International Positive Youth Development: Challenges and Opportunities in Policy and Practice

This special issue of the Journal of Youth Development on international positive youth development brings together diverse perspectives of research, practice, and policy regarding the challenges and opportunities facing international efforts to promote the positive development of youth. To represent a plurality of perspectives on international PYD, the authors sought to represent a variety of continents, countries, genders, races, ethnicities, sectors, and levels of experience with publishing. There is also variety in the types of articles such as case studies, presentations of frameworks and curricula, letterstyle commentary by youth, and cutting-edge research methodologies and studies. A few key themes frame the volume, including (a) diversity in definitions of youth and operationalizations of PYD; (b) the multifaceted and multidimensional ways in which PYD is integrated into different sectors, domains, and types of programmatic and organizational contexts; and (c) the importance of and need for an accessible evidence base of PYD informed by rigorous science. Thought leader commentaries are interspersed in the beginning, middle, and end of the issue. The articles represent the current state of the field of PYD internationally with an outlook toward the future and how the integration of PYD research and practice can enhance contributions of youth to equity, social justice, and democracy. Journal of Youth Development | http://jyd.pitt.edu/ | Vol. 16 Issue 2-3 DOI 10.5195/jyd.2021.1138 International Positive Youth Development 2


Introduction
This special issue brings together diverse perspectives of research, practice, and policy regarding the challenges and opportunities facing international efforts to promote the positive development of youth. The positive youth development (PYD) revolution that began in research communities in high income countries (HICs) and programs in the late 1990s has extended across the globe to low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Increasingly, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, research institutions, foundations, and multilateral organizations are working to leverage and strengthen the capacities and well-being of a growing "youth bulge" by implementing PYD research and practice into their individual and collective development efforts. While progress has been made in scaling PYD globally few resources are available that synthesize the dynamic energy and creativity of international PYD innovations and collaborations into a single volume of peer-reviewed journal articles. This issue, rooted in the Journal of Youth Development's mission to bridge research and practice in PYD, seeks to do just that. Our hope is this volume, with its 20 articles representing a diverse range of policies, programs, research projects, and voices, can serve as a thorough and relatively comprehensive compendium of lessons learned and promising approaches in the field of international PYD, as well as a roadmap for future directions.
Diversity and inclusion are critical to this special issue. To represent a plurality of perspectives on international PYD, the editors were intentional to invite and include authors representing a variety of continents, countries, genders, races, ethnicities, sectors, and levels of experience.
We also sought out and curated a variety of types of articles to include, such as case studies, presentations of frameworks and curriculum, letter-style commentary by youth, and research methodologies and studies.
Despite this intentionality, and much to the chagrin of the editors, it is impossible to capture the breadth of international PYD programming and research within one special issue. While this issue's intent is to move forward understanding about and motivate the effectiveness, scale, and sustainability of international PYD efforts, the articles within it represent a small snapshot of the thousands of programs being implemented around the world that intentionally or unintentionally promote the positive development of youth or the many research studies aimed at better understanding what works for youth related to PYD. There are many topics that are represented here that deserve their own special issue, such as the need for relevant and accessible PYD employment training and future directions in research methods. We also acknowledge there are other highly relevant and critically important aspects of PYD not addressed in this issue. For example, there is nothing specifically related to food insecurity, LGBTQ+ programming or research, or how to effectively address systemic racism which challenges the healthy development of so many young people around the world. Despite these gaps in content, we hope the special issue catalyzes and informs future international PYD research, programming, funding, and reporting efforts.
A few key themes framed our conceptualization of the volume, including (a) diversity in definitions of youth and operationalizations of PYD, (b) the multifaceted and multidimensional ways of PYD research and programming, and (c) the importance of and need for an accessible evidence base of PYD informed by rigorous science. A brief description of each of those themes is provided here to further inform the reader.

Operationalizations of PYD
The notion of "youth" is a socially and contextually-mediated construct. It is constituted, experienced, and perceived differently in relation to age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, marital status, economic activity, and more. For example, many governmental and multilateral organization policy documents assign different age ranges to the category of youth. In this volume, various definitions of youth are included and represented. Likewise, we allowed for variation in how PYD was operationalized and defined. However, there were some salient descriptions of PYD that guided our editorial approach. In particular: • The Federal Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs (IWGYP), a collaboration of 21 United States' federal departments and agencies that support youth, has created the following definition (Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs, n.d.): o PYD is an intentional, prosocial approach that engages youth within their communities, schools, organizations, peer groups, and families in a manner that is productive and constructive; recognizes, utilizes, and enhances young people's strengths; and promotes positive outcomes for young people by providing opportunities, fostering positive relationships, and furnishing the support needed to build on their leadership strengths.
• USAID, through YouthPower Learning (YouthPower, n.d.), refined a definition reflecting the range of international contexts: o PYD is both a philosophy and an approach to youth development. Positive youth development engages youth along with their families, communities and/or governments so that youth are empowered to reach their full potential. PYD approaches build skills, assets and competencies; foster healthy relationships; strengthen the environment; and transform systems.
• The work of Richard Lerner and his colleagues (for example, see Lerner et al., 2015) frame PYD in a relational developmental systems approach that assumes that all young people have strengths, and all contexts have positive assets. When the strengths of youth are combined with positive ecological assets, then positive, healthy development may occur over time.
We hope readers will note the salience of these definitions and perspectives throughout the volume while still appreciating and learning from the varied framing of PYD applied by different authors.

Building an Accessible Evidence Base of PYD Framed in Rigorous Science
A guiding motivation for the editors to develop this special issue was to contribute to efforts to bridge the divide that exists between the PYD research and practitioner communities. The special issue answers the call of the global PYD learning agenda (YouthPower Learning, 2018) to address evidence gaps and invest in evidence-building activities related to PYD that members of the editing team spearheaded or engaged in developing. The PYD learning agenda built on evidence gaps identified in a systematic review of PYD programs (Catalano et al, 2019) and focused on themes of greatest need to apply PYD in LMICs. The articles accepted for this special issue represent efforts to bridge that divide including research-practitioner collaborations, investment by foundations and research organizations in capacity building efforts, and growing efforts to make research and knowledge more accessible, including open source. If the field is going to effectively leverage the strengths, capacities, and contributions of the global youth population to help lift people and communities out of poverty, build more civil societies, move to systems of resiliency and promote a more equitable world, the evidence base must be framed in rigorous science and be made more accessible.

Thematic Framing of the Special Issue
This special issue is organized around key topics representing the state of the field, including measurement and methods, youth voice, gender and inclusion, conflict and crisis, and a case study of program adaptation, concluding with a vision for future directions for the field. Systems argue that civic education programs that apply a PYD approach are needed to inform and shape the democratic identities and habits of young people and that these identities and behaviors need to be effectively linked to building and sustaining democracies.
Finally, we share two articles that speak to future directions of international PYD. The first, virtues as an example of how PYD research and practice can and is being advanced using the specificity principle and discuss future directions for applying the specificity principle through assessing the developmental neurobiology of PYD. Finally, they discuss contributions that the integration of PYD research and practice can and is making to enhance contributions of youth to equity, social justice, and democracy.

Conclusion
We thank the contributors to this special issue, for their efforts, expertise, and engagement. We thank our peer reviewers. We extend a special shoutout and thanks to Journal of Youth Development Editor Kate Walker and to copy-editor extraordinaire, Colleen Byrne.
Lisa Lauxman thanks her co-editors, Tom, Elizabeth and Cassandra, who agreed to serve on this special issue just as COVID emerged. Our bi-weekly virtual Zoom calls created a bond forged in a mutual desire to move international PYD forward.
As a final note, while we were initiating and developing the idea for this special issue, COVID-19 began to ravage the globe. Most of the articles within this special issue were already in progress when COVID-19 hit, so few of the articles address the impact of COVID-19 on PYD efforts. We did hear from many authors during the manuscript development process about how the crisis highlighted the importance of international PYD to build and foster youth resilience and empower communities and health care systems. We have been so inspired by the stories we have heard and the efforts that are taking place around the world to keep children and youth safe and promote their healthy development. We anticipate that great learning will take place as to the impact of the pandemic on PYD and, when that happens, we imagine many of the practitioners, scholars and institutions represented in this issue will have important lessons to share.
To the Journal of Youth Development community of researchers, practitioners, reviewers and potential editors, we sincerely hope there will be continued submissions for publication of articles supporting international positive youth development.