This new conceptualization of youth success draws from more than 180 sources and makes an argumen... more This new conceptualization of youth success draws from more than 180 sources and makes an argument for new definitions to propel practice and policy that addresses educational and racial equity. The paper:Introduces a formula and a rationale for addressing thriving, equity, and learning and development together that helps us better focus on actionable social factors;Summarizes prevailing definitions of thriving, equity, and learning and development (and related terms);Takes a deeper dive into the dimensions that contribute to individual and collective thriving;Offers powerful and aligned conceptualizations of thriving, equity, and learning and development;Describes the opportunities and conditions required to ensure that efforts to create "equitable educational outcomes" or "equitable learning and development opportunities" are as powerful and inclusive as possible
Abstract A focus on intraindividual change and person-specific pathways is a necessary starting p... more Abstract A focus on intraindividual change and person-specific pathways is a necessary starting point for developmental science inquiries. However, research often relies on ergodicity-based assumptions about group averages and other variable-centered approaches. Using ideas associated with relational developmental systems metatheory, such as the Bornstein Specificity Principle, we re-examine the ergodicity assumption using Executive Functioning (EF) data from the Measures and Methods Across the Developmental Continuum Project. Participants from Grades 4 to 12 (M age = 14.60) completed three behavioral EF tasks (i.e., working memory, response inhibition, and cognitive flexibility). The final analytic sample included 64 participants who provided data on 30 measurement occasions. Intraindividual and interindividual EF latent constructs appeared to be different, and we identified a wide range of person-specific EF trajectories. These findings challenge the ergodicity assumption framing variable- and group-oriented approaches to individual development. This study demonstrates the feasibility of collecting intensive longitudinal data to understand youth development on an individual level as an alternative to immediate data aggregation and as means to illuminate the use of the specificity principle in understanding human development and in applications pertinent to enhancing the lives of diverse youth across specific times and places in their specific developmental pathways.
The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of colo... more The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of color, involves a set of interactions between and among children, youth, their families, school personnel, other service providers, and gatekeepers of outcomes. These interactions contribute to a cycle of negative encounters that can lead to or exacerbate a student’s behavioral and academic problems, disen-gagement from learning, and disconnection from school (McNeely & Falci, 2004). These interactions also contribute to dropout, delin-quency, arrest, and incarceration (D. Osher,
Absolute numbers The actual physical number counted in the population. In terms of disparities, a... more Absolute numbers The actual physical number counted in the population. In terms of disparities, absolute numbers allow measures of difference between subgroups. For example, if 35 students with disabilities are suspended while only six students without a disability designation are suspended, these numbers may suggest a higher rate of suspensions for students with disabilities compared with nondisabled students.
This study tests the efficacy of an intervention--Safe Public Spaces (SPS) -- focused on improvin... more This study tests the efficacy of an intervention--Safe Public Spaces (SPS) -- focused on improving the safety of public spaces in schools, such as hallways, cafeterias, and stairwells. Twenty-four schools with middle grades in a large urban area were recruited for participation and were pair-matched and then assigned to either treatment or control. The study comprises four components: an implementation evaluation, a cost study, an impact study, and a community crime study. Community-crime-study: The community crime study used the arrest of juveniles from the NYPD (New York Police Department) data. The data can be found at (https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/NYPD-Arrests-Data-Historic-/8h9b-rp9u). Data include all arrest for the juvenile crime during the life of the intervention. The 12 matched schools were identified and geo-mapped using Quantum GIS (QGIS) 3.8 software. Block groups in the 2010 US Census in which the schools reside and neighboring block groups were mapped i...
The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of colo... more The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of color, involves a set of interactions between and among children, youth, their families, school personnel, other service providers, and gatekeepers of outcomes. These interactions contribute to a cycle of negative encounters that can lead to or exacerbate a student’s behavioral and academic problems, disen-gagement from learning, and disconnection from school (McNeely & Falci, 2004). These interactions also contribute to dropout, delin-quency, arrest, and incarceration (Osher,
The purpose of this study was to investigate within- and between-person associations between slee... more The purpose of this study was to investigate within- and between-person associations between sleep and subsequent goal setting in adolescents. We conducted an intensive repeated measures longitudinal study to assess intra- and interindividual associations between sleep and goal setting and potential moderators of such associations. Thirty-nine seventh through 12th graders reported on their sleep quality and propensity to set goals in their daily lives several times per week for approximately four months. We used a combination of multilevel modeling with time-varying covariates and centering techniques to partition within- and between-person variance. We found significant and positive associations between sleep and goal setting within individuals, but no such associations between individuals. That is, students were more likely to set goals for their work after getting a good night’s sleep relative to their own average sleep quality, but getting good sleep on average relative to other...
Core components are the parts, features, attributes, or characteristics of a program that a range... more Core components are the parts, features, attributes, or characteristics of a program that a range of research techniques show influence its success when implemented effectively.1 These core components can serve as the unit of analysis that researchers use to determine “what works,” and they become the areas practitioners and policymakers seek to replicate within and across a range of related programs and systems in order to improve outcomes. Research techniques such as meta-analysis can shed light on which components make programs successful across a range of programs and contexts, and help researchers identify with greater precision what works, in which contexts, and for which populations. This brief explains why it is important to collect and report on a wide range of program characteristics and the kinds of characteristics that should routinely be collected and reported in order to facilitate future meta-analyses that can help the field identify core components of effective progr...
Children and youth need safe and supportive schools if they are to succeed in school, to develop ... more Children and youth need safe and supportive schools if they are to succeed in school, to develop in a healthy manner, and to thrive. These needs are particularly great for children who are vulnerable, namely those who struggle with trauma, the adversities of poverty, and the challenges of racism, ethnocentrism, religious prejudice, and disability. Although disruptive encounters where students feel unsafe may evoke learning for some students, others succumb to them, whether due to genetic based sensitivity (Belsky & Pleuss, 2009), allostatic load (McEwen, 1998), or lack of social support (Masten, 2014). Schools can keep students safe by providing a supportive, respectful, and a caring environment, where students are both secure from physical harm and emotional toxicities (such as bullying, and prejudice), and nourished by community connections to caring teachers and students (Osher, Dwyer, Jimerson & Brown, 2012; Osher, Woodruff & Sims, 2002; Shonkoff, Garner, The Committee on psycho...
This new conceptualization of youth success draws from more than 180 sources and makes an argumen... more This new conceptualization of youth success draws from more than 180 sources and makes an argument for new definitions to propel practice and policy that addresses educational and racial equity. The paper:Introduces a formula and a rationale for addressing thriving, equity, and learning and development together that helps us better focus on actionable social factors;Summarizes prevailing definitions of thriving, equity, and learning and development (and related terms);Takes a deeper dive into the dimensions that contribute to individual and collective thriving;Offers powerful and aligned conceptualizations of thriving, equity, and learning and development;Describes the opportunities and conditions required to ensure that efforts to create "equitable educational outcomes" or "equitable learning and development opportunities" are as powerful and inclusive as possible
Abstract A focus on intraindividual change and person-specific pathways is a necessary starting p... more Abstract A focus on intraindividual change and person-specific pathways is a necessary starting point for developmental science inquiries. However, research often relies on ergodicity-based assumptions about group averages and other variable-centered approaches. Using ideas associated with relational developmental systems metatheory, such as the Bornstein Specificity Principle, we re-examine the ergodicity assumption using Executive Functioning (EF) data from the Measures and Methods Across the Developmental Continuum Project. Participants from Grades 4 to 12 (M age = 14.60) completed three behavioral EF tasks (i.e., working memory, response inhibition, and cognitive flexibility). The final analytic sample included 64 participants who provided data on 30 measurement occasions. Intraindividual and interindividual EF latent constructs appeared to be different, and we identified a wide range of person-specific EF trajectories. These findings challenge the ergodicity assumption framing variable- and group-oriented approaches to individual development. This study demonstrates the feasibility of collecting intensive longitudinal data to understand youth development on an individual level as an alternative to immediate data aggregation and as means to illuminate the use of the specificity principle in understanding human development and in applications pertinent to enhancing the lives of diverse youth across specific times and places in their specific developmental pathways.
The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of colo... more The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of color, involves a set of interactions between and among children, youth, their families, school personnel, other service providers, and gatekeepers of outcomes. These interactions contribute to a cycle of negative encounters that can lead to or exacerbate a student’s behavioral and academic problems, disen-gagement from learning, and disconnection from school (McNeely & Falci, 2004). These interactions also contribute to dropout, delin-quency, arrest, and incarceration (D. Osher,
Absolute numbers The actual physical number counted in the population. In terms of disparities, a... more Absolute numbers The actual physical number counted in the population. In terms of disparities, absolute numbers allow measures of difference between subgroups. For example, if 35 students with disabilities are suspended while only six students without a disability designation are suspended, these numbers may suggest a higher rate of suspensions for students with disabilities compared with nondisabled students.
This study tests the efficacy of an intervention--Safe Public Spaces (SPS) -- focused on improvin... more This study tests the efficacy of an intervention--Safe Public Spaces (SPS) -- focused on improving the safety of public spaces in schools, such as hallways, cafeterias, and stairwells. Twenty-four schools with middle grades in a large urban area were recruited for participation and were pair-matched and then assigned to either treatment or control. The study comprises four components: an implementation evaluation, a cost study, an impact study, and a community crime study. Community-crime-study: The community crime study used the arrest of juveniles from the NYPD (New York Police Department) data. The data can be found at (https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/NYPD-Arrests-Data-Historic-/8h9b-rp9u). Data include all arrest for the juvenile crime during the life of the intervention. The 12 matched schools were identified and geo-mapped using Quantum GIS (QGIS) 3.8 software. Block groups in the 2010 US Census in which the schools reside and neighboring block groups were mapped i...
The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of colo... more The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP), which affects a disproportionate number of students of color, involves a set of interactions between and among children, youth, their families, school personnel, other service providers, and gatekeepers of outcomes. These interactions contribute to a cycle of negative encounters that can lead to or exacerbate a student’s behavioral and academic problems, disen-gagement from learning, and disconnection from school (McNeely & Falci, 2004). These interactions also contribute to dropout, delin-quency, arrest, and incarceration (Osher,
The purpose of this study was to investigate within- and between-person associations between slee... more The purpose of this study was to investigate within- and between-person associations between sleep and subsequent goal setting in adolescents. We conducted an intensive repeated measures longitudinal study to assess intra- and interindividual associations between sleep and goal setting and potential moderators of such associations. Thirty-nine seventh through 12th graders reported on their sleep quality and propensity to set goals in their daily lives several times per week for approximately four months. We used a combination of multilevel modeling with time-varying covariates and centering techniques to partition within- and between-person variance. We found significant and positive associations between sleep and goal setting within individuals, but no such associations between individuals. That is, students were more likely to set goals for their work after getting a good night’s sleep relative to their own average sleep quality, but getting good sleep on average relative to other...
Core components are the parts, features, attributes, or characteristics of a program that a range... more Core components are the parts, features, attributes, or characteristics of a program that a range of research techniques show influence its success when implemented effectively.1 These core components can serve as the unit of analysis that researchers use to determine “what works,” and they become the areas practitioners and policymakers seek to replicate within and across a range of related programs and systems in order to improve outcomes. Research techniques such as meta-analysis can shed light on which components make programs successful across a range of programs and contexts, and help researchers identify with greater precision what works, in which contexts, and for which populations. This brief explains why it is important to collect and report on a wide range of program characteristics and the kinds of characteristics that should routinely be collected and reported in order to facilitate future meta-analyses that can help the field identify core components of effective progr...
Children and youth need safe and supportive schools if they are to succeed in school, to develop ... more Children and youth need safe and supportive schools if they are to succeed in school, to develop in a healthy manner, and to thrive. These needs are particularly great for children who are vulnerable, namely those who struggle with trauma, the adversities of poverty, and the challenges of racism, ethnocentrism, religious prejudice, and disability. Although disruptive encounters where students feel unsafe may evoke learning for some students, others succumb to them, whether due to genetic based sensitivity (Belsky & Pleuss, 2009), allostatic load (McEwen, 1998), or lack of social support (Masten, 2014). Schools can keep students safe by providing a supportive, respectful, and a caring environment, where students are both secure from physical harm and emotional toxicities (such as bullying, and prejudice), and nourished by community connections to caring teachers and students (Osher, Dwyer, Jimerson & Brown, 2012; Osher, Woodruff & Sims, 2002; Shonkoff, Garner, The Committee on psycho...
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