Positive youth development: current perspectives

This review outlines the current perspectives on positive youth development (PYD). Besides presenting the diverse theoretical roots contributing to PYD approaches, this review also introduces several PYD perspectives, including Benson’s 40 developmental assets, Lerner’s 5Cs and 6Cs conceptions, Catalano’s 15 PYD constructs, social-emotional learning (SEL) and the “being” perspective (character and spirituality). A comparison of the different PYD models in terms of theoretical orientation, the role of community, spirituality, character/morality, thriving, “being” versus “doing” and origin is also presented. The review suggests three future research directions, including the development of spirituality and character approaches to PYD, differentiating the role of “being” versus “doing” in PYD and construction of PYD models as well as conducting related research in non-Western contexts.