Advancing positive youth development: Aligning contextual features, youth strengths, and developmental outcomes

Positive youth development (PYD) is a developmental theory, an approach to programming and an instance of programming (Lerner et al., 2020). As a theory, PYD concerns mutually beneficial attributes of individuals and features of context, that coalesce over time to support positive development. The approach to PYD is strengths-based and involves aligning resources in the environment with the strengths of youth. There are myriad examples of programs, nationally and internationally, that are effective to support PYD by enacting this process (Ettekal et al., 2024).

In this special issue, we are interested in conceptual and empirical research that advances understanding of the process of PYD. Conceptual articles might seek to advance understanding of the PYD process by critiquing alignment between features of contexts within which scholars often study PYD and the outcomes that tend to be of focus in developmental science.

Although there are many PYD models from which scholars might draw, we are especially interested in contemporary models that address the diversity of individuals and of contexts. We welcome scholars, nationally and internationally, from various areas of developmental science, including neuroscience and cultural psychology, among others, and of scholarship that draws from various paradigms, such as interpretivism or critical paradigms. We consider contexts broadly to include any proximal context within which development occurs (e.g., families, school, out-of-school programs, etc.) or distal contexts that can be conceptually connected to the particular outcomes of interest (e.g., policy, cultural values). Similarly, features of contexts are broadly construed to include the physical features (e.g., personal representations), atmosphere (e.g., belonging), and individuals within the contexts (e.g., relationships). PYD outcomes comprise any attribute that constitutes a youth strength, however, a key element to advance understanding of the PYD process will be conceptual alignment between the contextual feature and the individual attribute.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Youth-adult relationships (e.g., quality, connectedness) and partnerships (e.g., co-creation) that cultivate youth strengths

• The role of the self-system (e.g., identity, schema development, self-concept) in fostering PYD

• Methods or processes that empower youth voice or agency

• Designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions and activities that promote youth social or emotional competence

• Developing and sustaining researcher-practitioner partnerships that advance PYD scholarship

• Youth strengths, assets or personal resources that enable youth contribution to the context

• Social media use and PYD

• Methodological and measurement innovations that advance the study of the PYD process (e.g., person-centered, idiographic, or multi-level analyses)

• Policy implications related to PYD

Keywords: Positive Youth Development (PYD), Youth Strengths, Contextual Factors, Youth-Adult Relationships, Social-Emotional Competence

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.