Handbook of Positive Youth Development: Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice in Global Contexts

This handbook examines positive youth development (PYD) in youth and emerging adults from an international perspective. It focuses on large and underrepresented cultural groups across six continents within a strengths-based conception of adolescence that considers all youth as having assets. The volume explores the ways in which developmental assets, when effectively harnessed, empower youth to transition into a productive and resourceful adulthood. The book focuses on PYD across vast geographical regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Latin America as well as on strengths and resources for optimal well-being. The handbook addresses the positive development of young people across various cultural contexts to advance research, policy, and practice and inform interventions that foster continued thriving and reduce the chances of compromised youth development. It presents theoretical perspectives and supporting empirical findings to promote a more comprehensive understanding of PYD from an integrated, multidisciplinary, and multinational perspective.

About the Author

Radosveta Dimitrova holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology (University of Trieste, Italy received the best dissertation award of the Italian Association of Psychology) and a PhD in Cross-Cultural Psychology (Tilburg University, the Netherlands received the best dissertation award of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). She is the recipient of the 2016 Scientist Award of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development (ISSBD) for distinguished theoretical contribution and programmatic research to the study of behavioral development and dissemination of developmental science. Her main research interests regard positive development, acculturation, migration, identity, indigenous and vulnerable ethnic minority communities, and adaptation of measures for use in different cultures. She has research and teaching experience in leading universities in the United States, the Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, Italy, Norway, Sweden and international collaborations and projects in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, North and South America. She has widely published in developmental science, cross-cultural and international psychology, human development, emerging adulthood, child and family studies and assessment fields by also serving governing councils of major organizations and editorial boards of leading journals in these fields.

Nora Wiium is an Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway where she obtained her PhD in Health Promotion. Her teaching and research activities regard developmental psychology, health behaviors and youth development. Since 2014 she leads an international project on Positive Youth Development (PYD) representing collaborations from over 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North and South America and expertise from diverse scientific fields including health psychology, developmental psychology, human development, intervention and implementation science. She has co-edited a special issue on PYD across cultures in Child&Youth Care Forum and has served as a reviewer or guest editor for several journals, including Frontiers in Psychology and International Journal of Public Health .