proper governance and effective policies, the economy could be revived. The older generations were discontented by with the government and had the Smith regime and immediate post-independence periods as benchmarks against which they compared the current government. It was suggested that older people’s risk taking was premised on the nationalism-oriented socialisation that they were exposed to as children growing up under colonisation. Such socialisation took place in their homes, schools and communities and was responsible for their low tolerance of the current government’s maladies. This view was developed further by some discussants who argued that schoolchildren in countries, such as the USA and Britain, were actively inculcated with nationalist socialisation in school. and tThis socialisation made them more aware of the changes in government and governance and made them more likely to take risks such as protests and demonstrations once the government slackened on key bread and butter concerns. However, such socialisation became from the immediate postindependence period in Zimbabwe. Instead, the National Strategic Studies that has been recently infused into Zimbabwe’s education curriculum was aimed at creating a youth population that is subservient to ZANU-PF ideology not one that is aware of its history. Inevitably, without the proper ideological backbone, the youth today could not be expected to add together the events around them and give them a nationalist interpretation that can help solidify youth resolution to take a stand against a government which they felt was abusing human rights and looting from national coffers. The government was accused of actively trying to curtail youth participation in democratic governance processes even at universities. Some discussants highlighted the death of student activism and gave the examples of university campus police units that were “more ruthless than ZRP” in violence against students. The security unit at the Midlands State University (MSU) was commonly referred to as “Zvinyavada”, was pointed out as very brash and aggressive towards students while the Students Representatives Council (SRC) at MSU was reportedly filled up by students strategically planted by ZANU-PF to ensure the weakening of the students’ voice. These factors cumulatively, meant that youth became more risk averse not just at universities but in the wider society as well. The educated youth were viewed as more risk averse than their uneducated counterparts and the particular kind s of risks that people took was shaped by “what is at their disposal”. Proponents of this view felt the paper’s conception of risk and risk taking behaviour was not entirely accurate and needed to be re-calibrated. They explained that other factors mediated risk taking behaviour among the youth for example, access to opportunities for them to exhibit their risk taking behaviour. They believed that this “access” was critical and some gave the example of what they termed “Infantile radicalism” whereby year after year, some young people become rowdy and uncontrollable during the last week of the Trade Fair in Bulawayo, to the point where the police has to be called to restore calm. As such, risk taking should be viewed as seasonal because the events, exposure to risk and access to risk taking behaviour can be seasonal. Some respondents felt the paper did not adequately capture this seasonality. 5.2 Gender and risk aversion Gender was highlighted as a critical variable shaping risk taking behaviour. Some groups felt that Gender advocacy work that has been done by women’s groups has contributed to women being more aware of the circumstances and conditions around them and more capable of mounting a systematic challenge to conditions they deemed unfavourable to them hence 14