The Use of Participatory Action Research to Create a Positive Youth Development Program

A positive youth development program focusing on HIV prevention, alcohol abuse prevention, conflict resolution skills, and managing peer pressure was developed and implemented in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Participatory action research methods were combined with a social marketing approach to generate and implement a narrative-based curriculum. A posttest-only control group field experiment was used to evaluate the impact of a classroom intervention on adolescents' knowledge and attitudes related to the topics covered. The narrative-based curriculum was more effective than the standard, government-endorsed curriculum in increasing knowledge and changing attitudes toward sexual behavior and conflict resolution. The implications of implementing a narrative-based curriculum using a social marketing approach are discussed.