Pathways to Positive Development Among Diverse Youth: New Directions for Youth Development, Number 95 (Paperback)

Issue Editors Notes (Richard M. Lerner, Carl S. Taylor, Alexander von Eye).

Executive Summary.

1. Positive youth development: Thriving as the basis of personhoodand civil society (Richard M. Lerner, Cornelia Brentano, Elizabeth M. Dowling,Pamela M. Anderson)
Theoretical issues pertinent to a developmental systems understanding of positive youth development, and to the role of thriving processes and civic engagement in such development, are discussed.

2. Stability of attributes of positive functioning and of developmentalassets among African American adolescent male gang and community-based organization members (Carl S. Taylor, Richard M. Lerner, Alexander von Eye,Aida Bilalbegovic Balsano, Elizabeth M. Dowling, Pamela M. Anderson, Deborah L. Bobek, Dragana Bjelobrk)
Longitudinal analysis of positive functioning and of individual and ecological developmental assets among African American male youth involved in gangs or in community-based organizations provides evidence for thepotential of positive development among both adolescent groups.

3. Individual and ecological assets and positive developmental trajectoriesamong gang and community-based organization youth (Carl S. Taylor, Richard M. Lerner, Alexander von Eye, Aida Bilalbegovic Balsano, Elizabeth M. Dowling,Pamela M. Anderson, Deborah L. Bobek, Dragana Bjelobrk)
Across a one-year longitudinal assessment, both individual and ecological assets are linked to positive developmental trajectories among African American male youth involved in gangs and in community-based organizations serving youth.

4. Identity processes and the positive development of African Americans: An explanatory framework (Dena Phillips Swanson, Margaret Beale Spencer, Tabitha Dell Angelo, Vinay Harpalani, Tirzah R. Spencer)
Spencer s phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory frames an understanding of positive youth development and of the contextual and individual factors promoting it among African American adolescents.

5. Adolescent risk: The costs of affluence (Suniya S. Luthar, Shawn J. Latendresse)
Adjustment disturbances among youth in upper-class suburbia are discussed, and potential reasons for these problems are identified.

6. Adolescent development in social and community context: A program of research (Peter L. Benson)
An integrated stream of research on the linkages among community, developmental assets, and health outcomes is presented.

7. Creating the conditions linked to positive youth development (Robert C. Granger)
A framework is described for conceptualizing interventions intended to create the conditions linked to positive youth development.

Index.