To foster positive youth development (PYD), sport organizations, programs, coaches, and program leaders should use holistic youth development in a pro-social manner and provide a nurturing climate. This article offers an idea for a tangible way to promote PYD in sport and physical activity settings via a patch system.

Introduction: Although prior research has examined adolescents' resistance to parental control, the dyadic level of analysis has been overlooked. This study attended to how a Canadian sample of parents and adolescents engaged in resisting one another by observing moment-to-moment actions as they discussed the upcoming transition to high school.…

We examined relations among select components of the 4-H Thriving Model, focusing on youth sparks and four presumed determinants: program quality, developmental relationships, situational engagement, and dosage. Based on our results and results of previous studies, we propose a formal theory of youth program sparks. Three hundred fifty-six Texas…

Positive youth development (PYD) programs have increased positive outcomes for adolescents, however research on the underlying change processes in these programs remains limited. The 5Cs (Competence, Confidence, Character, Caring and Connection) of PYD are a framework of desirable outcomes for youth programs. Change to metacognition is proposed as…

Background: Mid-adolescence is an important phase of self-development in various domains including academics as well as for changes in the neural mechanisms underlying the self-concept. Students' academic self-concept (ASC) is affected by educational achievements and social others (such as teachers and peers). To what extent these external…

Background: Parents' conceptualizations of adulthood for their emerging adults with Down syndrome have the potential to impact the transition planning process as families prepare for life after graduation. Aims: This study aimed to explore parent perceptions of the meaning of adulthood for their emerging adults with Down syndrome. Methods: In this…

Teenage pregnancy is a phenomenon that causes concern due to its consequences. In this context, sex education has been considered as a good means of prevention. However, while teenage pregnancy prevails, sex education perspectives from the voices of teenage fathers and mothers remain under-explored. This qualitative study aimed at exploring sex…

This paper proposes a new conceptual approach to the development and utilization of youth-led environmental assessments to inform the planning of youth-enabling environments. Interdisciplinary research has established the influential effects of the physical environment on children and adolescents' well-being and development, yet there is a gap in…

Developmental theories and previous research suggest that individuals do not develop separately from their environments. Yet, limited information is known about how ecological influences specifically shape early adolescents' development. To address this, the current study examined environmental influences on early adolescents' future orientation…

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model of contextual influences on musical engagement in a person's life. I developed this domain-specific conceptual model based on Bronfenbrenner's (2001) bioecological theory of human development. The model accounts for multiple, interacting contexts that may influence an adolescent's musical…

The mysterious and unspoken secrets of life can be a source of fascination for young people. The bildungsroman quest for identity is often coupled with a protagonist's attempts to decode a range of secrets. Jamaica Kincaid's work of fiction, "Annie John" (1985), illustrates this journey. In this novel, the female protagonist's maturity…

Introduction: This mixed-method longitudinal study examined American adolescents' meaning making of salient COVID-19 pandemic events. Method: Within phone interviews, adolescents (N = 124, M[subscript age] = 15.76 years; 46% Latine) narrated their most emotionally impactful pandemic experience at two time points ~30 days apart between July 2020…

Emotion is essential for learning, but brain evidence shows how not all emotional engagement is equivalent. New research by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and the research team at the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning, and Education finds that adolescents' dispositions toward emotionally engaged "transcendent…

The SUGAR Program Manual was designed based on an extensive literature review on bullying, adolescent development, resilience and protective factors, and anti-bullying programs. Literature on anti-bullying programs showed a deficit for older adolescents, particularly high school students. A whole-school approach is proposed by incorporating…

This study examined the extent to which residential mobility in the first 15 years of life was cumulatively associated with high school truancy at age 15 and whether there were specific developmental periods during which residential mobility was more consequential. To address these aims, we used data drawn from 4,848 children and families who…