A global Youth Peacebuilding Beliefs Scale

Youth are often framed as victims or perpetrators of conflict. Yet, they also can disrupt conflict cycles as peacebuilders. Motivated by SDG 16 and UN Security Council Resolutions 2250, 2419, and 2535 - recognising and facilitating youth participation in fostering peace and social inclusion - we developed and validated a global Youth Peacebuilding Beliefs Scale (YPBS), a novel measure of different types of peacebuilding across levels of the social ecology (i.e., microsystem, mesosystem, and macrosystem). We used a sequential mixed-methods, cross-cultural design with adolescents (ages 14-17) and young adults (ages 18-26) across two studies (Study 1: Focus groups, N = 199, Northern Ireland n = 78, Colombia n = 60, Israel n = 41, Switzerland n = 20; Study 2: Survey, N = 2771, Northern Ireland n = 514, Colombia n = 806, Israel n = 833, Switzerland n = 618) across four diverse cases to explore youth's contributions along the peace continuum from active conflict to stable democracy. The YPBS provided an empirical test of the Developmental Peacebuilding Model and can be used by policymakers and researchers to support youth-driven quality peace.