1-031 - Cultivating a Generation of Purposeful Youth: Transforming Lives at Home and School

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In response to contemporary global crises and social injustices, we see a timeless phenonomen—that of youth seeking and pursuing purpose by making powerful contributions to various causes (e.g., Tiananmen Protests, Black Lives Matter, Occupy). Youth purpose can be sparked in childhood and adolescence through critical influences at home and at school. Indeed, research demonstrates that engaging youth in prosocial purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful and driving aspiration to do something beneficial for others or the world beyond the self) contributes to youths flourishing and communities flourishing. The question is: how do we cultivate youth purpose?

This symposium presents fresh findings and methodology for elucidating how formative contexts (e.g., home and school) can cultivate youth purpose. The first paper describes a longitudinal study of school influences on: 1) setting prosocial goals, and 2) commitment to those goals. The second paper features two John Templeton funded studies aimed at designing and testing curricula to foster prosocial purpose. The third paper describes the results of a cluster analysis that enables researchers to contrast prosocial, other-oriented purpose from self-oriented purpose, and to identify the parenting characteristics associated with each. The fourth paper advances methods for assessing youth purpose. Interviewing youth by asking them about their purpose is often intimidating because youth have difficulty finding words to describe such an abstract concept. However, this study describes a visual mapping methodology that provides youth with a concrete way of identifying important influences on their path to purpose. Implications for youth and society will be discussed.

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Chair

• belle liang, Boston College

Individual Presentations

• School-Context Supports for Prosocial Purpose Development in Early Adolescence Name: Heather Malin - Presenting Author: Heather Malin, Stanford University

• Fostering Purpose in the Classroom - Presenting Author: Kendall Cotton Bronk, Claremont Graduate University

• Parenting Youth Toward Prosocial Purpose - Presenting Author: Terese Lund, Wingate University; belle liang, Boston College; Angela Mousseau, Rivier University; Renée Spencer, Boston University School of Social Work

• Mapping the Path to Purpose: Advancing Qualitative Methods in Research on Youth - Presenting Author: Angela Mousseau, Rivier University; belle liang, Boston College; Terese Lund, Wingate University