Lauren Gama

• Montclair State University

A Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective emphasizes adolescents’ potential for healthy, successful development. Researchers have introduced a variety of constructs that may promote PYD. For example, Intentional Self‐Regulation (ISR) enables youth to seek out and use resources in the environment; purpose can help youth navigate and overcome ob...

Positive youth development programs such as those offered by Boy Scouts of America (BSA) provide sources of support and opportunities for leadership and character development. Programmatic experts from BSA collaborated with researchers to develop a visual theory of change (pathway model) for youth development in Scouts BSA and for adult volunteer l...

Through two waves of longitudinal qualitative data, this paper examined emergent forms of key indicators of adolescent thriving: the 5Cs of positive youth development and sense of purpose. Pre- and post-program interviews with 24 S2 (~7th grade) Scottish adolescents who participated in a school-based character program explored the presence, absence...

Utilizing a relational developmental systems approach to examining character strengths, this article examines the connection between adolescents’ intentional self-regulation (ISR) with youth sense of purpose, using data from a large-scale evaluation of a youth development program in Scotland. Data were triangulated from multiple sources, including...

School-based character education (CE) programs provide an opportunity to increase the moral fortitude of adolescents. This study is a preliminary evaluation of Inspire Aspire, a CE program that was implemented with 13- to 14-year-olds in Scotland. A relational developmental systems meta-theoretical approach and person-centered analyses were employe...