In today’s fast-paced, often-dehumanizing world, this book brings together the advice and expertise of leading scholars dedicated to affecting positive youth development. Providing a multifaceted, multidisciplinary blueprint for social change the book promotes individual adult involvement in adolescents’ lives to ensure positive youth development. It aims to mobilize a society of adults, through volunteer and other programs, and will interest anyone involved in working toward achieving positive youth development.

A few years ago, resiliency theory was relatively new to the fields of prevention and education. Today, it is at the heart of hundreds of school and community programs that recognize in all young people the capacity to lead healthy, successful lives. The key, as Benard reports in this synthesis of a decade and more of resiliency research, is the role that families, schools, and communities play in supporting, and not undermining, this biological drive for normal human development. Of special interest is the evidence that resiliency prevails in most cases by far -- even in extreme situations, such as those caused by poverty, troubled families, and violent neighborhoods. An understanding of this developmental wisdom and the supporting research, Benard argues, must be integrated into adults' vision for the youth they work with and communicated to young people themselves. Benard's analysis of how best to incorporate research findings to support young people is both realistic and inspirational. It is an easy-to-read discussion of what the research has found along with descriptions of what application of the research looks like in our most successful efforts to support young people.

Statistical information on the whole range of American education is presented in this volume. Coverage ranges from kindergarten through graduate school, and is based upon data from both government and private sources. The main part of the book is composed of the following chapters: all levels of education, elementary and secondary education, federal programs for education and related activities, outcomes of education, international comparisons of education, and learning resources and technology. Supplemental sections on population trends, attitudes towards education, education characteristics of the labor force, government finances, and economic trends provide the background needed for evaluating education data.

How do children and young people experience and understand sport and physical activity? What value do they attach to physical education and physical literacy? This book demonstrates how we can better understand the perspectives of young people, and how teachers and coaches can respond to and engage with the voices of young people.

Providing a comprehensive and up-to-date review of research and the implications for practice, the second edition of Effective Practice in Youth Justice considers core areas of youth justice practice, such as how to engage young people effectively within the context of recent changes to the youth justice system brought about by the introduction of the scaled approach and the Youth Rehabilitation Order. It also provides an overview of the available research in specific areas of practice, including assessment; planning interventions and supervision; mental health; substance misuse; restorative justice; education, training and employment; and custody and resettlement. The content has been specifically developed to meet the needs of students taking Youth Justice Board (YJB) sponsored courses with the Open University and is required reading for many of these. The book is also an essential resource for professionals working within the youth justice system, those training to work in youth justice, and students taking courses in youth justice or related subjects.

This new edition of A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation brings together work from research and practice to reflect on some of the key developments in the field since the first edition published in 2010. Subtitled ‘Conversations for Transformational Change’, the collection focuses on both ongoing and new discourses that enable us to advance thinking and practice to better understand what it means for participation to be transformational. Featuring all new content, it explores the developments that have been achieved in theory and practice in the last decade as well as the challenges and, indeed, the limitations of dominant participation approaches with children and young people in achieving genuine societal transformation. A key feature of the Handbook is the inclusion of young people as co-authors in many of the chapters. Foregrounding aspects of participation as experienced by diverse groups of children and young people, the book especially illuminates the experiences and perspectives of participation relating to groups of children who face particular challenges, such as displaced children and children living with disabilities and young people from indigenous groups in a range of contexts. The broad spectrum of debates that the text covers will be invaluable in challenging and transforming thinking and practice for a wide range of scholars, practitioners, activists and young people themselves. It will additionally be suitable for use on a wide range of courses including childhood and youth studies, sociology, law, political studies, community development, development studies, children’s rights, citizenship studies, education and social work.