Developing Youth Leadership for Social Justice: A Micro-Macro Analysis of the Youth Citizens Action Programme in South African Schools

Youth leadership plays an important role in addressing social challenges within environments with limited resources and institutional constraints. However, there is still a paucity of research that has examined how leadership develops in practice while facing such circumstances. In response, this study explores how participation in the Youth Citizens Action Programme (YCAP) in South African schools contributes to the development of leadership for social justice among young people, adopting a micro-macro lens. A qualitative, exploratory, and contextual design was adopted, using semi-structured interviews with nine purposively selected YCAP alumni. The results show that youth leadership for social justice emerges through young people’s responses to macro-level institutional inequalities as they must identify and address local social justice challenges. As a result, they develop a leadership identity at the micro level and the application of leadership skills as a micro-bridge. Furthermore, enabling and restricting macro-level conditions determine the extent to which youth leadership can be sustained. The results advance the idea that organised programmes such as YCAP may support meaningful youth participation and provide insight into how such initiatives can enable young people to address social justice challenges as leaders within their communities.