This article reports on experiences and methods of adapting a valid adult social capital assessment to youth audiences in order to measure social capital and sense of place. The authors outline the process of adapting, revising, prepiloting, piloting, and administering a youth survey exploring young people's sense of community, involvement in the…

Measuring the various structural aspects of the organizing framework for this volume and relating them to match quality and relevant developmental outcomes is a critical step toward assessing the framework's utility for practitioners, policymakers, and program evaluators. Nakkula and Harris take a step in that direction by exploring core…

This article focuses on whether people have the resolve to integrate spiritual development into youth worker preparation. Once an organization is convinced that attentiveness to spiritual development has the potential to enrich and improve youth work practice, equipping youth workers with the necessary skills and capacities can proceed. A model…

Democratic partnerships of universities, schools, and an array of neighborhood and community organizations are the most promising means of improving the lives of our nation's young people. Over the past two decades, many colleges and universities have been experiencing a renaissance in engagement activities. Universities, once ivory towers, have…

In the 1960s, Augusto Boal created a process whereby audience members could stop a performance and suggest different actions for the actors, who would then carry out the audience's suggestions. Then, he began inviting audience members onto the stage to demonstrate their ideas and discovered that through their participation they become empowered…

Lunch buddy mentoring is a particular kind of school-based mentoring program: college student mentors meet twice weekly during school lunch with mentees, and a new mentor is provided each semester. The program is designed to benefit elementary school children who are highly aggressive or chronically bullied. Novel to lunch buddy mentoring is a…

Camps have long addressed multiple components of young people's development, including spiritual development. In particular, transcendental communion with nature and the outdoors may provide one pathway for young people's spiritual development. The physical, mental, social, and spiritual growth of young people has been at the core of camps for…

The author describes founding "KidSpirit" magazine and her experiences thus far in engaging a teen editorial board. Of special note are quotations from young people themselves, including one who defines "spirituality" as the "indescribable feeling of connection with everything...the unlimited question and the undefined answer: The Journey."

In this article, the author writes lyrically of the struggle of young people to find meaning and hope in an increasingly secular world, and focuses his discussion on potential roles for adults "who are in serious life-shaping relationships with young people. . . to recognize and respond to the spiritual development of young people." The…

The National Research Council's (NRC) statement and description of features of settings that have value for positive youth development have been of great importance in shifting discourse toward creating programs that capitalize on youth motivations toward competence and connections with others. This assets-based approach to promote development is…

This author argues that youth sports can move beyond the dichotomy of cooperation versus competition by redefining competition. This can be accomplished by considering the development of cooperative skills and achievement motivation. The article addresses how cooperative skills can be taught within a competitive sport. First, it is important to…

How do people reason about issues related to child and youth development? Are the patterns of reasoning in the lay public significantly different from the way experts reason about the issue? What can the anthropological theory of cultural models bring to efforts to improve the public's understanding of child and youth development? In this article,…

Strategic Frame Analysis can inform the daily practice of policy advocates by bringing an evidence-based communications approach to their work. This case study of FrameWorks' decade-long association with the national Kids Count Network shares stories from advocates who are transforming their communications strategies, resulting in more effective…

The authors describe intermediary organizations whose aim is to provide technical assistance to sports organizations about infusing a youth development emphasis into their programming. Team-Up for Youth, Sports PLUS Global, and the National Recreation and Park Association are the three organizations highlighted in this article. Team-Up for Youth's…

Violence and the violence discourse are very similar from country to country: focus on youth, preponderance of males among perpetrators and victims, disproportionate involvement of migrants and indigenous people, greater prevalence with socioeconomic disadvantage and low education, and the impact of underlying factors such as political…