Education-to-Work Transition Among the Youth in Post-Conflict Settings: A Review of the Roles of Individual Agency, Mental Health, and Psychosocial Well-Being

Nathaniel Mayengo, Jane Namusoke, Henry Kibedi and Kennedy Amone-P’Olak ()
Additional contact information
Nathaniel Mayengo: Department of Foundations of Education and Educational Psychology, Kyambogo University, Kyambogo, Kampala P.O. Box 1, Uganda
Jane Namusoke: Department of Psychology, Kyambogo University, Kyambogo, Kampala P.O. Box 1, Uganda
Henry Kibedi: Department of Psychology, Kyambogo University, Kyambogo, Kampala P.O. Box 1, Uganda
Kennedy Amone-P’Olak: Department of Psychology, Kyambogo University, Kyambogo, Kampala P.O. Box 1, Uganda

Social Sciences, 2025, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: Education-to-work transition among war-affected youth in post-conflict settings is fraught with challenges, not least compounded by the little attention placed on individual agency and mental health. This review examines the debate on war-affected youth skilling programmes in post-conflict settings, which neglect the roles of individual agency and mental health in the education-to-work transition. Building on Albert Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory (SET) and the Cumulative Stress Hypothesis (CSH), the review presents an integrated approach to skills development for improving education-to-work transition among war-affected youth. According to SET, the development of self-efficacy is anchored on enactive mastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological arousal. Moreover, individual agency factors such as motivation, aspiration, goal orientation, active efforts, and alignment of intentions with skills are protective factors for effective education-to-work transition, but they are also eroded by the adverse consequences of violent conflicts. Similarly, the CSH also suggests that the effects of exposure to protracted violent conflicts are cumulative and may lead, in turn, to a plethora of mental health problems in the aftermath of violent conflicts. Mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and PTSD are linked to, inter alia , behaviours such as aggression, substance abuse, and apathy, all related to poor employment outcomes. To increase the employability of young people affected by war, skills training institutions and work settings need to prioritise the mental health and individual agency of the youth, as well as skills acquisition for specific trades. Consequently, we propose an integrated model of reintegrating war-affected and vulnerable youth anchored on professional technical and vocational skills training; recognition of individual agency; provision of mental and psychosocial support; and life skills training, all nested within the local economic realities.

Keywords: employability; mental health; individual agency; post-conflict settings; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/7/400/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/14/7/400/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:14:y:2025:i:7:p:400-:d:1687082

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().