Youth development in a global perspective: Broadening the scope

The Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective has expanded since its inception. Today, PYD is gaining interest in communities and research projects across the globe, including the Cross-National Positive Youth Development Network (CN-PYD), which was initiated in 2014 at the University of Bergen, Norway. CN-PYD builds on the central PYD assumptions that thriving is enhanced when there is an alignment between youth strengths (e.g., social competencies) and contextual resources (e.g., opportunities for experience). CN-PYD operates with the overall aim of testing and extending strengths-based perspectives of development with samples and in settings that are often underrepresented in social and behavioral research. Accordingly, CN-PYD’s twofold goal for working with diverse youth and emerging adults is to: (1) explore what is positive development and its determinants, and (2) identify and advance resources and opportunities that facilitate thriving. The pursuit of this goal is to ultimately increase the potential for substantial theoretical innovation within developmental science (which includes the fields of PYD and developmental psychopathology [DP]), contribute to better representation within the global youth evidence base, as well as promote effective interventions and initiatives through policies and partnerships with stakeholders and young people themselves. In this article, we focus on selected highlights from CN-PYD’s research that examine a key assumption of strengths-based frameworks, as well as describe new domains of inquiry, and current PYD research and methodological challenges. This article then addresses how the fields of PYD and DP can inform one another and thereby advance developmental science. Finally, we end with consideration of the implications of CN-PYD research for the wider strengths-based study of youth.