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Introduction Extensive research on positive youth development (PYD) has emphasized strengths-based assets that support youths' capacity to thrive, often operationalized through the 5Cs—competence, confidence, character, caring, and connection. Grounded in its commitment to promoting thriving among all youth, including those experiencing complex adversity, PYD underscores the importance of centering the experiences of racially and ethnically marginalized youth within the dynamic systems that shape their development. Methods This study presents three case studies that broaden the scope of strengths-based assets among youth of color, drawing on PYD to illuminate the processes through which culturally grounded assets emerge through dynamic and reciprocal relations between youth and their ecological contexts to foster positive development. Results Case Study 1 identifies profiles of sociopolitical thriving among rural African American youth and examines their associations with internalized racial oppression and parental socialization processes. Case Study 2 evaluates the measurement validity of the digital flourishing scale for adolescents (DFS-A) across groups of Latine middle school youth. Case Study 3 uses reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with Black adolescents experiencing mental health concerns to examine self-identified sociocultural resilience processes. Conclusion Collectively, these case studies demonstrate how culturally grounded, contextually embedded, and developmentally aligned assets—sociopolitical thriving, digital flourishing, and sociocultural resilience—reflect distinct yet interconnected pathways that emerge through ongoing, reciprocal interactions between youth and their environments, extending traditional PYD frameworks and capturing diverse ways youth of color thrive despite systemic adversity.
Gonçalves et al. (Fri,) studied this question.