What is Positive Youth Development?

Abstract

This article explores the recent approach to youth research and practice that has been called positive youth development. The author makes the case that the approach grew out of dissatisfaction with a predominant view that underestimated the true capacities of young people by focusing on their deficits rather than their developmental potentials. The article examines three areas of research that have been transformed by the positive youth approach: the nature of the child; the interaction between the child and the community; and moral growth. It concludes with the point that positive youth development does not simply mean an examination of anything that appears to be beneficial for young people. Rather, it is an approach with strong defining assumptions about what is important to look at if we are to accurately capture the full potential of all young people to learn and thrive in the diverse settings where they live.

Special Issue Introduction: The Meaning and Measurement of Thriving: A View of the Issues

“…These innovations that characterize the PYD perspective were propelled as well by the increasingly collaborative contributions of researchers focused on the second decade of life (e.g., Benson et al 2006;Damon 2004;Lerner 2004), practitioners in the field of youth development (e.g., Floyd and McKenna 2003;Pittman et al 2001), and policy makers concerned with improving the life chances of diverse youth and their families (e.g., Cummings 2003;Gore 2003). Indeed, the PYD perspective may be unique among major conceptual models within the developmental science of adolescence in that its genesis and continued progress involves the integration of research and practice, a ''tradition'' continued in the present special issue by the commentaries provided by Floyd and by Porter.…”

“…Increasingly, this strength-based view of adolescents has become the predominant conceptual lens through which youth are studied within the United States (e.g., Lerner et al 2009a) and internationally (e.g., Gestsdóttir and Lerner 2007a; Silbereisen and Lerner 2007). Labeled the ''Positive Youth Development'' (PYD) perspective (Damon 2004;Lerner 2005Lerner , 2007Lerner , 2009, this view of adolescent development seeks to identify the individual and ecological bases of thriving among diverse youth and to apply this knowledge in policies and programs designed to promote PYD.…”

“…Research pertinent to the PYD perspective has become a more prominent part of the literature of adolescent development across the first decade of the twenty-first century (e.g., Benson 2006;Damon 2004;Larson 2000;Lerner et al 2005a, b;Lerner et al 2009a, b;Silbereisen and Lerner 2007). The empirical findings from this work have impacted both the nature of the developmental systems theoretical, or structural, model framing the PYD perspective (e.g., Phelps et al 2007) and the measurement model used to operationalize the structural model (e.g., Gestsdóttir and Lerner 2007b;Phelps et al 2009).…”

Invited Commentary: Promotion and Prevention in Youth Development: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

“…Other scholars also contributed to these efforts, including Larson, Hamilton, Damon, and Benson (Benson et al 2006;Damon 2004;Larson 2000). At the same time, these researchers and others were struggling to define what constitutes positive youth development, coming up with a variety of constructs.…”

Special Issue Introduction: Thriving Across the Adolescent Years: A View of the Issues

“…The scholars interested in PYD as a process (e.g., Benson et al 2006;Damon 2004Damon , 2008Eccles 2004;Eccles and Gootman 2002;Hamilton and Hamilton 2009;Larson 2000;Lerner et al 2013;Masten 2001;Spencer 2006) implicitly or explicitly framed their ideas within this relational developmental systems conception ). As such, PYD was regarded as an instance of an adaptive developmental regulation involving the bidirectional relations between the attributes of youth and the features of their family, school, and community contexts.…”