High schoolers are less inclined to attend and persist as members of non-formal education (NFE) organizations, despite the increase options at their disposal (Afterschool Alliance, 2020). This development stands in contradistinction to the growing public and academic interest in such frameworks throughout the world, owing to their potential contribution to the lives of young people. More specifically, youth organizations, grassroots associations, and youth councils, inter alia, provide opportunities for teens to connect to positive role models, form social ties, and broaden their repertoire of personal skills (Polson et al., 2013). Voluntary attendance in NFE programs indeed have a positive bearing on teenagers in an array of fields, especially when they take part on a regular and ongoing basis (Fulton, 2019).

            However, despite the well-documented benefits of NFE participation for older youth, their participation wanes with age. A drop in attendance raises questions as to the relevance of NFE for older youth and their compatibility for adolescents' developmental needs (Deutsch & Jones, 2013). Correspondingly, data from Israel indicate that there are disparities in the regularity and persistence of participation between adolescent boys and girls. Surveys conducted by the Israel Ministry of Education (National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation, 2015) show that boys tend to dropout at earlier ages than girls in long-term civic-community programs.

Given the declining number of youth, particularly boys, the study's broader objective is to examine how widespread is the phenomenon among NFE frameworks, and how different organizations identify and respond to this demographic change. As such, the study's objectives are: (a) to collect up-to-date data on older youth (16-18) participation and persistence in the past 5 years; (b) to Inquire as to management-level's awareness to the demographic changes; (c) To locate possible explanations for the phenomenon; (d) acquaint ourselves with the institutional attitude towards working with older youth, from a gender-oriented perspective.

            Out of all the various NFE frameworks and attendant goals, the present study concentrates on organizations that center around a vision of fostering leadership and active citizenship. These outlets provide youth an opportunity to experiment with decision-making processes, formulate policy, and embrace communal values within a democratic environment (Akiva et al., 2014; Checkoway, 2011). In light of the above, this project falls under the field of civic participation and social activism. Like other scholars, I am interested in the burning social questions that pertain to the downward trend of late-teens’ participation in civic enterprise. My point of departure is that NFE frameworks that allow for experimentation with decision-making, problem-solving, and policy-making on the communal level are bound to ratchet up participation in society down the road.

current proposal for presentation is written in respond to Q (a) collect up-to-date data on older youth (16-18) participation and persistence in the past 5 years; Q (b) Inquiring as to management-level's awareness to the demographic changes. Finishing interviews, I realize that almost all the Interviewees were not aware to the phenomenon of a decrease in the participation of boys and that the number of girls exceeds boys in an appreciable margin. From that, I chose to present in this article preliminary findings revolving around the field oforganizational blindness.

Data was collected from seven civic-communal organization in Israel, working national wide, reflecting the current diversity of the educational field from gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic background of the high school participants. All organizations gave my access to current data on registration, participation, and graduation of older youth (15-18) in the past five years. Considering that during COVID-19 most of the organizations were struggling to maintaining a regular and consistent activity. Since data on enrollment only reflects a basic level of commitment and does not illuminate engagement (Akiva & Honor, 2016(, I also collected data on participation in special activities like leadership courses and summer camps, looking to see not only who took part but who invested themselves in the organization, took more responsibility, formal leadership roles and even joined the alumni organization. Segmentation process shows boys are 41% among the 16-year-olds, 36% among the 17-18-year-olds and are more likely to drop out of the frameworks before the end of the year. They are also present in fewer numbers in training courses for leadership positions (42%) and even less take part in an extra service-volunteer year before the army (31%). Additionally, I interviewed one or two representors from every organization, holding a high-management position. Choosing to focus on management-level due to their knowledge on strategic planning, organizational challenges and having a comprehensive picture of the national differences from region to region. As is common in Israel, many of the interviewees were graduates of the organizations themselves, growing up in the organization from junior positions to management. Thus, adding value of time perspective and in dept knowledge of organizational culture, changes in goals and culture, and inner understanding of young people's views and patterns of participation. A total of 12 interviews were conducted so far. My interview manual encompassed a set of questions concerning trends of change in youth participation; strategically targeted audience; challenges of attracting and maintaining older youth and gender differences in commitment, persistence, and motivation. By means of an inductive analysis of the data, codes from the interviews were formulated with the ATLAS.ti program. Quit early I realized that almost all the Interviewees were not aware to the phenomenon of a decrease in the participation of boys. Thereafter, the central issue of organizational blindness was axially coded. Preliminary findings are presented in this document.

One answer to organizational blindness is that many organizations in the educational field are experiencing an increase in the number of participants in younger ages. This increase is due to strategic planning of addressing new target audiences, who have not yet taken part in the activities. This creates a false representation of growth in organizational members because, among the strong and traditional populations, the number of registered members has weakened, reflecting a decrease in the commitment of some target audiences. Many of the interviewees were aware of the change in the target audience and even testified that it was a strategic decision of the organization. The existing literature defines organizational inertia as the inability to enact internal change in the face of significant external change (Gilbert, 2005). My preliminary analysis shows dropout is seen as an inherent situation in voluntary education systems. But these educational organizations hold a very strong narrative as social change agents, their funding also involves working in the socio-economic periphery, which reinforces the organizational narrative of the social change mission. This ideology creates an idealization of the mission to expand, which may be necessary for maintaining a sense of organizational identity. It also sets goals, such as expanding the target audience, because expansion means influence. Although, this is how a blind spot is created towards the weakening of the existing members and their needs. Social processes in which men leave frameworks and there is a proliferation of women, eventually lead to a decrease in the value and status of the framework. The question arises - what process of devaluation non-formal education frameworks are experiencing that leads boys to choose not to take part in them in late adolescent.

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