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Promoting Positive Youth Development by Understanding Social Contexts

‘‘During the past two decades, positive youth development (PYD) has challenged a dominant stereotype of youth as carriers of risk and focused instead on their potential and the contributions that young people make to their communities’’ (Flanagan, Syvertsen, & Wray-Lake, 2007, p. 1). In addition, other researchers have suggested understanding the social contexts in which youths live, which may reduce risk and promote positive development. Both aspects are important to adequately document the role that social contexts have in reducing negative behaviors yet also promoting positive development among young people (Youngblade et al., 2010). The positive youth development literature is characterized by trying to understand what positive youth development is and how it is different from a deficit model of youth development (Damon, 2004; Lerner, 2005; Lerner et al., 2006). Pittman (1991) said it best: ‘‘An understanding that problem free is not fully prepared is fundamental to positive youth development’’ (p.1). We focus on youths in a one-dimensional way in that if problem behaviors exist, positive behaviors are absent. The reality is that researchers should focus on understanding what issues youths face and help them build resilience and encourage positive adaptations to stressors that may occur in their environment. Figure 1 outlines a positive youth development framework to understand the social contexts in which youths live. The model stresses the importance of focusing on the resiliency factors in the individual (i.e., adolescent). Next the positive youth development framework emphasizes the social context which includes family, peers, other significant adults, systems such as schools or religious organizations, and their neighborhoods. The model also highlights the stressors that youths will face. The premise here is that if we can build up resiliency factors, and these resiliency factors are promoted by individuals and systems in the social context then when a young person is confronted with