Page 239 - Ana Kozina and Nora Wiium, eds. ▪︎ Positive Youth Development in Contexts. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2021. Digital Library, Dissertationes (Scientific Monographs), 42.
P. 239
https://w w w.doi.org/10.32320/978-961-270-341-7.239-245
Exploring the Positive Potentials of Diverse
European Youth: What Makes Individual
and Contextual Thriving Possible?
Commentary
Laura Ferrer-Wreder1 and Sabina Kapetanovic1,2
1 Stockholm University, Sweden
2 University West, Trollhättan, Sweden
Exploring the Positive Potentials of Diverse European Youth:
What Makes Individual and Contextual Thriving Possible?
Many of today’s young people are questioning the status quo as it relates
to the care of our planet and its future, as well as actualizing in deeds and
not just words greater equality among people. The study of adolescence
today also needs a focus that can capture the present generation’s unique
strengths and vast potentials to deliver on what prior generations have only
been able to just begin to talk about and have long struggled to realize.
Since the 1990s, the study of adolescence has built up the concepts, tools,
and knowledge that have shifted our conception about adolescents away
from an expectation of inherent problems, danger and dysfunction to a re-
focusing on the whole person, which demands a vigorous investigation into
the positive potentials of youth collectively as a generation and as diverse
individuals on their own terms (Wiium & Dimitrova, 2019).
The chapters in this book are at the forefront of the contemporary
study of adolescence, which is more holistic and contextualized than in the
past (e.g., Desie, 2020; Wiium & Dimitrova, 2019). This book provides nov-
el and valuable insights into the specific instances in which young people
not only just survive and adapt but also thrive. Chapters within this book
offer several examples of the strengths of young people (i.e., positive youth
development, PYD) in terms of empirical evidence about PYD from youth
living in Norway, Kosovo, Spain, and Slovenia (see Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and
239
Exploring the Positive Potentials of Diverse
European Youth: What Makes Individual
and Contextual Thriving Possible?
Commentary
Laura Ferrer-Wreder1 and Sabina Kapetanovic1,2
1 Stockholm University, Sweden
2 University West, Trollhättan, Sweden
Exploring the Positive Potentials of Diverse European Youth:
What Makes Individual and Contextual Thriving Possible?
Many of today’s young people are questioning the status quo as it relates
to the care of our planet and its future, as well as actualizing in deeds and
not just words greater equality among people. The study of adolescence
today also needs a focus that can capture the present generation’s unique
strengths and vast potentials to deliver on what prior generations have only
been able to just begin to talk about and have long struggled to realize.
Since the 1990s, the study of adolescence has built up the concepts, tools,
and knowledge that have shifted our conception about adolescents away
from an expectation of inherent problems, danger and dysfunction to a re-
focusing on the whole person, which demands a vigorous investigation into
the positive potentials of youth collectively as a generation and as diverse
individuals on their own terms (Wiium & Dimitrova, 2019).
The chapters in this book are at the forefront of the contemporary
study of adolescence, which is more holistic and contextualized than in the
past (e.g., Desie, 2020; Wiium & Dimitrova, 2019). This book provides nov-
el and valuable insights into the specific instances in which young people
not only just survive and adapt but also thrive. Chapters within this book
offer several examples of the strengths of young people (i.e., positive youth
development, PYD) in terms of empirical evidence about PYD from youth
living in Norway, Kosovo, Spain, and Slovenia (see Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and
239
