3-192 - International perspectives on PYD: Bridging research and practice in multiple settings

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The contributions of the positive youth development (PYD) movement, particularly in the last 20 years, have promoted a vision focused on the strengths of adolescents and the plasticity of their development (Lerner et al., 2005). According to the PYD approach, enhancing positive outcomes (social-emotional skills, prosocial behaviors, well-being) may also counteract or redirect negative trajectories of youths’ functioning. Specific contextual and individual predictors of such positive outcomes are the focus of the current symposium, which highlights research from different settings and countries. The results of this research contribute to an interactive dialogue between research and practice on building emotional and interpersonal capacities and developing adolescents’ well-being in real-life contexts.
In the first presentation, a meta-analysis of 82 school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions involving 97,406 kindergarten to high school students from different countries, documented the importance of SELs for enhancing PYD-related outcomes across time. In the second presentation, building on Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000), four studies conducted in the Netherlands and the UK, highlighted how authenticity is not only a manifestation of, but indeed a generative force behind, positive youth development across adolescence. In the third presentation, bi-directional relations among adolescents’ positivity, positive school climate, and prosocial behavior were examined in Colombian youths coming from a relatively low socioeconomic sample.
Nancy Eisenberg, a prominent scholar on our field, will discuss the role of PYD for youth development in diverse cultures.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Bernadette Paula Luengo Kanacri, Sapienza University of Rome

Discussant

• Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University

Individual Presentations

• Promoting Positive Youth Development Through School-based Social and Emotional Learning Interventions: A Meta-Analysis - Presenting Author: Rebecca Taylor, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL); Eva Oberle, University of British Columbia; Joseph Durlak, Loyola University Chicago; Roger Weissberg, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Happy To Be “Me?” Authenticity, Psychological Need Satisfaction, and Subjective Well-Being in Adolescence - Presenting Author: Sander Thomaes, Utrecht University & University of Southampton; Roos Hutteman, Utrecht University; Constantine Sedikides, University of Southampton

• Longitudinal Relations among Positivity, Perceived Positive School Climate, and Prosocial Behavior in Colombian Adolescents - Presenting Author: Bernadette Paula Luengo Kanacri, Sapienza University of Rome; Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University; Eriona THARTORI, Department of Psychology; Concetta Pastorelli, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Rome, Italy; Liliana Maria Uribe Tirado, Universidad San Buenaventura, Medellín, Colombia