Abstract
The Handbook of Positive Youth Development (PYD) advances scholarship among young people from a global international perspective with compelling collection of contributions among large underrepresented cultural groups from vast geographic regions (e.g., Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas). Positive Youth Development is among the most widely applied strength-based approaches in developmental and social work practice, policy, and intervention as an integrated science for promoting optimal well-being, thriving, and success among young people. Three main aims guide the structure of the volume in terms of (1) advancement of theoretical and empirical knowledge on PYD globally; (2) measurement and assessment in under researched contexts; and (3) PYD research, policy, and practice. The Handbook has two main sections totaling 37 chapters across 38 countries representing voices from 22,083 youth and emerging adults around the world. Part I PYD in Global Contexts presents 17 chapters with new PYD conceptualizations (the 7Cs model) and empirical data from India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, Ghana, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Belize, Brazil, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Iceland, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Bulgaria, and Romania. Part II PYD Applications and Interventions contains 18 chapters on innovative approaches, reviews, and programs in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, Jamaica, South Africa, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Canada, and the United States.
Key features of the volume are represented by a wide variety of empirical, conceptual, prevention, and intervention program contributions adopting diverse methodological approaches (e.g., mixed-methods, qualitative, quantitative, cross-sectional, cross-cultural, and longitudinal and intervention trials assessment) in large samples from underrepresented parts of the world, supplemented by multidisciplinary approaches to research, policy, and practice. Other key contributions see novel applications of research, policy, and practice approaches in an inclusive collection of PYD traditional and contemporary perspectives. The volume is a useful tool for social scientists, students, social work practitioners, policy makers, and interested readers from a multiple disciplines (positive intervention work, developmental, cross-cultural, and community psychology, social work, child and family studies, education, prevention, methodology, counseling, and intervention and implementation science). Despite the variability in methodological approaches, the volume is dominated by cross-sectional and correlational data that limit the causal inferences and need supplemental longitudinal and experimental designs to study developmental processes from adolescence to emerging and young adulthood.
Clear applications to social work practice in the volume regard applications of PYD for understanding and promoting research, policy, and practice within the domains identified by positive psychology as critical in thriving. This volume embraces core topics of positive psychology such as positive subjective experiences (happiness, well-being, life satisfaction), positive individual traits (character strengths, talents, competences, values), and enabling institutions (families, schools, communities, societies, nations). Social work practitioners, students, researchers, and policy makers may be facilitated in their work by several contemporary approaches on young people presented in the volume (e.g., assets-based community development, competence-based prevention and intervention, cultural strengths perspective, relational, person-centered, resilience and empowering-oriented practices, and strengths-based social work). Positive Youth Development is central to social work practice by prompting young people to envisage purposeful future and strengths to deal with frustration, despair, trauma, and adversity. As PYD and social work practice are embedded in relational and strengths-based approaches, PYD can inspire social workers’ professional and personal commitment, the quality of their social work relationship, and knowledge base as critical to effective practice.
