Page 247 - Ana Kozina and Nora Wiium, eds. ▪︎ Positive Youth Development in Contexts. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2021. Digital Library, Dissertationes (Scientific Monographs), 42.
P. 247
https://w w w.doi.org/10.32320/978-961-270-341-7.247-250
Positive Youth Development:
Implications of Research for European Policy
and Practice
Commentary
Urška Štremfel
Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
This book is about making a better world. The discussion within is guid-
ed by positive youth development (PYD), a relatively well-established
and studied approach in the United States of America yet still an emerg-
ing one in Europe. Sharing certain common grounds with positive psy-
chology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and based on Relational
Development System Theory (Lerner, 2007), this unique approach stress-
es the importance of the two-way interaction of internal (individual) and
external (social, family, school, community) development assets for devel-
oping the “5Cs” (competence, confidence, character, connection, caring),
which together maximise their positive life outcomes (e.g. prosocial behav-
iour, contribution) and minimise negative life outcomes (e.g. early school
leaving, aggression, anxiety). In the PYD perspective, adolescents should
not be treated as the source of trouble but as human beings holding con-
siderable potential to become active co-creators of the world of the future.
This book is about research. By comprehensively considering research
on PYD from around the world, it pinpoints the research gap in the field in
the wider European context and particularly in Norway, Slovenia, Kosovo
and Spain. Due to the PYD framework’s US origins, the book emphasis-
es the testing of the PYD questionnaires and confirming of their validity
in the respective European cultural contexts. Results of several empirical
studies conducted re-affirm the need to study the PYD model across differ-
ent cultures (e.g. different levels of the 5Cs and the different roles they play
247
Positive Youth Development:
Implications of Research for European Policy
and Practice
Commentary
Urška Štremfel
Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
This book is about making a better world. The discussion within is guid-
ed by positive youth development (PYD), a relatively well-established
and studied approach in the United States of America yet still an emerg-
ing one in Europe. Sharing certain common grounds with positive psy-
chology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and based on Relational
Development System Theory (Lerner, 2007), this unique approach stress-
es the importance of the two-way interaction of internal (individual) and
external (social, family, school, community) development assets for devel-
oping the “5Cs” (competence, confidence, character, connection, caring),
which together maximise their positive life outcomes (e.g. prosocial behav-
iour, contribution) and minimise negative life outcomes (e.g. early school
leaving, aggression, anxiety). In the PYD perspective, adolescents should
not be treated as the source of trouble but as human beings holding con-
siderable potential to become active co-creators of the world of the future.
This book is about research. By comprehensively considering research
on PYD from around the world, it pinpoints the research gap in the field in
the wider European context and particularly in Norway, Slovenia, Kosovo
and Spain. Due to the PYD framework’s US origins, the book emphasis-
es the testing of the PYD questionnaires and confirming of their validity
in the respective European cultural contexts. Results of several empirical
studies conducted re-affirm the need to study the PYD model across differ-
ent cultures (e.g. different levels of the 5Cs and the different roles they play
247
