Michelle B. Weiner

The Role of Ecological Assets in Positive and Problematic Developmental Trajectories.

Two theoretical perspectives have been proposed to describe, explain, and intervene in adolescent development - prevention science and positive youth development (PYD). An integrative model bridging these two perspectives posits that it is important to assess the extent to which the same, similar, or complementary mechanisms may be responsible for preventing problem behavior and promoting PYD. Therefore, using data from the 4-H Study of PYD, the present study examines the role of assets in the family, school, and neighborhood in differentiating trajectories of goal-optimization and delinquency in a sample of 626 youth (50.9% female) from Grades 5 to 11. The results indicated that collective activity in the family best predicted membership for the five goal-optimization trajectories while school-based assets differentiated the four delinquency trajectories that were identified. The findings suggest that multidimensional approaches may be most effective to promote PYD and prevent problem behaviors.

Resilience and Positive Youth Development: A Relational Developmental Systems Model

Adolescents are not resilient. Resilience is also not a functional feature of the ecology of adolescent development (e.g., as may be represented by the concept of “protective factors”). Rather, resilience is a concept denoting that the relationship between an adolescent and his or her ecology has adaptive significance. That is, the relationship involves a fit between characteristics of an individual youth and features of his or her ecology that reflects either adjustment (change) in the face of altered or new environmental threats, challenges, or “processes,” or constancy or maintenance of appropriate or healthy functioning in the face of environmental variations in the resources needed for appropriate or healthy functioning. As such, the individual–context relationship summarized by the term “resilience” reflects individual well-being at a given point in time, and thriving across the adolescent period, in the face of features within the ecological context that challenge adaptation. In turn, this relationship also implies that, for the ecology or context, there are actions that could maintain or further the quality of its structure (e.g., the family, schools, or community programs for youth development) or its function in the service of supporting healthy adolescent behavior and development (e.g., parenting that reflects warmth and appropriate monitoring; low student–teacher ratios involving engaged students and high quality institutions; and access to competent, caring, and committed mentors in out-of-school-time [OST] youth development programs, respectively).

The Relationship between Adolescents' News Media Use and Civic Engagement: The Indirect Effect of Interpersonal Communication with Parents.

Using data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, a longitudinal study involving U.S. adolescents, multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to evaluate whether news media use is predictive of a set of civic indicators (civic duty, civic efficacy, neighborhood social connection, and civic participation) for youth in Grades 8, 9, and 10, via an indirect effect of interpersonal communication about politics with parents. The proposed model had a good fit within each grade. News media use was predictive of interpersonal communication with parents and in turn, interpersonal communication was predictive of civic duty, civic efficacy, neighborhood social connection, and civic participation. The cross-group comparison of the structural model suggests that the predictive qualities of news media use and interpersonal communication are comparable across grades. The role of media use and interpersonal communication in fostering civic development and socialization as well as implications for future research are discussed.

Chapter 14 Resilience Across the Life Span

This chapter discusses the concept of resilience from a life span perspective informed by relational developmental systems theory. Resilience involves mutually beneficial (adaptive) relations between characteristics of individuals (e.g., their self-regulation behaviors) and features of the ecology (e.g., resources promoting healthy development); these links may be represented as individual ←→ context relations, and they involve adjustment in the context of challenges or maintenance of appropriate functioning in the face of variations in the resources needed to achieve health. Resilience, then, is an attribute of positive human development (PHD) achieved through adaptive individual ←→ context relations (termed adaptive “developmental regulations”). We review research across the life span that speaks to the use of this conception of resilience for understanding the contributions individuals make to their own positive development and to the maintenance or perpetuation of PHD-supportive assets of their ecologies. Directions for further research and for applications aimed at promoting PHD are discussed.

Intentional Self-Regulation in Youth: Applying Research Findings to Practice and Programs

Self-regulation is a broad concept that encompasses a wide variety of emotional, cognitive, and social processes. Furthermore, self-regulation plays a critical role in goal-directed behaviors. In this chapter, we provide information about self-regulation and recommendations for youth development practitioners and policy makers who want to use research on self-regulation to promote thriving among youth. Specifically, we first discuss various lessons that can be learned from previous research on self-regulation, emphasizing intentional self-regulation (ISR) as a facet of self-regulation that is especially important during adolescence. We then discuss the limitations of this research. Last, we recommend five priorities for improving youth policy and practice such as making adolescent ISR a funding priority and the importance of promoting ISR across the life span.

Configurations of Young Peoples’ Important Life Goals and Their Associations with Thriving

The aims of this study were to determine whether, and how, young people’s beyond-the-self life goals coexisted with other life goals, and whether having at least one beyond-the-self goal was associated with higher thriving (the Five Cs of Positive Youth Development [PYD]) and volunteering, compared to having either no goals, or goals that were only self-focused. The authors conducted latent class analyses among five school cohort groups using data from five studies (combined using integrative data analysis techniques). Across grade groups, the authors identified classes, which can generally be characterized by (1) low endorsement of goals, (2) prominence of helping others and contributing to community goals, (3) prominence of goals related to a good life (e.g., make money, friends, live an adventurous life), and (4) endorsement of most life goals. In the older two grade groups we identified additional classes: a group with a high endorsement of goals oriented at helping others and serving God/higher power in the undergraduate group, and a group with high endorsement of goals to create something new and make the world a better place in the graduate group. There were differences in the Five Cs of PYD and volunteering between the classes. The authors discuss the implications of these results for future research and practice regarding young people’s life goals.