In contemporary developmental science, relational development systems models have been used to frame the positive youth development (PYD) perspective, which posits that youth will thrive when there is alignment between their strengths and ecological resources in their context. Evidence from the 4-H Study of PYD indicates that out-of-school-time…

Youth organizing within the institutional context of community-based organizations has grown exponentially. Drawing on interviews with more than eighty organizers, youth, and educators, this article examines young people's experiences as they organize to expand educational opportunities for themselves and their peers in urban school districts. The…

Practitioners in youth settings experience life on the ground as a tumble of events, shaped by a confluence of youth needs, institutional expectations, and other inputs. The quality of the setting is determined in part by practitioners' expertise in shaping and responding to these events. The situations that arise in practice, and how staff…

Over the past twenty years, youth organizing has grown across the country. Through organizing, young people identify issues of concern and mobilize their peers to build action campaigns to achieve their objectives. Youth organizing has been appreciated for its contributions to youth and community development. The authors use two case studies to…

In order to maximize the effectiveness of prevention and intervention efforts with youth and address the needs of the whole student, it is necessary to work not only directly with youth, but also to partner with other key adults in a young person's life: parents and guardians, teachers, after-school staff, and clinicians. Inherent in RALLY's…

This article describes the Leave Out Violence (LOVE) program, which was founded in 1993 by Twinkle Rudberg many years after her husband's murder by a fourteen-year-old mugger in downtown Montreal. Realizing that the young person responsible for taking her husband's life was also a victim of violence, Rudberg was inspired to create a violence…

The first part of this article describes how, as an independent educator, Eve Nussbaum Soumerai developed numerous theatrical tributes to inspirational historical figures (Anne Frank, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dalai Lama, for example). By participating in these productions, young people learned about the lives of these figures and shared…

Learning leadership happens experientially, through involvement in opportunities to practice the skills, experiment with approaches, and try on the roles. For youth leadership development, it means creating opportunities for young people to do more than hear stories of great leadership or participate in skills-building activities. In much of her…

The youth development movement represents a broad trend toward promoting opportunity and resilience over preventing delinquency and failure. While the topic of youth leadership is clearly relevant to this movement, the connection between the two topics remains for the most part unexplored and undefined. With this chapter we examine the ways that…

Oakland Community Organizations (OCO) has worked for over ten years to improve educational opportunities in low-income neighborhoods in Oakland, California. The work of thousands of parent, teacher, youth, and community leaders has resulted in the formation of nearly fifty new small schools and more than ten charters, creating settings for…

The Youth Leadership Institute (YLI), was founded in 1989 to address the clear need among youth-serving institutions, such as schools and school districts, community organizations, health care providers and the public health system, and the juvenile justice system, to give young people a real say in the key decisions, programs, and systems that…

The Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development is a Washington, D.C.-based organization engaged in programming, research, and policy development related to youth civic engagement. Its mission is to unleash the potential of youth, adults, organizations, and communities to engage together in creating a just and equitable society. Strong…

Toward the end of the of the twentieth century, the idea that young people are social actors gained increasing predominance. Since then, there has been a growing recognition of young people's ability to understand and contribute to forming their environments. In this article, the authors discuss the state of youth participation in the United…

To explore the relationship between youth and adult leadership--or the relationship between the youth leadership literature and the adult leadership literature--it is important to examine where and how youth appear in the discussions on leadership. Based on a comparison of the literature focused on adult leadership development compared to the…

In recent years, a major shift in thinking has occurred among psychologists, educators, youth workers, and policymakers interested in adolescent development. The old focus on pathology, delinquency, and problem prevention has begun to be supplemented by a new interest in health, resilience, and opportunity development. In an extensive review of…