Abstract
A purpose of youth organizations is to develop leadership skills among members through organizational structure and organization sponsored activities. But do they develop those skills? This national, multi-stage study examined the role of youth and the context of their activities in developing leadership in rural FFA chapters. FFA members had a higher level of agreement with statements indicating that activities focused on self-development and the lowest agreement with statements focused on the community. FFA members indicated that in their interactions with adults they were most likely to be treated as partners. It follows that in the role-context matrix, the strongest agreement with statements regarding their interaction with adults and the dimension of leadership development was in developing self in a partnership role with adults. Youth leadership activities should help youth gain skills that help them understand self, interact with others, function effectively in groups, and provide leadership within the community.
Citation
Horstmeier, R.P. and Nall, M.A. (2007), "Youth Leadership Development: A National Analysis of FFA Member Role and Activity Context", Journal of Leadership Education, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 141-157. https://doi.org/10.12806/V6/I1/RF7
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, The Journal of Leadership Education
License
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/