Positive Youth Development Across Cultures: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Background Promoting well-being of young people within the positive youth development (PYD) framework has been found to be promising. The basic models of PYD-the 5C's (competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring) and developmental assets (significant relationships, skills, opportunities and values that promote thriving exemplified by external assets or environmental resources and internal assets or interpersonal strengths), have been largely shown to promote positive aspects of development among diverse samples of young people. However, PYD research has mainly been conducted within the US context. Objectives Explore the generalizability of the PYD framework to understand and promote positive aspects of development in young people beyond the US context. Method Six papers using cross-sectional methods reported data on adolescents and/or emerging adults (N = 6820) with diverse cultural backgrounds from ten countries (Brazil,

Positive Youth Development and Adolescent Depression: A Longitudinal Study Based on Mainland Chinese High School Students

“…Research findings collected from a non-Western context deepen our understanding of the role that culture plays in shaping developmental assets and impacting youth development [26]. This study actively responded to the comment of Wiium and Dimitrova [47] that "little PYD work has been devoted to culturally diverse populations of youth across countries". Second, as cross-sectional studies are common in this field, a short-term longitudinal study was conducted to look at the longitudinal relationship between PYD and depression across time.…”

“…As the impact of PYD is contingent on the developmental context in which culture is an important dimension [26], there is a need to conduct more research in non-Western contexts. Studies in non-Western communities can help to ascertain the generalizability of the utility of PYD programs [47]. Second, studies in the field are dominated by cross-sectional studies.…”

Spiritual And Moral Values Of Youth As A Basis Of Social Orientation

“…Scientists of the whole world pay much attention to the study of spiritual and moral values of various population groups, including the youth, which is confirmed by the review of scientific publications (Wiium & Dimitrova, 2019;Chen-Bouck, Patterson, & Chen, 2019).…”

Promotion of Thriving Among Hong Kong Chinese Adolescents: Evidence From Eight-Wave Data

“…Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness, especially the long-term effect, of PYD programs in Chinese contexts. Unfortunately, as remarked by Wiium and Dimitrova (2019), "PYD research has mainly been conducted within the US context" (p. 1).…”