Young Canadians’ Desire to Change the World and the Adults Who Support Them

Abstract

Generativity involves care and concern for future generations as a legacy of the self. It is a central developmental task in midlife for both individual well-being, and for a functioning society. As such, opportunities to foster generativity in youth have lasting benefits. There is growing evidence examining correlates of generativity with youth. To date, however, these studies rely mostly on university samples, and are somewhat homogeneous with respect to demographic representation. At the same time, youth engagement supported by adults has also been linked to youth identity development (generally considered a precursor to generativity) and has been identified as a positive feature in youth programs. While youth engagement likely benefits generative development, there is no empirical research to date linking them together. Therefore, in this chapter we present survey findings from over 600 youth of diverse backgrounds, from a community sample, aged 12 to 28 years old, who participated in various youth programs across Canada. Our literature review and research findings highlight the importance of fostering youth generativity and note that youth programming supported by adult allies is a fruitful context for this task.

1. Introduction

Generativity involves care and concern for future generations as a legacy of the self [1]. The development of generativity includes the integration of building skills (agency) and contributing to others (communion). Thus, generativity is a key milestone for both individual well-being and a functioning society. Research has highlighted the importance of generativity in youth. Findings point to associations with well-being, moral identity, and community involvement [2]. These findings, however, typically include relatively small sample sizes, an over-reliance on university samples, and are somewhat homogeneous with respect to demographic representation. At the same time, youth engagement with support from adult allies has also been linked to youth identity development [3] and has been identified as a positive feature in youth programs [4].

In this chapter, we examine early generativity in a community sample of approximately 600 youth participating in youth programs from across Canada. We discuss correlates from across a broad range of demographic and background factors, including ethnicity, perceived income, gender, and LGBTQ+ status. Further, we examine associations with youth engagement including perceptions of adults’ collaborative support in community programs. Throughout this chapter, we discuss how generativity and youth-adult partnerships inform social contexts such as community-based youth programs.

1.1 Early generativity

Generativity, the seventh of Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development, is defined as concern for future generations as a legacy of the self [5]. Generativity carries broad meaning and can refer to motivations, behavior, and even a sense of identity [6]. In midlife, generativity is a core developmental task. As such, it is not surprising that it has been consistently connected to overall well-being, a strong sense of morality, good parenting, career satisfaction, and healthy relationships. Beyond individual benefits, generativity is essential for cultures and societies to grow and thrive [7].

Given the importance of generativity in adulthood, it follows that we should also understand the earlier manifestations and developmental course of generativity in young people [5]. Our own research has been charting the validity and correlates of young people’s motivations to be generative, as well as contexts that might support the development of generativity. Overall, generative motivations have been found to be stable in adolescence [8] and associated with positive outcomes for young people, such as higher self-esteem, lower depressive symptoms, higher levels of empathy, and positive identity development [2].

There have also been several studies linking early generativity to youth’s involvement in their communities [9]. For example, findings from a large longitudinal sample from Ontario, Canada pointed to stable and strong associations between generativity and community involvement from ages 17 to 23 [10], and in a follow-up study between ages 23 and 32 years [11]. Therefore, adolescents who are more generative may be more involved in the community as they age.

Connected to community engagement is the finding that generativity is embedded in social identities. Often the social groups we identify with inform where we point our generative efforts, and our experiences within our identities inform the traditions we look to uphold or dismantle, and the changes we hope to bring to society. When social identity groups face significant harm and barriers due to stigma or perpetuation of colonial violence, their generative priorities might focus on ending intergenerational cycles, protecting the vulnerable in their community, or dismantling negative stereotypes with more positive lenses demonstrating strength and resilience [12]. For example, researchers who conducted interviews with Indigenous youth ages 15 to 17 years in Hawaii found strong themes of generativity through the preservation of their language, values, and traditions to benefit future generations [13]. In a sample of older LGBTQ+ adults, another study found that generativity themes were salient when participants discussed the difficulties that they faced through the AIDS/HIV pandemic, the stigma that led to barriers to healthcare, concerns for personal safety, and an absence of positive role models [14]. These individuals turned injustices into positive legacies through advocacy work, caring for others, and sharing their stories and history with the next generation. Similarly, a study interviewing Black Americans who survived World War II found that these Americans leaned on their experiences of suffering in the war to define their generative purpose in the present [15]. Thus, it is important to consider the context of history and cultural backgrounds within our social identities when trying to understand individual motivation and expression of generativity. For these reasons, it is worthwhile to explore a number of micropopulations that have sustained ongoing trauma, and face a real threat to their culture, language, and traditions. Here, generativity often becomes a central task operationalized as preserving a group’s history and traditions, as well as advocating to end systemic injustices that continue to cause harm across generations. This aligns with other research that finds that people who experienced extremely negative events might express their generativity through actively working to end the cycle of harm, which Kotre termed “intergenerational buffer” [12].

Generativity is intergenerational, with central generative activities including parenting, mentoring, and teaching [16]. In fact, it has been noted that generativity is a useful theoretical lens for studying intergenerational relationships [16]. Moreover, it has been suggested that intergenerational programming could support the growth of adult generativity [17]. Thus, considering that both adults and youth have capacity for generativity, youth engagement in programs that involve youth-adult partnerships may be an important and unique context for both fostering and achieving generativity.

1.2 Youth engagement as a possible context for the development of generativity

Youth generativity in the context of youth engagement and youth programs is not well understood, though the importance of adults’ generativity in working with youth has been established [18]. In a previous study, we found that the extent to which youth felt engaged psychologically in their favorite activity (e.g., sports, volunteer, religious) was associated with generative motivations [19]. This study, however, did not examine the intergenerational contexts of activities. Both youth and adults note that adult generativity supports youth success in contexts where youth are participating in decision making. Youth engagement is the meaningful involvement of a young person in an activity outside of the self [20]. Youth engagement in the context of community programs typically involves groups of youth working together, in partnership with adults, on projects intended to improve communities, promote social justice, or contribute to a cause [21].

There is much in the developmental context of youth programs that might promote positive development. Larson and colleagues [22, 23] have long noted the rich developmental contexts that community activities afford youth. For some time, research has demonstrated that participation (i.e., physical or virtual presence in programs and activities) is necessary but not sufficient to developmental change [24]. Engagement goes beyond participation; researchers and theorists have discussed a variety of factors, such as affective and cognitive engagement, and youth voice in decision-making, that may constitute ‘engagement’. Thus, adults play a key role in youth engagement in sharing decision-making responsibilities, honoring youth voice, and learning from youth.

Youth engagement in youth-adult partnerships is almost certainly multidimensional, involving a variety of factors that could result in developmental change, including the emergence of early generativity. Collaborative relationships are one aspect of youth engagement and, as is typical in youth work, these relationships do not need to be of lasting duration or require a certain level of intimacy. Instead, they likely require that more senior partners in youth-adult relationships work to bring with them a stance that begins with safety and unconditional respect [25]. Those collaborative relationships might allow young people to learn and practice skills and to share their knowledge with others. They might also allow youth to make decisions with support and encouragement. As youth-adult partnerships are often focused on social change (e.g., social justice initiatives), in addition to these collaborative spaces, youth-adult partnerships are settings that can help promote young people’s agency, voice, program ownership, and ability to make a meaningful impact [20, 21]. In these settings, young people can see themselves as active participants, take on new responsibilities, explore their identities, and enact their values, all while being exposed to older generative models. In other words, youth engagement in these settings, where youth’s potential can be seen and understood as valuable, might reasonably be an ideal setting for youth to explore themselves and their ability to impact the world and thus develop their generativity.

1.3 Youth engagement and generativity in diverse populations

It is possible that links between youth generativity and engagement differ, depending on demographic and other differences among young people. Little research exists on population differences even in research focusing on adult generativity. Research that does exist on these differences does not paint a consistent picture. Studies have pointed to some gender differences in how generativity relates to agentic and communal motives [26]. Research has found higher levels of generative concern among African Americans compared to White Americans [26]. Finally, work mentioned earlier has found strong themes of generativity in micropopulations such as sexual minorities, or different cultural groups, using qualitative approaches [13, 14, 15].

Regarding youth engagement, the picture is again unclear. Youth advisory councils have tended to engage more privileged youth [27, 28], youth in some ethnic communities may be reluctant to participate due to a lack of inclusive practices in many programs [29], and youth participation in programs can decrease as youth age and gain more autonomy over decisions to participate [30]. All of these findings suggest that youth engagement should differ, to some extent, based on demographics or group membership. In our own research, we have not found youth engagement to differ by age or gender [31], or LGBTQ status, ethnicity, immigrant status, or rural or urban residency, although we have found that youth with higher perceived income or socioeconomic status reported more engagement [3, 32]. Other studies have focused on engagement in afterschool programs and youth’s civic engagement and have found mixed results. Researchers conducted a latent profile analysis of middle school aged youth participating in a voluntary after school program [33]. They found that youth fell into three categories: moderately engaged, affectively engaged, and disengaged. When they tested for differences in youth-level characteristics, none of the characteristics (grade level, gender, race, and ethnicity) predicted profile membership. Research on civic engagement, involving prosocial and political involvement in communities, suggests that experiencing discrimination can prompt some youth of color to become highly engaged in community social action, while others become disengaged [34].

Links among youth engagement and generativity might also depend on youth differences, but current research is scant. A large meta-analysis found a wide variety of youth outcomes were predicted by afterschool program participation. Interestingly, individual youths’ characteristics and demographics did not moderate those associations [34]. In our own work, we have found that having input in decision making in an activity was associated to positive outcomes for youth, and this association was stronger at younger ages [8]. This previous work suggests that the strength of association between engagement and generativity might depend on one’s age, but certainly more research is required to uncover this.

1.4 Purpose of study

In this chapter, we examine early generativity in a community sample of approximately 600 youth participating in youth programs from across Canada. We discuss correlates from across a broad range of demographic and background factors, including immigration, race, gender, and LGBTQ+ status. Further, we examine associations with degree of youth engagement, and perceptions of adult support in community programs. Our chapter discusses how generativity and youth engagement inform social contexts, such as youth programs in community.

In this chapter we explore the following:

1. How does youth engagement relate to generativity?

2. Are there demographic differences in the strength of association between generativity and engagement (e.g., age and gender)?

2. Method

Participants were recruited through the Students Commission of Canada’s (SCC) partner programs and organizations. As a Centre of Excellence for Youth Engagement (CEYE) and a large, national organization, the SCC develops and runs programs, conferences, and events for young people in partnerships across Canada. In 2011, in partnership with youth workers, academics, and youth, they developed the ‘Sharing the Stories’ research and evaluation platform, which helped to integrate youth’s voices into action. The Sharing the Stories platform is available to all partner organizations, helping them gather the voices of a broad range of youth, including those who might be furthest from opportunity, including low-income, racialized, gender-diverse youth, or other marginalized youth populations in Canada. Ethics approval was granted by the institutional Research Ethics Boards of the principal investigators.

Data reported here includes all participating youth (N = 627) who completed the youth engagement, generativity, and demographic questions anytime since 2015. Participants completed this survey electronically (68%) or by paper (32%). Participants were between the age of 12 years and 30 years, with a mean age of 18, and 60% were under 18 years of age. With respect to gender, 6.5% identified as non-binary, 58.2% identified as girl (woman) and 35.3% identified as boy (man). About a quarter (26%) identified as belonging to a sexual minority. Most participants identified as primarily North American (27.6%), Asian (20.3%), African (10.5%), Indigenous (10.4%), and Caribbean (11.5%). Further, 12% opted not to disclose their identity. Other groups were represented by less than 1% of the sample. Approximately 14% of participants reported more than one cultural/ethnic group, with the most commonly cited group being North American (5.7% of the sample; the rest cited <1%).

The survey included two measures of youth engagement, and one measure of generativity. The first youth engagement scale indicated adult-supported collaborative learning and decision making (5 items; e.g., “I feel like adults and peers and learning from me.”, “I participate in the decisions about group activities.”) A second youth engagement scale indicated adult-supported agency and voice (5 items; e.g., “I am involved in discussing issues of respect, conflict, or discipline” and “Adults support me without being condescending or assuming that I need or want their help”). Items were developed over a number of years, through collaboration with youth and staff at partner organizations, and findings on the development of positive youth-adult relationships in youth participation efforts and youth’s right to be heard in organizational contexts [35, 36, 37]. Youth generativity evaluated willingness to leave a legacy behind. It was measured with three statements: “I have knowledge and skills that I will pass on to others”; “I think about ways to help others become leaders”; “I feel it is important to help people younger than myself”. All responses were measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with higher scores indicating greater engagement or higher generativity. The set of measures took about 15 minutes to complete.

3. Results

3.1 Preliminary results

We first examined correlations among all of our variables, found in Table 1. We found that older youth and young women reported higher youth engagement, and that Indigenous youth reported lower levels of engagement. We tested gender differences in generativity using a one-way ANOVA with three levels. The ANOVA indicates a significant difference, F(2,547) = 5.97 p < .01, where women (M = 4.25, SD = .68) indicated higher levels of generativity than men (M = 4.01, SD = .87), and non-binary youth (M = 4.24, SD = .82) were not different from any other group. Other potential differences in youth engagement, based on demographic or background factors, were not significant.

Variable	M (SD)	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. age	18.17 (4.38)
2. SES ($ wants needs)	3.79 (1.11)	−.29**
3^t. Indigenous	10%	−.04	−.08
4^t. LGBTQ+ status	25%	.13**	−.05	.07
5^t. Immigration	27%	−.10*	.11**	.13**	.04
6. Engage1 (learn/ decision making)	3.63 (0.83)	.24**	−.04	−.10*	−.01	−.06
7. Engage2 (respect/lead)	3.76 (0.82)	.24**	−.05	−.08	.01	−.07	.67**
8. Generativity	4.17 (0.76)	.31**	−.08	−.10*	.04	−.10*	.58**	.53**

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations.

Note. M and SD are used to represent mean and standard deviation, respectively.

* indicates p < .05. ** indicates p < .01; ^t for each of these groups 1 indicates pro group membership 0 indicates non membership. See results below for more information on engagement variables.

Our correlation table indicated that engagement and generativity were related, moderately, in a positive direction. In other words, our evidence indicates that youth who learned and worked well together with adults also reported higher levels of generativity.

3.2 Associations between generativity and youth engagement

As preliminary steps to the test of our main hypothesis, we confirmed that our measurement model loaded as expected, with the youth engagement and generativity items loading onto their respective latent variables, and that the measurement structure was consistent (i.e., demonstrated strong invariance) across gender, LGBTQ+ status, and age (under and above age 18) [32]. The engagement items loaded onto two separate (but related) latent variables. The items in the first variable (Engagement 1) were connected to collaborative learning, exploring, and decision making (e.g., “I participate in the decisions about group activities”.) The items in the Engagement 2 latent variable centered around leadership and respect, collaboration and partnership (e.g., “Adults support me without being condescending or assuming that I need or want their help”). In this preliminary step, the model performed as expected, indicating that we could move forward in testing our exploratory research questions.

We tested our full model, including age, gender, immigration status (youth born in Canada vs. those not born in Canada), Indigeneity, and perceived income as predictors. Demographic variables that did not contribute were then dropped from the model. Only age and gender remained as controls, indicating that young women and older youth had higher generativity, when included along with the two youth engagement variables in the model (see Figure 1; CFI = .95, RMSEA = .052).

Figure 1.

Model of youth engagement and generativity.

3.3 Are there demographic differences in the strength of association between youth engagement and generativity?

Based on our findings that age and gender served as significant controls in exploring links between youth engagement and generativity, we tested interactions. We explored interactions between both of the youth engagement variables and both gender and age. We then dropped non-significant interaction terms, until we arrived at a final model in which youth engagement 1 interacted with age. We conducted linear regressions in order to interpret these interactions and we split age into two groups: over and under 18. The regressions indicated that generativity was moderately associated with engagement for youth over 18 years old (β = .20, p < .10) and more strongly associated with engagement below 18 years old (β = .67, p < .001).

4. Discussion

Increasingly, researchers have found that generativity matters for young people, but research to date has depended on samples that were less diverse and relied heavily on post-secondary student samples. Moreover, while youth engagement has been identified as a promising context for generativity, to our knowledge, no empirical studies have tested this.

Our community sample revealed some interesting patterns regarding generativity. First, the overall mean was quite high (4.17/5). This aligns with other research that reports relatively high scores in youth samples, using a different measure of generativity. Furthermore, our generativity scale was correlated positively with age, which again is not surprising. It was surprising to find that youth who identified as Indigenous, and those not born in Canada (the site of the study) reported slightly lower generativity scores compared to the rest of the sample; those associations did not hold in the larger model. It should be noted, however, that generativity is a multifaceted construct, and measuring it at a population level is challenging because cultural context is extraordinarily important in generative expression. Further, the small amount of research on generativity in Indigenous populations showed that generativity was expressed in themes of reconnecting culture. Considering the items from our scale focus on leadership and individual impacts on the next generation, our measure was perhaps not nuanced enough to capture the most meaningful aspects of generativity in certain cultural and experiential contexts.

Next, our test of associations between youth engagement and generativity revealed that our hypothesis was supported. There was in fact a moderate to strong association between generativity and elements of engagement including leadership and opportunities for decision-making, and positive collaborations with adults. It has been noted that activities provide unique opportunities for young people to build the skills and capacities to prepare them for adulthood. Given that generativity is a central developmental task in adulthood, our findings might provide further support for this claim [22]. Activities which include opportunities for decision-making, leadership, and where adult allies are supportive and collaborative with youth seem to be associated with higher levels of generativity. While these data are correlational, we suggest that this association is likely bi-directional, in that potentially more generative youth might demonstrate better readiness and interest in these types of activities.

Our results showed that the association between engagement and generativity was stronger for younger people compared to older youth. As we age, opportunities to connect with our generativity grow, and the potential for community programming is less salient. This also aligns with previous research that found that opportunities to provide input into programming was associated with more developmental benefits for younger compared to older adolescents [5].

Overall, this study demonstrates that generativity has important implications in a diverse sample of young people. Moreover, this preliminary evidence indicates that we need to do further work into how youth engagement opportunities can foster generativity.

4.1 Strengths and limitations

It is important to keep in mind the limitations of this work. These findings do not present well established measures of youth generativity, as more robust measures of youth generativity do not currently exist [2]. As well, a small number of established youth engagement measures exist, representing different facets of youth-adult partnership and youth [21].

It should be noted that these data are correlational and therefore do not give any information regarding the direction of the association. We suspect the association would be bidirectional: settings that are conducive to youth engagement and healthy youth adult partnerships support the growth of youth generativity, and generative youth are better able to engage and get support in these settings. In order to confirm our hypotheses, longitudinal research is needed.

Despite these limitations, the study also carries some important and unique strengths that advance our understanding of youth development. One strength is that we used a community-based sample, and we were able to explore individual demographic differences in ways relatively unexamined in past studies. This approach, however, underlined the importance of cultural context in understanding generativity. Much more work needs to be done using multiple approaches to understanding youth generativity in diverse populations. This could include asking young people about not only future generations, but also about preservation of cultural history, traditions, and practices. Moreover, qualitative work would support a more nuanced and contextual approach to this inquiry.

5. Conclusions

Caring for future generations and building our capacity to do so matters for youth and adults alike. In this work we presented evidence suggesting that youth engagement in settings where they have decision making opportunities and are working with supportive adults might be an important context to foster early generativity. We are also calling for further research to explore in more nuanced ways how and why young people from various backgrounds and experiences express their generativity.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Students Commission of Canada and their partners for their continued work with young people that together create spaces to celebrate and respect youth voices. We would also like to thank the young people who were involved in these community programs and participated in Sharing the Stories. Without your input, there would be no knowledge to share! Special thank you to the research team at Bishop’s especially Élisabeth Legendre who helped to obtain and process the data. This chapter was also supported by funding from the SSHRC Canada Research Chair program granted to the first author.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.