Promoting Positive Youth Development in the Face of Contextual Changes and Challenges: The Roles of Individual Strengths and Ecological Assets

Autor/inn/en	Lerner, Richard M.; Bowers, Edmond P.; Geldhof, G. John; Gestsdottir, Steinunn; DeSouza, Lisette
Titel	Promoting Positive Youth Development in the Face of Contextual Changes and Challenges: The Roles of Individual Strengths and Ecological Assets
Quelle	In: New Directions for Youth Development, (2012) 135, S.119-128 (10 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1533-8916
DOI	10.1002/yd.20034
Schlagwörter	Adolescents; Models; Social Change; Adolescent Development; Neighborhoods; Context Effect; Learner Engagement + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Adolescent; Adolescence; Adoleszenz; Jugend; Jugendalter; Jugendlicher; Analogiemodell; Sozialer Wandel; Neighbourhoods; Nachbarschaft
Abstract	Contemporary developmental theory is framed by relational developmental systems models that emphasize that change across life occurs through mutually regulative relations between individuals and their contexts (represented as individual [left arrow][right arrow] context relations). Within these models, all contextual levels are involved in these individual [left arrow][right arrow] context relations, including the institutions of society, culture, the designed and natural environment, and history (temporality). Given that temporality is the superordinate contextual level, the "arrow of time" permeates all other levels of organization within the developmental system. As such, social change is not only a ubiquitous but a necessary feature of the relational developmental system. When individual [left arrow][right arrow] context relations are beneficial to both individual and context, they may be termed adaptive developmental regulations. In adolescence, adaptive developmental regulations involve aligning the developing strengths of plastic youth with the features of their complex (multilevel) and changing worlds. Experiencing positive youth development (PYD) may be particularly challenging in the face of social changes marked by abrupt, major, rapid, or nonnormative ecological variation. In the context of such social changes, practitioners and policymakers may find themselves particularly uncertain about what will have a high probability of promoting adaptive developmental regulations. Recent research on PYD indicates that there may be specific instantiations of both "sides" of the individual [left arrow][right arrow] context relation that, when integrated systematically across adolescence, promote thriving among diverse youth. The research that documents the nature of these relations and their links to PYD is derived from several theoretical models of the PYD process. However, all models reflect relational developmental systems conceptions. In this article, the authors discuss one example of this theoretically predicated research base, data derived from the 4-H Study of PYD. The authors use this study to note how instances of individual strengths and ecological assets combine to increase the likelihood that youth will become productive and actively engaged citizens. They point to implications for research and applications aimed at increasing the likelihood that the diverse young people of the world will thrive in the face of social changes present in the ecology of human development. (Contains 1 figure and 25 notes.) (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10