of media on children and youth.