The Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Communities and Society
Peter L. Benson, Ph.D., General Editor
The Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Communities and Society is a line of academic books being published by Springer Publishers to advance interdisciplinary inquiry into the dynamics of healthy development and social change.
Published Titles in the Series
Authoritative Communities: The Scientific Case for Nurturing the Whole Child
Edited by Kathleen Klover Cline
This landmark volume with contributions from some of the nation’s leading scholars introduces innovative solutions based firmly in the children’s mental health and resilience literature and in the hypothesis that humans are “hardwired to connect.” The comprehensive coverage in this volume brings new insights and evidence to the nature/nurture debate from developmental, attachment, neurobiological, spiritual, and community perspectives.
2008, 390 pages, hardcover.
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Promoting Positive Development in Early Childhood: Building Blocks for a Successful Start
Edited by Karen VanderVen
The formative years—-ages three through five-—are critical to building a solid foundation for children’s long-term success. This foundational research manual:
- Offers parents and community members practical guidelines informed by current theory and intervention design.
- Establishes continuity of development from early and middle childhood through adolescence.
- Presents a holistic approach to development by addressing the multiple influences and structures shaping children’s lives.
If you are a professional whose work focuses on helping young children grow and thrive, this book shows how you can make important and lasting contributions. This title is essential reading for educators, social workers, researchers, developmental, clinical, and community psychologists, and policymakers.
2008, 184 pages, 6.25” x 9.25”, hardcover.
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Mobilizing Adults for Positive Youth Development: Strategies for Closing the Gap between Beliefs and Behaviors
Edited by E. Gil Clary and Jean E. Rhodes
When highly successful people from all walks of life are asked how they were able to attain their goals, they inevitably pay tribute to the influential role played by one or more adults during their younger years. In today’s fast-paced, age-segregated world, increasing young people’s consistent, meaningful interaction with caring, responsible adults is vital. In this volume, leading scholars from multiple disciplines focus on the how of adult engagement: the strategies that can lead to real change, transformation, and engagement at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. This focus on change strategies requires understanding not only of the needs of young people but also the realities, motivations, and priorities of adults, as well as attention to multiple settings, including neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, religious institutions, and youth organizations.
2006, 276 pages, 6.5” x 10”, hardcover.
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What Do Children Need to Flourish? Conceptualizing and Measuring Indicators of Positive Development
Edited by Kristin A. Moore and Laura Lippman
Regardless of its validity, many adults share a common belief that today’s youth face an inauspicious future. Drugs, sex, violence, the disintegration of the nuclear family, technology that replaces relationships—that’s what you hear in the news. This image ignores the many children who are thriving and it ignores the possibility of positive outcomes for children and youth. What Do Children Need to Flourish? focuses on how scholars and practitioners can begin to build rigorous measures of the positive behaviors and attitudes that result in positive outcomes for youth. It is an important volume for researchers, practitioners—anyone interested and involved in working with children and adolescents.
2005, 383 pages, 6.5” x 10”, hardcover.
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Developmental Assets and Asset-Building Communities: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice
Edited by Richard M. Lerner, Ph.D., and Peter L. Benson, Ph.D.
Leading scholars in human and community development examine the relationships of Developmental Assets to other approaches and bodies of work. The book raises challenges about the asset-building approach and offers recommendations for how this approach can be strengthened and broadened in impact and research. In doing so, this book extends the scholarly base for the understanding of the character and scope of the systemic relation between young people’s healthy development and the nature of developmentally attentive communities.
The chapters present evidence that asset-building communities both promote and are promoted by positive youth development, a bi-directional, systemic linkage that—consistent with developmental systems theory—furthers civil society by building relationships and intergenerational places within a community that are united in attending to the developmental needs of children and adolescents.
2003, 244 pages, 6.5” x 10”, hardcover
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Other People’s Kids: Social Expectations and American Adults’ Involvement with Children and Adolescents
By Peter C. Scales, Ph.D.
A critical issue for healthy development is to create an expectation or norm in the culture that adults have a social responsibility to contribute to young people’s healthy development—not only for children in their own families, but also for “other people’s kids.” Yet, according to groundbreaking national research from Search Institute, only a fraction of American adults consistently engage with other people’s children in positive ways. “Other People’s Kids” shows the importance of developing “social norms” in communities and society to support adult engagement with young people. It presents the study findings in detail, examines a wide range of research on social norms, and suggests implications for personal and collective actions for mobilizing adults to be actively engaged in their communities.
2003, 274 pages, 6.5” x 10”, hardcover
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About the Series
Purpose
To advance interdisciplinary inquiry into the individual, system, community, and societal dynamics that promote developmental strengths, and the processes for mobilizing these dynamics on behalf of children and adolescents.
Overview
For optimal development, young people need to be engaged positively in a rich, interconnected web of positive relationships and opportunities with family, peers, neighbors, schools, community organizations, religious institutions, and other socializing systems. All these socializing influences need to be supported by and reinforced with appropriate social policies and norms at the local, state, and national levels. “Developmental attentiveness” refers to the active engagement of this complex array of resources, opportunities, experiences, and relationships to build the strengths young people need to thrive.
This series explores these complex and interwoven issues by presenting theories, models, research studies, and symposia that examine dimensions of this emerging concept of developmental attentiveness. Drawing on the work of scholars from multiple disciplines, it will explore sources of developmental strength for children and adolescents, and the dimensions and experiences of developmental attentiveness in multiple contexts and settings.
Audiences
Academicians, applied researchers, and thought leaders in the fields of human development, community development, social services, social work, applied psychology, sociology, education, family studies, health, juvenile justice, public policy, religious or spiritual development, and related disciplines. The volumes are designed to be appropriate for upper-level undergraduate and graduate course use.
The Series Editor
Peter L. Benson, Ph.D., is president of Search Institute, a position he has held since 1985. As lecturer, author, researcher, and consultant, his work focuses on strengthening communities, social institutions, and public policy on behalf of young people. Dr. Benson is widely recognized as one of the leading contributors to the fields of child and adolescent development, with a special focus on the power of communities in raising successful, healthy, and caring children and adolescents. In addition to having published numerous journal articles, he is the author, coauthor, or editor of ten books on children, adolescents, and the community forces that shape their lives.
The Publisher
The Search Institute Series on Developmentally Attentive Communities and Society is published by Springer, one of the most renowned scientific publishing companies in the world. Its publications cover subjects ranging from the natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science to medicine, psychology, the arts, and social sciences. With offices in Berlin, Heidelberg, Dordrecht, Paris, Milan, New York, Boston, and New Delhi, Springer produces more than 3,500 new books each year and 1,250 journals, most of which are also available in electronic form. The series was originally launched with Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, which merged with Springer in 2004.
Support
This series is made possible, in part, with the generous support of Lilly Endowment, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.
