Positive youth development

Abstract

Interests in the strengths of youth, the plasticity of human development, and the concept of resilience coalesced in the 1990s to foster the development of the concept of positive youth development (PYD). This chapter presents the features of the relational developmental systems theoretical model of the PYD developmental process, and then uses this model to describe the scholarship in the present volume. These contributions suggest that all young people have strengths that may be capitalized on to promote thriving across the adolescent years. We conclude that the findings reported in this volume provide a basis for optimism that evidence-based actions can be taken to enhance the chances for thriving among all young people.

Introduction

Interests in the strengths of youth, the plasticity of human development, and the concept of resilience coalesced in the 1990s to foster the development of the concept of positive youth development (PYD) (Lerner et al., 2009, Lerner et al., in press). As discussed by Hamilton (1999), the concept of PYD was understood in at least three interrelated but nevertheless different ways: (1) as a developmental process, (2) as a philosophy or approach to youth programming, and (3) as instances of youth programs and organizations focused on fostering the healthy or positive development of youth.

In the decade following Hamilton's (1999) discussion of PYD, several different models of the developmental process believed to be involved in PYD were used to frame descriptive or explanatory research across the adolescent period (e.g., Benson et al., 2006, Damon, 2004, Larson, 2000, Lerner et al., 2005) and, as well, to shape programs designed to promote PYD (e.g., Catalano et al., 2004, Catalano et al., 2002, Flay, 2002, Flay and Allred, 2003). This literature was marked by a diversity of specific ideas about the substance of PYD, that is, about the particular set of manifest individual-level variables to be studied in elucidating thriving across the adolescent period (e.g., positive purpose, intentional self-regulation, intrinsic motivations, religiosity or spirituality, hope for the future, school engagement, or active and engaged citizenship (AEC)), or about the manifest contextual-level variables that, in interrelation with the individual, promoted PYD, for example, ecological developmental assets (associated with individuals or with institutions, such as the family or school, media influences, or community-based, out-of-school-time (OST) youth development programs).

Despite this diversity of manifest variable foci, all the models of the PYD developmental process found commonality at the level of latent or, even more abstractly, at the metatheoretical level: All models reflected ideas associated with relational, developmental systems conceptions of human development (e.g., Overton, 2010; see also Lerner et al., in press). The fit between theory and application has not been perfect. For example, it has not always been clear that any of these models of the PYD developmental process have served as theoretical frames for either of the other two instances of the PYD concept Hamilton (1999) discussed (see also Lerner et al., in press), that is, for different approaches to PYD programming or for the elements of actual PYD-focused youth development programs (Lerner et al., in press). Nevertheless, there is increasing evidence—some of it presented in this volume—that relational, developmental systems ideas are being more precisely and consistently employed in, at least, discussions of the framing of approaches to youth programming pertinent to PYD (e.g., Chapter 12; Gray, in press, Kurtines et al., 2008, Lerner and Overton, 2008, Zaff et al., 2010).

Accordingly, a key goal of this chapter is to describe the features of the relational, developmental systems theoretical model of the PYD developmental process. This presentation will allow us to describe the breadth of contemporary scholarship pertinent to understanding and promoting PYD and, as such, to frame the scholarship that is represented in the present volume. These contributions reflect the range of theory-predicated research and applications pertinent to this relational, developmental systems conception of PYD.