The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), a longitudinal investigation of a diverse sample of 1,700 fifth graders and 1,117 of their parents, tests developmental contextual ideas linking PYD, youth contributions, and participation in community youth development (YD) programs, representing a key ecological asset. Using data from Wave 1 of the study, structural equation modeling procedures provided evidence for five first-order latent factors representing the "Five Cs" of PYD (competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring), and for their convergence on a second-order, PYD latent construct. A theoretical construct, youth "contribution," was also created and examined. Both PYD and YD program participation independently related to contribution. The importance of longitudinal analyses for extending the present results is discussed. 2The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD) is a longitudinal investigation that seeks to identify the individual and ecological bases of healthy, positive development among diverse adolescents. Framed by an instance of developmental systems theory, developmental contextualism (Lerner, 2002(Lerner, , 2004, the 4-H Study is designed to follow youth across the second decade of life and to examine their developmental trajectories. This article describes the theoretical and methodological components of the study, and reports some key findings derived from the first wave of data collection (which occurred in 2002-2003).While we present the theoretical and empirical literature that legitimates the structural model and the design of the study, and in turn provide details about all features of the measurement model, we do not present analyses pertinent to all research questions, particularly since key facets of this model are optimally tested with change-sensitive data that will be available only through subsequent, longitudinal waves of the study. Instead, we present findings pertinent to the presence and structure of the several characteristics presently focused on in the literature as composing PYD (i.e., the Five "C"s of competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring) (e.g., Eccles & Gootman, 2002). We also propose a theoretical measure of youth contribution appropriate for early adolescents and examine unitemporal patterns of covariation with the 5Cs.Simply, before we could test with longitudinal data our developmental contextual conception of the process through which PYD occurs, we needed to establish that the concept of PYD as it had been discussed in the literature had empirical reality, both in its purposed structure and its covariation with other key individual and ecological variables 2 . Accordingly, we address the question of whether in the present data set there is evidence for the theoretical expectations that PYD is positively related to contribution and negatively related to adolescent risk and 3 problem behaviors and, as well, whether there is an association between PYD and youth participation in community-based, youth development (Y...

Adolescence is a period of marked change in the person’s cognitive, physical, psychological, and social development and in the individual’s relations with the people and institutions of the social world. These changes place adaptational demands on adolescents, ones involving relations between their actions upon the context and the action of the context on them, a bidirectional process that has been labeled developmental regulation. The attributes and means through which the adolescent contributes to such regulation may be termed self-regulation. This article differentiates between organismic and intentional self-regulation and examines the development of intentional self-regulation in adolescence, and the individual and contextual contributions to its development. The model of Selection, Optimization, and Compensation, developed by Paul Baltes, Margaret Baltes, and Alexandra Freund, is used as a means to conceptualize and index intentional self-regulation in adolescence. The relation between intentional self-regulation and positive development of youth is examined.

In this research, the authors examined the development of intentional self-regulation in early adolescence, which was operationalized through the use of a measure derived from the model of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC). This model describes the individual's contributions to mutually influential relations between the person and his or her context. Through use of data from a longitudinal sample of 5th and 6th graders who were participating in the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), structural equation modeling procedure, reliability analyses, and assessments of convergent, divergent, and predictive validity suggested that a global, 9-item form of the SOC measure was a valid index of intentional self-regulation in early adolescence. Scores for this index of SOC were related to indicators of positive and negative development in predicted directions. The authors discuss the idea that self-regulation is a global process in early adolescence that contributes to PYD.

International audienceResearch suggests that behavioral self-regulation skills are critical for early school success, but few studies have explored such links among young children in Europe. This study examined the contribution of early self-regulation to academic achievement gains among children in France, Germany, and Iceland. Gender differences in behavioral self-regulation skills were also explored. A total of 260 children were followed longitudinally over one to two years (average age at Wave 1 was 74.5 months). Behavioral self-regulation was assessed using a structured direct observation (Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task) and assessment. Multilevel analyses revealed that higher levels on both ratings of self-regulation predicted higher academic skills after controlling for gender, age, maternal education, and previous achievement, but the relations depended on the cultural context. Teacher ratings were more consistently related to achievement gains than directly assessed behavioral self-regulation. Girls outperformed boys only in Iceland. We discuss universal and culture-specific findings and implications for educational practices

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