Making Change : Youth Social Entrepreneurship As an Approach to Positive Youth and Community Development

Making Change demonstrates the potential for youth to engage in social entrepreneurship to transform themselves and their communities. Effective for all young people, this approach is most impactful for youth in marginalised communities where the opportunity gap, suppressed social mobility,and economic disparity are most profound. In such settings, engaging youth as leaders of social change offers the exponential benefits of personal empowerment, community enhancement, and economic transformation.

Grounded both in interdisciplinary theory and an expansive set of practical case examples, this book uses an asset focus and cultural relevance that centralizes youth and communities in social entrepreneurship, while introducing vocabulary and frameworks for youth social entrepreneurship advocatesto gain resources and political traction for the approach. Social entrepreneurship is outlined as a social justice mechanism that allows disempowered adolescents to change their own communities, with a positive compounding effect on their own lives and futures.

Consequently, readers will have the opportunity consider the complex interplay of individual, economic, and community development, versus oversimplifying causes or solutions of social disparities. Individuals engaged in youth work, program design, funding, and the study of youth and community development will appreciate the text's exploration of existing research and theory that cross scholarly disciplines to promote a robust view of youth development.