Benson et al.114
Youth development, developmental assets and public policy | The chapter describes the strength-based youth development approach in large part by comparing and contrasting it with the deficit-based orientation to successful development. It also discusses the theoretical and empirical basis of the developmental asset framework as a prime example of PYD, a comprehensive conceptualisation of developmental well-being and a generator of knowledge regarding the developmental pathways of young people. We identify relevant social and cultural dynamics affecting youth, consider their implication for youth development policy and highlight a number of public policies from around the country that reflect the tenets and unfolding wisdom of healthy youth development. The chapter concludes by assessing the sociopolitical prospects for developmental principles and knowledge to actually inform and shape public policy for young people | Ecological model of human development: Bronfenbrenner154 | Normative |
Benson113
Developmental assets: an overview of theory, research and practice | To discuss the concepts of developmental assets, asset-building communities and asset-building society
To discuss the 4-H survey in relation to assets and damaging behaviours | Developmental systems theory: Ford and Lerner;155 Gottlieb156
Action theory of development: Brandtstädter157
Ecological model of human development: Bronfenbrenner154 | Normative |
Benson and Scales115
PYD and the prevention of youth aggression and violence | In this paper, we conduct analyses on several databases of 6th- to 12th-grade students in the USA to explore the linkage of positive relationships, opportunities, skills and values, called Developmental Assets, to prevention of youth aggressive and violent behaviours | Ecological theory: Bronfenbrenner and Morris144 | Normative |
Benson et al.116
The contribution of the developmental assets framework to PYD theory and practice | A considerable body of literature on developmental assets has emerged in the past two decades, informing research and practice in education, social work, youth development, counselling, prevention and community psychology. In addition to synthesising this literature, this chapter discusses: the recent development of the Developmental Asset Profile, an instrument designed, in part, to assess change over time; the utilisation of asset measures in international research; the expansion of the assets framework to early childhood and young adults; and new research using latent class analysis to identify classes or subgroups of youth | – | Normative |
| Berg et al.86 YARP: a multilevel intervention designed to increase efficacy and empowerment among urban youth | YARP, a federally funded research and demonstration intervention, utilises youth empowerment as the cornerstone of a multilevel intervention designed to reduce and/or delay onset of drug and sex risk, while increasing individual and collective efficacy and educational expectations. The intervention, located in Hartford, CT, served 114 African Caribbean and Latino high school youth in a community education setting and a matched comparison group of 202 youth from 2001 to 2004. The strategy used in YARP begins with individuals, forges group identity and cohesion, trains youth as a group to use research to understand their community better (formative community ethnography), and then engages them in using the research for social action at multiple levels in community settings (policy, school-based, parental, etc.) Engagement in community activism has, in turn, an effect on individual and collective efficacy and individual behavioural change. This approach is unique insofar as it differs from multilevel interventions that create approaches to attack multiple levels simultaneously. We describe the YARP intervention and employ qualitative and quantitative data from the quasi-experimental evaluation study design to assess the way in which the YARP approach empowered individual youth and groups of youth (youth networks) to engage in social action in their schools, communities and at the policy level, which in turn affected their attitudes and behaviours | Ecological systems theory: Bronfenbrenner;154 Dryfoos158
Identity theory: Phinney159
Social learning theory: Bandura128
Social construction theory: Berger and Luckmann160
Critical transformational theories: Giroux;161 Gitlin;162 Foucault, cited in Martin,163 Bourdieu and Passeron;138 Freire;140 Gramsci137 | Normative
Causal |
| Busseri et al.117 Breadth and intensity: salient, separable and developmentally significant dimensions of structured youth activity involvement | We present a theory-based framework for studying structured activity involvement as a context for PYD based on two key dimensions: breadth and intensity of involvement. Our main goal is to demonstrate the separatability, salience and developmental significance of these two dimensions | Identity development theory: Erikson;129 Marcia130
Life-span development processes of selective optimisation with compensation (e.g. Baltes,164 Baltes et al.165)
Concept of ‘affordances’ in Gibson’s166 ecological theory of human perception167 | Causal |
Catalano et al.118
Prevention science and positive youth development: competitive or cooperative frameworks? | To examine the convergence in the critiques and recommendations for the future of programmes to promote healthy development and prevent problem behaviours among children and adolescents | Attachment theory Identity development theory: Erikson129 Ecological model of human development: Bronfenbrenner154 | Causal |
Ginwright and Cammarota119
New Terrain in Youth Development: The Promise of a Social Justice Approach | Presents a youth development model that addresses structures of power and teaches youth to understand how their opportunities are circumscribed by larger political, economic and social forces. Critiques two dominant approaches to youth development which have oppressed urban youth of colour. The proposed model views youth as agents of social change, fostering ‘the praxis of critical consciousness and social action’ by taking youth through self-awareness, social awareness and global awareness | Critical consciousness: Freire140 | Normative |
Kia-Keating et al.120
Protecting and promoting: an integrative conceptual model for healthy development of adolescents | This article draws on extant research to delineate links between the risk and resilience and PYD literatures | – | Causal |
Kim et al.121
Towards a new paradigm in substance abuse and other problem behaviour prevention for youth: youth development and empowerment approach | The purpose of this article is to: (1) address a paradigm shift taking place in the field of substance-abuse prevention directed at youth; and (2) to introduce an innovative approach to substance-abuse and other problem behaviour prevention that reflects this shift in prevention paradigm | Social control theory: Hirshi135
Social learning theory: Bandura128
Social development model: Hawkins and Weiss168
Problem behaviour theory: Jessor and Jessor169
Expectations-states theory: Foschi170 | Causal |
Lee122
Construction of an integrated positive youth development conceptual framework for the prevention of the use of psychotropic drugs among adolescents | This is a theoretical paper which aims to construct an integrated conceptual framework for the prevention of adolescents’ use and abuse of psychotropic drugs. This paper provides empirical support for integrating a PYD perspective in the revised model. It further explains how the 15 empirically sound constructs identified by Catalano et al.30 and used in a PYD programme, the Project P.A.T.H.S., relate generally to the components of the revised model to formulate an integrated PYD conceptual framework for primary prevention of adolescent drug use | Social learning theory: Bandura128
Symbolic interaction: Blumer171
Operant conditioning theory: Skinner172
| Causal |
Lerner and Lerner123
Towards a New Vision and Vocabulary About Adolescence: Theoretical, Empirical, and Applied Bases of a ‘Positive Youth Development’ Perspective | Towards a New Vision and Vocabulary About Adolescence: Theoretical, Empirical, and Applied Bases of a ‘Positive Youth Development’ Perspective | Developmental systems theory: Bronfenbrenner;154 Gottleib156,173
| Normative |
Lerner et al.124
Individual and contextual bases of thriving in adolescence: a view of the issues | We introduce this special issue on the individual and contextual bases of adolescent thriving by describing the relational developmental systems theory-based, PYD perspective that frames much of contemporary research about health and positive development across the adolescent period and that, more specifically, frames the 4-H study of PYD, the data set from which the empirical work in this special issue is drawn | Bioecological theory: Bronfenbrenner and Morris127
Action theory models of intentional, goal-directed behaviours
Baltes;164 Brandtstädter;157 Heckhausen;174,175 Heckhausen et al.176
Life-course theory: Elder177
Dynamic systems theory: Thelen and Smith178
Holistic person–context interaction theory: Magnusson179 Developmental systems formulations: Ford and Lerner;155 Gottlieb156 | Normative |
| Perkins et al.125 Community Youth Development: A Partnership for Action | The concept of community youth development is introduced and explained to raise the level of accountability, significance, and urgency for developing comprehensive responses to the epidemic of risk facing America’s youth. The two theoretical models of adolescence (i.e. PYD and Risk and Resiliency) that are employed as the pillars of this approach are also presented | – | Normative |
Roth and Brooks-Gunn50
Youth development programs: risk, prevention and policy | We focus on the promise and reality of youth development programmes. After a brief review of the available evidence about programme effectiveness, we define the elements of youth development programmes based on theoretical writings and ethnographic studies. We then investigate the reality in two ways. First, we map the defining principles of youth development to practice by looking at which elements are present in successful programmes. Second, we investigate the relation between these elements and programme outcomes. We conclude with directions for the future | – | Causal |
Schwartz et al.126
Addressing the challenges and opportunities for today’s youth: towards an integrative model and its implications for research and intervention | This article calls for, and proposes some tenets of, model building in adolescent psychosocial development. Specifically, it is suggested that there is a need for a model that draws from the risk-protection approach, from which many prevention science approaches are drawn, and the applied developmental science perspective, from which many PYD approaches are drawn | Selection, optimisation and compensation model: Baltes and Baltes180
Theory of planned behaviour: Ajzen and Fishbein181 | Causal |
