positive youth development and character in adolescence : understanding … · 2019-01-11 ·...
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POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTER IN ADOLESCENCE :
Understanding how youth develop to
“DO THE RIGHT THING”
Jacqueline V. Lerner, Ph.D. Lynch School of Education
Program in Applied Developmental Psychology
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• G. Stanley Hall (1904), of Clark University, founded the study of adolescence.
• Hall defined adolescence as a period of universal and inevitable, biologically-based “storm and stress.”
• Therefore, according to Hall, Anna Freud, and Erik Erikson, adolescence was a period of crisis and disturbance.
• These ideas resulted in the view that adolescents were "broken" or in danger of becoming "broken."
• For almost all of the 20th century most
research about adolescence was based on this deficit conception of young people.
What We THOUGHT We Knew About Adolescence
As early as the 1960s, research began to show that the deficit model was not in fact true:
• There are problems that occur during adolescence. BUT there are problems that occur in infancy, childhood, and adulthood as well.
• Most young people do NOT have a stormy adolescent period.
• Although adolescents spend increasingly more time with peers than with parents, most adolescents still value their relationships with parents enormously.
• Most adolescents have core values (e.g., about the importance of education in one’s life, about social justice, and about spirituality) that are consistent with those of their parents.
• Most adolescents select friends who share these core values.
What Research TELLS Us About the Presumed “Deficits” of Youth
• Throughout much of the 1990s
most research continued to use Hall’s deficit model to study adolescence.
• Literally hundreds of millions of dollars continue to be spent each year in the United States to reduce the problems “caused” by the alleged deficits of adolescents.
• These problems include – Alcohol use and abuse – Unsafe sex and teenage pregnancy – School failure and drop out – Crime and delinquency – Depression and self-harming behaviors.
But the Deficit Models Do Not Die. They don’t even seem to fade away…
} In the 1990s a new vision of the teen years emerged
from biology and developmental science.
} This is the Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective.
The Birth of a New Phase in the Scientific Study of Adolescence
Key Principles of the PYD Perspective –Informed by Relational Developmental Systems Theory (RDST, Lerner
et al, 2005, Lerner, et al. 2013)
1. All youth have strengths. All contexts have strengths as well. These strengths are resources that may be used to promote positive youth development. These are called ‘Developmental Assets’
2. These assets are found in families, schools, faith institutions, youth serving organizations, and the community
3. If the strengths of youth are combined with ecological developmental assets, then positive, healthy development may occur.
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ALL MODELS OF THE PYD PROCESS USE RELATIONAL DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS (RDS)
THEORIES
} The integra+on of levels of the system, from biology/physiology through culture, the physical ecology, and history
} Development across life involves mutually influen+al individual !" context rela+ons
} Integrated ac+ons, individual !" context rela+ons, are the basic unit of analysis within human development
} Time ma?ers and there is rela+ve plas+city in human development
} Op+mism, the applica+on of developmental science, and the promo+on of posi+ve human development: The poten+al for furthering social jus+ce
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In order to provide a new language of positive development we were asked to do a 10 year longitudinal study
The 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development
To date, we have sampled about 7,000 youth and 3,500 parents from 43 states
Ages 10-20; studied for 10 years
What factors in the person and context
combine across development to promote PYD?
DESIGN OF THE 4-H STUDY
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PYD
Competence
Confidence
Character Caring
Connec+on
Individual Strengths
Ecological Assets
Contribu+on
Reduced Risk Behavior
Key Findings: Important Predictors of PYD
INDIVIDUAL STRENGTHS: • Intentional Self- Regulation (ISR) • Hopeful Future • School Engagement
EXTERNAL ASSETS: • Institutions, families, community and faith based settings,
school • INDIVIDUALS • Youth Engagement and Collective Action • Access
• Contribution is a Key Outcome of PYD
• Contribution involves Active and Engaged Citizenship (AEC): Civic duty, Civic skills, Neighborhood social connection, and Civic participation
• Within and across grades, Contribution is associated with ISR, Hope, and PYD
• Lowered Risk/Problem Behaviors
• ISR, Hope, and PYD are negatively related to Risk/Problem Behaviors within and across grades
Digging Deeper into Character Development in the Relational
Developmental System
Character Involves… The acquisition of mental and behavioral attributes that
develop through bidirectional feedback (Person ß à Context Relations) between the social world and an
individual’s behaviors DEVELOPS IN CONTEXT!
What is the content of character? • Prior research on character has focused on content
rather than on Character DEVELOPMENT
– Moral Virtues
If we do not know how they develop we cannot promote their growth!
• What is the content of character?
– Performance
• What is the content of character?
– Intellectual
• What is the content of character?
– Civic
• What is the content of character?
– Are there other content domains?
Contexts for Character Development and Character
Education
How do families, schools, community programs and faith institutions foster character development in youth?
‘A virtuous person is like an expert who has highly cultivated
skills– sets of procedural, declarative, and conditional knowledge– that applied appropriately in the circumstance…
Moral expertise is applying the right virtue in the right amount at the right time’ (Narvaez, 2008, p 312)
So…….here is the Big Question Youth are taught right from wrong, but how do they develop a moral
sense and act in accordance with it? (and how can we explain the ‘moral gap’)
How do they learn to “DO THE RIGHT THING?”
• What is the structure of character?
Character Perfor-‐mance
Moral Civic
Intellectual
Character OR
• How does character develop? What is the process of character development?
Time
Character
Some Quotes from Theorists Character development involves mutually beneficial
relations among individuals:
Individual ßà Individual relations
– All approaches to moral and character education recognize the importance of social interactions for students’ moral growth.”
Nucci & Narvaez, 2008
– Character involves “conceptions of human welfare, justice and rights, which are a function of inherent features of interpersonal relations.”
Nucci, 2001
– Character involves “a public system of universal concerns about human welfare, justice, and rights that all rational people would want others to adhere to”
Berkowitz, 2012
• Character is a specific set of mutually beneficial relations,
– between person and context, and
– between the individual and other individuals that comprise his/her context
– that vary across time and place,
– These relations develop systematically across the life span and may be represented as individual ßà context relations
• Lerner and Callina (2014)
Character Development: Arriving at a Definition
Character Development
Like any of the C’s of PYD, Character development occurs within a relational developmental system.
– We need to understand what drives character
development, what people, what experiences, what aspects of identity, etc.
THESE ARE THE GOALS OF MY NEW STUDY
Doing the Right Thing • What combines across development to
promote high character? • “Why do adolescents who believe themselves to be of
high character, virtue, or morality behave in ways that fall short of their standards?” MORAL GAP
• Purpose: examine the role of intentional self-regulation skills and character exemplars– mentors and models – in the virtuous behaviors of adolescents.
• Longitudinal study of youth in the greater Boston area (Grades 6-11)
• Data will be collected from youth and from one of their parents or guardians, and from a teacher (or other staff member) at their school who knows them well;
• In addition, a subsample of young people will be interviewed about their
perspectives on the roles of self-regulation skills and character exemplars (mentors or models) in their lives.
Key Findings: Important Predictors of PYD- will they also predict Character? (We just finished our pilot where we will refine our
measures, etc.) INDIVIDUAL STRENGTHS: • Intentional Self- Regulation (ISR) • Hopeful Future • School Engagement
EXTERNAL ASSETS: • Institutions, families, community and faith based settings,
school • INDIVIDUALS • Youth Engagement and Collective Action • Access
Character Exemplars
ISR
Moral IdenEty
Youth Virtues
Problem Behaviors
ContribuEon
Self-‐reported youth character
virtues
Others’ reports of youth character
virtues
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• Character is not fixed across time and place – Lapsley & Narvaez; Nucci; Sokol, Hammond, & Berkowitz; Colby; Damon;
Lerner & Callina
• Outcomes for youth can be enhanced by a focus on the youth-context relationship and building strengths
• Self-regulation, hopeful future and role models may be essential factors in building character
Conclusions and Implications
Selected References • Lerner, J. V., Phelps, E, and Forman, Y, and Bowers, E. (2009). PosiEve Youth Development.
In Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, (3rd EdiEon). R.M. Lerner, and L. Steinberg, (Eds.), (pps 524-‐558) New York: Wiley.
• Lewin-‐Bizan, S., Lynch, A. D., Fay, K., Schmid, K., McPherran, C., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M.
(2010). Trajectories of posiEve and negaEve behaviors from early-‐ to middle-‐adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(7), 751-‐763.
• Zaff, J., Boyd, M., Li, Y., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner R. M. (2010). AcEve and engaged ciEzenship:
MulE-‐group and longitudinal factorial analysis of an integrated construct of civic engagement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(7), 736-‐750.
• Li, Y., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2010). Personal and ecological assets and academic
competence in early adolescence: The mediaEng role of school engagement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(7), 801-‐815.
• Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Bowers, E., & Lewin-‐Bizan, S. (2012) PromoEng the posiEve
development of immigrant youth: Towards an applied developmental science research agenda. In A. Masten, D. Hernandez, & K. Liebkind (Eds.), (pps 307-‐323) Capitalizing on migra>on: The poten>al of immigrant youth. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Selected References • Lerner, J. V., Bowers, E. P., Minor, K., Lewin-‐Bizan, S., Boyd, M. J., Mueller, M. K., Schmid, K.
L., Napolitano, C. M., & Lerner, R. M. (2012). PosiEve youth development: Processes, philosophies, and programs. In R. M. Lerner, M. A., Easterbrooks, & J. Mistry (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology, Volume 6: Developmental Psychology (2nd ediEon). Editor-‐in-‐chief: I. B. Weiner. (pp. 365-‐392). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Arbeit, M., Johnson, S., Greenman, K., Champine, R., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R.M. (2014). Profiles of problemaEc behaviors across adolescence: CovariaEons with indicators of PosiEve Youth Development. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(6), 971-‐990.
• Bowers, E.P., Johnson, S., Buckingham, M., Gasca, S., Warren, D. J., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R.M. (2014). Important non-‐parental adults and posiEve youth development across mid-‐ to late-‐adolescence: The moderaEng effect of parenEng profiles. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(6), 897-‐918.
• Hilliard, L., Bowers, E. P., Greenman, K., Hershberg, R., Geldhof, G. J., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R.M. (2014). Beyond the deficit model: Bullying and trajectories of character virtues in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(6), 991-‐1003.
• Napolitano, C. M., Bowers, E. P., Arbeit, M. R., Chase, P., Geldhof, G. J., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2014). The GPS to Success Growth Grids: Measurement properEes of a tool to promote intenEonal self-‐regulaEon in mentoring programs. Applied Developmental Science, 18(1), 46-‐58.
