Core contributors to the current Research Topic: “Youth, Health and Development in Diverse Cultures and Contexts” will be research partners of the Cross-National Project on Positive Youth Development (CN-PYD), who represent an international and multidisciplinary panel of experts on youth development. CN-PYD was initiated in 2014 at the University of Bergen and has an ongoing data collection that involves over 15,000 minority and majority youth and emerging adults (ages 16 to 29) living in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, New Zealand, North and South America. In contrast to the deficit approach that has labelled and handled the period of adolescence as being inherently laden with problems and risks (Lerner et al., 2016), CN-PYD uses a strengths-based approach to the conceptualization of youth as resources and agentic. The goal of the cross-national project is to investigate the role of personal strengths and contextual resources in the promotion of health and development among youth and emerging adults, as well as the consequential contribution to self and society. The promotive and protective effects of personal strengths, contextual resources, as well as the alignment of these two sets of factors are also considered in CN-PYD. In so doing, the cross-national project adopts a more comprehensive perspective, embracing both negative and positive developmental processes in the study of youth development.
For the proposed Research Topic, our aim is to bring together a collection of studies that examine personal resources related to competencies, skills, and self-perception as well as environmental, contextual, and relational features of the social contexts of youth and emerging adults on health and development. With contributions from CN-PYD research partners and no-partners, we seek to present the direct and indirect effects of these personal and contextual factors using samples that reflect diverse cultures and contexts. In particular, we take a positive and protective approach in the study of our target populations, thus departing from the domineering deficit focus on youth, while presenting a novel collection of studies on youth and emerging adults.
In the study of health and development among diverse youth and emerging adults, we use an ecological theoretical approach as well as PYD frameworks, such as Geldhof and colleagues’ 5Cs of PYD and the Search Institute’s Developmental Asset Profile. Ecologically, we assess the contexts of the individual, peers, family, school, community, and culture. The 5Cs of PYD reflect five positive outcomes of Competence (academic, social, vocational skills), Confidence (sense of mastery, positive identity, self-worth), Character (integrity, moral commitment, personal values), Connection (healthy relation to community, friends, family, school) and Caring (empathy and sympathy). Developmental assets indicate personal strengths and contextual resources that can determine young people’s health and development.
With contributions from the different countries represented in CN-PYD, our collection will reflect studies based on samples coming from diverse cultures and contexts where very little or no research using positive approach or PYD frameworks, for example have been carried out. Contributions from CN-PYD research partners will extend contributions to previous Research Topic on “Positive Youth Development, Mental Health, and Psychological Well-Being in Diverse Youth” with Frontiers. Moreover, contributions from authors outside CN-PYD research group will further enhance the diversity of the Research Topic. While much of the research on health and development among youth and emerging adults have come from the U.S. and other western countries, contributions from our contexts that have rarely featured in research will provide new insights into the health and developmental processes of the majority youth population. The collection in the proposed Research Topic will indeed represent a significant step towards the study of diversity in youth health and development as well as determining factors.
Core contributors to the current Research Topic: “Youth, Health and Development in Diverse Cultures and Contexts” will be research partners of the Cross-National Project on Positive Youth Development (CN-PYD), who represent an international and multidisciplinary panel of experts on youth development. CN-PYD was initiated in 2014 at the University of Bergen and has an ongoing data collection that involves over 15,000 minority and majority youth and emerging adults (ages 16 to 29) living in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, New Zealand, North and South America. In contrast to the deficit approach that has labelled and handled the period of adolescence as being inherently laden with problems and risks (Lerner et al., 2016), CN-PYD uses a strengths-based approach to the conceptualization of youth as resources and agentic. The goal of the cross-national project is to investigate the role of personal strengths and contextual resources in the promotion of health and development among youth and emerging adults, as well as the consequential contribution to self and society. The promotive and protective effects of personal strengths, contextual resources, as well as the alignment of these two sets of factors are also considered in CN-PYD. In so doing, the cross-national project adopts a more comprehensive perspective, embracing both negative and positive developmental processes in the study of youth development.
For the proposed Research Topic, our aim is to bring together a collection of studies that examine personal resources related to competencies, skills, and self-perception as well as environmental, contextual, and relational features of the social contexts of youth and emerging adults on health and development. With contributions from CN-PYD research partners and no-partners, we seek to present the direct and indirect effects of these personal and contextual factors using samples that reflect diverse cultures and contexts. In particular, we take a positive and protective approach in the study of our target populations, thus departing from the domineering deficit focus on youth, while presenting a novel collection of studies on youth and emerging adults.
In the study of health and development among diverse youth and emerging adults, we use an ecological theoretical approach as well as PYD frameworks, such as Geldhof and colleagues’ 5Cs of PYD and the Search Institute’s Developmental Asset Profile. Ecologically, we assess the contexts of the individual, peers, family, school, community, and culture. The 5Cs of PYD reflect five positive outcomes of Competence (academic, social, vocational skills), Confidence (sense of mastery, positive identity, self-worth), Character (integrity, moral commitment, personal values), Connection (healthy relation to community, friends, family, school) and Caring (empathy and sympathy). Developmental assets indicate personal strengths and contextual resources that can determine young people’s health and development.
With contributions from the different countries represented in CN-PYD, our collection will reflect studies based on samples coming from diverse cultures and contexts where very little or no research using positive approach or PYD frameworks, for example have been carried out. Contributions from CN-PYD research partners will extend contributions to previous Research Topic on “Positive Youth Development, Mental Health, and Psychological Well-Being in Diverse Youth” with Frontiers. Moreover, contributions from authors outside CN-PYD research group will further enhance the diversity of the Research Topic. While much of the research on health and development among youth and emerging adults have come from the U.S. and other western countries, contributions from our contexts that have rarely featured in research will provide new insights into the health and developmental processes of the majority youth population. The collection in the proposed Research Topic will indeed represent a significant step towards the study of diversity in youth health and development as well as determining factors.
