Laura Ferrer-Wreder

Promoting Identity Development in Marginalized Youth

This studytested a school-based intervention developed for use with urban minority youth vulnerable to multiple negative developmental outcomes. A quasi-experimental design (pre-and post-follow-up with matched comparison condition) was used to evaluate the impact of the intervention on promoting positive change in four developmental domains (skills/knowledge, attitudes, orientations, exploration/commitment) related to identitydevelopment. The final set of participants comprised a matched sample of 92 youngsters, 46 in the intervention and 46 in the comparison condition. Quantitative results indicated that the intervention condition showed positive and significant gains from pre-to posttest on multiple indices, with a tendencytoward the “leveling off” of intervention gains at follow-up. A qualitative assessment of the impact of the intervention illustrated positive effects of the intervention as well as the possible obstacles to intervention efficacy.

Promoting Positive Youth Development New Directions in Developmental Theory, Methods, and Research

The articles in this special issue report the efforts of the Miami Youth Development Project (YDP), a community-supported positive youth development program of outreach research that draws on a developmental intervention science (DIS) perspective (i.e., a fusion of the developmental and intervention science literatures). These reports illustrate how the application of DIS outreach research contributes to knowledge of human development at all levels (practical as well as methodological, theoretical, and metatheoretical). Consistent with a DIS outreach research approach, YDP is committed to the use of descriptive and explanatory knowledge about changes within human systems that occur across the life span in the development of evidence-based individual and institutional longitudinal change intervention strategies in promoting long-term developmental change. The evolution of the Miami YDP illustrates the value of DIS outreach research “in action.”

Identity Status Measurement Across Contexts: Variations in Measurement Structure and Mean Levels Among White American, Hispanic American, and Swedish Emerging Adults

We conducted this study to examine measurement equivalence and mean differences in identity status across 3 ethnic/cultural contexts: White American, Hispanic American, and Swedish. We used the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status II (EOM–EIS–II; Bennion & Adams, 1986), a commonly used instrument in the identity status literature. We conducted analyses to ascertain the extent to which the EOM–EIS–II functioned equivalently in 3 ethnically/culturally different samples. The internal structure of the measure was consistent across contexts. When we statistically controlled effects of age and gender, mean differences tended to be largely cross-cultural at the observed level of analysis but to be both cross-ethnic and cross-cultural at the latent level of analysis. This divergence in findings was found despite the limited age range represented in each of the samples. We therefore concluded that measurement error may have played a role in these differences and that data gathered using the EOM–EIS–II should be analyzed using latent variable methods. We discuss results in terms of using the EOM–EIS–II with diverse populations.

Promoting Positive Youth Development The Miami Youth Development Project (YDP)

The Miami Youth Development Project (YDP) had its beginnings in the early 1990s as a grassroots response to the needs of troubled (multiproblem) young people in the community (Arnett, Kurtines, & Montgomery, 2008, this issue). YDP is an important outcome of efforts to create positive youth development interventions that draw on the strengths of developmental intervention science outreach research in the development of community-supported positive development programs (i.e., an approach that focuses on meeting community needs as well as youth needs by generating innovative knowledge of evidence-based change intervention strategies that are feasible, affordable, and sustainable in “real world” settings, (Kurtines, Ferrer-Wreder, Cass Lorente, Silverman, Montgomery, 2008, this issue). Now completing its second decade, YDP represents an effort to bring together a more empowering model of knowledge development for research involvement in the community, a nuanced and contextualized notion of youth and their development, and methodologies that richly reflect rather than reduce the experiences of the young people whose development the authors seek to promote.

Promoting Positive Identity Development in Troubled Youth: A Developmental Intervention Science Outreach Research Approach

This article illustrates how developmental intervention science outreach research contributes to knowledge development on the promotion of positive identity development by describing results from the Miami Youth Development Project. The project is committed to the use of descriptive and explanatory knowledge about evidence-based individual and institutional intervention strategies for promoting developmental change in self and identity. Our efforts, described here, include a method for measuring theoretically and personally meaningful identity change, a procedure for integrating key aspects of qualitative and quantitative data through relational data analysis, and an evidence-based positive youth development intervention that fosters measurable and meaningful identity change.

A Developmental Intervention Science (DIS) Outreach Research Approach to Promoting Youth Development Theoretical, Methodological, and Meta-Theoretical Challenges

This paper describes work directed toward creating community-supported positive youth development interventions that draw on a developmental intervention science outreach research approach. With respect to developmental interventions, this approach focuses on creating evidence-based longitudinal change intervention strategies for promoting long-term developmental change. The paper describes three broad challenges (theoretical, methodological, and meta-theoretical) that the authors faced in their efforts to develop and implement community-supported intervention programs built on this approach. The authors describe first the theoretical challenges they addressed in developing the conceptual framework for their community-supported intervention; second, the challenge of developing and refining a methodological framework for evaluating positive youth development interventions in “real-world” settings; and third, the meta-theoretical challenges that arose in the context of implementing community-supported positive development programs.

Identity Development and Intervention Studies: The Right Time for a Marriage?

A cohesive identity plays a key role in mental health and well-being. Yet, few studies involving identity have been intervention studies, and few intervention studies have included identity-related variables. In this article, we speculate about why this might be so. We argue that intervention research with young people will be more informative when variables tapping key developmental processes and outcomes such as identity cohesion, style, distress, and turning points are included. Such research can (a) promote positive identity development as an important aim, (b) illuminate processes of identity-related change, and (c) add knowledge about for whom interventions work and why they work, through identitys mediating or moderating effects. We argue that these integrative steps will make treatment and prevention interventions for young people more effective and potent.

Identity and Adolescent Adjustment

This article is the report of an investigation of relations among identity coherence/identity confusion, the ego strength of competence, antisocial behavior, academic competence, and perceptions of school environment in a sample of 574 adolescents. The primary results of this cross-sectional study suggest significant associations between identity-related constructs and indicators of adolescent adjustment. Study implications are discussed in terms of identity-related interventions.

Identity Promotion, Adolescence

As noted elsewhere in this volume, prevention programs are designed to affect a person’s life course, with the goal of moving its trajectory in a more adaptive direction. In this context, the present entry addresses the role of identity in preven-tive/promotive work at both the theoretical and empirical level. At the empirical level, an overview of the current literature on well-evaluated evidence-based youth interventions indicates that such initiatives tend to use a diversity of intervention strategies to address a narrow band of identity-related concepts within programs and a very diverse array of identity-related concepts across programs. Together, this combination has produced an empirical literature that is mixed but promising. At the theoretical level, in contrast, emerging trends in the youth intervention literature suggest a growing recognition of the utility of identity as a broadband “umbrella” concept that provides a conceptual framework for organizing and integrating current prevention work. The identity framework also suggests foci and directions for future efforts to develop interventions for working with adolescents in order to assist them in creating positive developmental trajectories for their lives.

Promoting Positive Youth Development Implications for Future Directions in Developmental Theory, Methods, and Research

The efforts of the Miami Youth Development Project reported in this special issue illustrate how Developmental Intervention Science (DIS; a fusion of the developmental and intervention science) extended to include outreach research contributes to the development of community-supported positive youth development programs. In the process, the articles further illustrate the general utility of Developmental Intervention Science outreach research in facilitating the use of descriptive and explanatory knowledge about changes within human systems that occur across the lifespan in the development of evidence-based individual and institutional change intervention strategies for promoting long-term developmental change. Additionally, the articles illustrate the considerable implications that the application of DIS outreach research has for future directions in knowledge of human development at all levels (practical as well as methodological, theoretical, and metatheoretical).