ABSTRACT

To understand positive youth development, researchers often adopt an ecological perspective that encompasses several levels of influence, including proximal familial influences as well as more distal cultural influences. Throughout the world, parents strive to promote their children’s positive growth and development, but the desired outcomes as well as how parents try to promote these outcomes vary, as do the resources available to promote positive youth development. Many resources are contingent upon countrylevel socioeconomic factors such as prevalence of poverty as well as family-level socioeconomic factors such as parental education that affect the social capital available to promote positive youth development. This chapter adopts a global perspective to understand links among socioeconomic status (SES), parenting, and positive youth development. It begins by reviewing different indicators of SES, as well as how appropriate indicators may differ across countries. It then reviews research on links between different indicators of SES and parenting, links between SES and positive youth development, and links between parenting and positive youth development. The chapter next turns to reviewing evidence regarding parenting as a mediator of the link between SES and positive youth development. The chapter concludes by considering policies and interventions that alter SES or parenting to enhance positive youth development.