Within the framework of positive youth development (PYD) and life course theory, this study was designed to examine patterns of PYD and promotive factors over the first semester of Chinese high school with a sample of 480 students (boys, 43.96%). The growth mixture model identified four trajectories of PYD, labeled high start-fast decreasing, high start-low decreasing, low start-low increasing, and mid-persistent. Results also showed that membership in a PYD trajectory is significantly related to three promotive factors: parental involvement, teacher involvement, and intentional self-regulation. These findings have important theoretical and practical insights for a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of positive development in adolescents following the critical period surrounding the transition to high school. K E Y W O R D S high school, intentional self-regulation, parental involvement, positive youth development, school transition, teacher involvement | 565 TRAJECTORIES OF PYD DURING SCHOOL TRANSITION process of Chinese adolescents' transition to high school, therefore, has important practical implications.Most prior studies about school transition have focused on risk factors and negative developmental outcomes for youth, including victimization, depression, attendance, and school disengagement (Benner & Wang, 2014;Blossom et al., 2020;Monachino et al., 2021). In this deficit view, school transition was considered a fraught period. In contrast, the positive youth development (PYD) perspective has recently been taken to emphasize the manifest potentialities, strengths, and developmental assets of youth, shedding new light on promoting a positive school transition (Lerner et al., 2015). Consequently, within a framework of PYD and life course theory, this study was designed to examine the positive developmental trajectories and promotive factors associated with Chinese adolescents during the transition to high school.
School transition from a positive development perspectiveTheoretically, based on the assumption of relative plasticity in human development, the PYD theorists have suggested that if adolescents' strengths (e.g., resilience) and their external assets (e.g., social support) are well aligned, then their positive developmental trajectory may be optimized even if they are currently struggling (Lerner, 2021;Lerner et al., 2015). Along these lines, speculating that adolescents with more developmental assets may achieve a positive and adaptive school transition is reasonable. Internationally, the indexing of PYD has been summarized as the Five Cs: competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring (Lerner et al., 2015). Its primary limitation, however, was the applicability of this measurement model in different cultures like Chinese culture (Chen et al., 2018). Although some researchers have tried to explore the structure of PYD in China, these studies were performed from an imported perspective instead of an indigenous one. For example, Shek and Ma (2010) and Shek et al. (2007) const...