The immediate contexts such as family and school environment are crucial for the emotional development of adolescents’ identity. In this sense, early stressful life events and the reactions to the different stressful situations are associated with different types of disorder that can manifest itself at different stages of the life-cycle. However,
the risk of developing psychological maladjustment is not the same for all individuals. Adolescents’ vulnerability varies greatly depending on the protective resources that they have access to.

Notably, a strengths’ model and Positive Psychology (that focuses on the positive aspects of a human being) open up an increasingly important area of investigation in adolescents. This positive approach to research and intervention focuses on a variety of factors that can be crucial protectors against the negative and stressful experiences that adolescents encounter in their immediate contexts, fostering the achievement and maintenance of personal well-being.

Therefore, protective factors are key to reducing or even preventing the detrimental effects in the mental health and well-being of adolescents before they evolve into chronic conditions. Although researches have been analyzing the key risk factors, a different paradigm is needed, that will focus not only on vulnerability factors but also on the protective factors that adolescents rely on when managing stressful situations and that reduce the likelihood of experiencing different disorders.

The overall goal of this Research Topic is to analyze the relevant role of different protective resources (personal, family-based, or stemming from the educational context) in fostering psychological well-being in adolescents. As part of this collection, we welcome papers that will contribute to the research about the underlying mechanisms contributing to the psychological well-being of adolescents and that will help us better understand when negative events lead to psychopathology or to low well-being. We hope that this collection of articles will provide useful information for researchers and practitioners on how to carry out targeted early intervention to buffer the deleterious effect of stressful events.
We encourage authors to submit empirical and theoretical papers that focus on the effective intervention programs with this population. In particular, we welcome reviews and meta-analysis papers that provide an overview and summary of the current state of research in this area.

Keywords: Protective factors, Adolescence, Well-Being, Education, Mental-Health

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.