Search Institute partners with a wide range of foundations, corporations, communities, and nonprofit organizations to conduct research that helps discover what kids need to succeed and how all aspects of communities can contribute to their healthy development. Below are selected current projects that support the institute’s core innovations.
Developmental Assets
- See the latest data from Search Institute’s ongoing community-based research on Developmental Assets among young people in grades six to 12
- Creating a more culturally relevant Developmental Assets Survey for Native Hawaiians (coming soon)
- Pilot testing a local (Philippines) language version of the Developmental Assets Profile (DAP) (coming soon)
Thriving
- Teen Voice 2009: The Untapped Strengths of Teenagers is a project undertaken with the help of Best Buy Children’s Foundation, and focuses on three critical components of youth development: sparks, teen voice, and relationships and opportunities.
- Thriving Youth Survey (coming soon)
Spiritual Development
Under the auspices of its Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, Search Institute is engaged in several multi-country exploratory studies of the place of spiritual development in the lives of young people across traditions and cultures. Below are updates to several of these studies:
- Building Shared Understandings of the Definitions, Dimensions, and Measurement of Spiritual Development During Adolescence
- Implicit Understandings of Spiritual Development: A Focus Group Study of Young People, Parents/Guardians, and Adults who Work with Youth
- Exploratory International Study of Spiritual Development, a survey of young people in eight countries on five continents
- Exemplars of Spiritual Thriving in Adolescence: An Exploratory Study
Stay up to date on these research findings by signing up for the Center’s electronic newsletter.
Community and Social Change
- Using Developmental Assets to Advance School Readiness and Academic Success in Tribal Communities, a project funded by I. A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation, St. Paul, Minnesota
- Inspired to Serve: Youth-Led Interfaith Action, a pilot project supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service through its Learn and Serve America community-based grants program
