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Most youth development programs strive to promote thriving, but scientific inquiry into how they achieve this aim is rare and often complicated by nuanced program structures and delivery. Across two studies, we explored how one thriving indicator, having a sense of purpose in life, may be cultivated by a statewide 4-H program. In Study 1, an inductive text mining approach called latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) was used to content analyze 63 4-H practitioners' definitions of purpose and focus group conversations about how the program fosters this sense in youth. In Study 2, 113 4-H participants (aged 12–18 years, M age = 14.77; 66% female) reported their purpose exploration and commitment and the extent to which they have engaged with particular program experiences. The LDA suggested educators believe 4-H fosters purpose by offering diverse and transformative activities that equip youth with key resources. Youth reports largely corroborated these beliefs: Correlational analyses revealed youth who felt they acquired life skills in 4-H reported greater purpose commitment, whereas youth who felt they had access to older youth with long-term aspirations reported greater purpose exploration. Implications for how 4-H and other programs might scaffold activities to promote youth purpose are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of research focused on purpose in life, demonstrating a host of benefits that emerge for individuals committed to a purpose. As with other constructs in the positive youth development framework, there is a paucity of work investigating how experiences of marginalization impact the development of this psychological asset among adolescents. To catalyze research on this front, we draw attention to potential opportunities and obstacles associated with experiences of marginalization and how they might affect an adolescent developing a purpose in life. Like García Coll and colleagues' (1996) integrative model, our perspective includes sociocultural factors (e.g., social position, adaptive culture), an emphasis on intragroup variability, and discussion of potentially promoting and inhibiting aspects of marginalization. Following a description of existing research on purpose development during adolescence, we discuss how experiences of marginalization could contour the development of self-integrative, strong, and articulated purpose among adolescents. To conclude, specific considerations for future research are outlined, including how existing definitions of and tools for measuring purpose can be adapted to produce a scientific literature that values and includes the normative purpose development of adolescents who experience marginalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this review, we discuss three questions about the importance of studying purpose as a construct relevant to adolescence. We consider how finding a purpose can help youth answer questions such as 'Who am I?' and 'Where am I going?' and summarize the benefits of finding a purpose during adolescence. Purposeful youth are more agentic and driven in their lives, as well as happier and less susceptible to risks common in adolescence. We conclude by identifying areas that merit study, including the need to understand which contexts best scaffold the development of purpose among youth and the need for experimental research to strengthen causal claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid much interest in building research partnerships that connect campuses and communities, researchers and practitioners alike struggle to find partners and form successful collaborations. Researchers who study youth development often have goals that are well-aligned with those of communities and youth-serving practitioners, yet practical advice on how to capitalize on this alignment is lacking. In this article, researchers and practitioners reflect on their partnership experiences and offer specific recommendations for establishing research collaborations that extend over time. To do so, we highlight an underutilized conduit to form partnerships, the U.S. Cooperative Extension network. We use a partnership initiative with Extension's 4-H Youth Development Program as a case study to discuss how to find partners, leverage shared purpose, and navigate common partnership challenges. • Cooperative Extension presents opportunities to build research-practice partnerships. • Youth development researchers and practitioners can benefit from such partnerships. • We describe the design of a partnership-building intermediary organization, PRYDE. • Experiences in PRYDE offer a case study of partnership challenges and solutions. • Successful partnerships incorporate practitioner insights early and extend over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]