The Positive Youth Development (PYD) paradigm espouses that all youths have strengths that can foster positive change and development. Unlike some programs that focus on mitigating behavioural deficits at the individual level, PYD argues for a strengths-based approach facilitated through the wider social context. The second edition of Nicholas Holt's collection Positive Youth Development Through Sport extends the scope of PYD to the sporting arena. Shifting from the quixotic and unilateral rhetoric that sporting and positive development go hand in hand, this edited collection provides an unbiased and generally comprehensive look at PYD through sport. More than 40 chapters are divided into four parts: conceptual and theoretical perspectives; measurement and assessment; PYD across youth sport contexts; and PYD, sport and mental health. The majority of collaborators write from the Canadian or US context, but readers will find these studies generalisable to other Western countries such as Australia.
Holt's introduction does a good job of framing PYD and its roots in positive psychology for the reader. The burgeoning literature in the field is his primary justification for this new edition. The first section of the book, ‘Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives’, is undoubtedly its tour de force. Catching the reader off guard, the first two chapters are, in fact, critical of the current state of PYD, but they arm the reader with critical insights with which to evaluate the remaining collection. Maureen R. Weiss's opening chapter argues that, despite nearly a century of relevant literature, most researchers ignore the depth and breadth of scholarship and treat PYD through sport as a new field. Jay Coakley argues that neo-liberal ideas of using sport as a tool for PYD are undermined by the fact that many sports programs do not implement the original concept of PYD as a tool of empowerment, but rather use it for social control. The following three chapters discuss various theoretical frameworks, including relational developmental systems theory, life development intervention, and the process–person–context–time model, and provide an excellent starting point for those interested in the contentions and theories surrounding PYD through sport.
The second section, ‘Measurement and Assessment’, comprises three chapters devoted to addressing the methodological limitations facing PYD research. Each is built around the argument that PYD researchers need to adopt consistent research practices while recognising that the effects of PYD through sport will differ between individuals. Weiss and Coakley's critiques on PYD research immediately sprung to my mind as I read this work; researchers continue to ignore the lessons of past but to be fair, methodological inconsistencies continue to dog the field.
Section 3, ‘PYD Across Youth Sport Contexts’, aims to demonstrate the utility of PYD through sport programs across different contexts, including talent development, coaching, leadership development, marginalised youth and responsibility training. The six chapters presented here draw on studies originating in North America or Canada, although their findings are also mirrored in local research. The section provides a sound introduction to the various sporting contexts in which PYD might be implemented, although there are limits to the conclusions we might draw if we take Weiss's earlier concerns into account.
Section 4, ’PYD, Sport, and Mental Health’, is the collection's weakest section. While its three chapters discuss novel areas of analysis, including post-traumatic positive growth, the effect of coaching on mental health, and the effect of sport on life stories and growth, the section as a whole overlooks critical intersections between mental health and sport, such as bullying, affective disorders and the efficacy of sport therapy in a PYD setting. These shortcomings limit the book's use for practitioners, who are often concerned with such problems rather than the exceptional contexts where sport, mental health and PYD coalesce.
In his excellent concluding chapter, Holt attempts to address the limitations of PYD, and presents a preliminary conceptualisation and model of how it might work through sport, accompanied by five testable hypotheses. I commend the editor's structure of the book. The chapters are organised logically and lay the theoretical and methodical groundwork for the unfolding analysis. This book is a step in the right direction for an emerging field, but is probably more useful for researchers than for practitioners or policy-makers.
