From Character Formation to Trophy Orientation: Conceptualizing Educational Drift in Contemporary Scouting
Keywords:
scouting educational drift, scouting education, mission drift, positive youth development, self-determination theoryAbstract
Scouting has traditionally been conceptualized as a character-centered form of nonformal education that promotes leadership, citizenship, service, and personal development. Contemporary scouting increasingly operates within institutional environments characterized by accountability pressures, performance measurement, and achievement visibility, creating conditions in which competitive success may become a dominant indicator of educational quality. Despite extensive scholarship on youth development, achievement motivation, and mission drift, limited attention has been devoted to explaining how competitive achievement may gradually transform educational priorities within scouting organizations. This article addresses this theoretical gap by developing the concept of Scouting Educational Drift, defined as a gradual shift in which competitive achievement becomes the dominant criterion of success, displacing character formation as the primary educational purpose. Drawing on Institutional Theory, Mission Drift Theory, Achievement Goal Theory, and Self-Determination Theory, the article develops an integrative conceptual framework that explains the antecedents, dimensions, and consequences of educational drift in scouting. The proposed framework advances existing knowledge by linking institutional pressures, organizational priorities, and motivational processes within a multilevel explanation of educational change. The study contributes a novel conceptual construct, extends mission drift scholarship into youth development contexts, and establishes a foundation for future empirical research on mission sustainability in character-centered educational organizations.
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