Studying positive youth development among diverse youth in global contexts: On the importance of an idiographic approach

Abstract We explain the importance of using youth‐specific (idiographic) measurements, intensive longitudinal designs, and dynamic approaches for understanding how mutually influential individualcontext coactions shape idiographic developmental pathways in global contexts. We review data from two international positive youth development (PYD) studies illustrating how idiographic developmental pathways reflect meaningful variability in young people's coactions with their community settings, thereby illuminating diverse potentials for personal and societal thriving and contributing importantly to their families and communities. These studies demonstrate that idiographic trajectories are not represented by average data or, especially, by norms derived from conventionally designed longitudinal studies of individuals unlike them or from cultural settings unlike theirs. We believe the empirical findings presented in diverse global contexts provide a compelling foundation for formulating empowering and noncolonialist policies and programs for PYD around the globe.