Cogent Education

Exploring Place in Youth Development Theory and Practice

Positive youth development (PYD) programs engage youth in their local communities and are inherently place-based. Yet “place” as a theoretical construct is largely absent from dominant positive youth development frameworks, such as the Thrive Model or the 6 Cs. This absence does not mean, however, that PYD researchers and practitioners fail to consider place, both in terms of how their programming might shape place (i.e., youth art and environmental restoration projects) and how place shapes youth’s experiences and outcomes.

For this Article Collection, we seek articles that highlight ways in which places serve as important learning sites for PYD and that explicitly research place as part of learning and development ecologies. Our guest editor team includes two scholars with professional backgrounds in environmental and formal education, and a scholar-practitioner working in a PYD program.

Theoretical constructs such as critical pedagogy of place, critical PYD, and land education are important lenses through which to investigate the intersections of place and PYD. Critical place-based pedagogies address the power structures embedded in places, incorporating decolonization and reinhabitation as methods of empowerment and resistance.  Land-based education builds on critical pedagogies of place by incorporating indigenous ways of knowing and critiques of settler colonialism. Positive youth development views youth as change-agents in their own lives and in their communities, while Critical PYD approaches acknowledge the role power and oppression play in youth lives. Critical PYD programs seek to equip youth with resources needed to build positive futures while addressing the injustices that impact their lives and communities.

This Article Collection seeks to demonstrate the breadth and depth of place-based PYD research across disciplines such as youth geographies, critical youth studies, youth development, land studies, environmental education, environmental and community psychology, and environmental and community sociology. We welcome papers that draw from research across diverse education venues, including formal and informal education, in-school programs, and out-of-school programs. We are interested in papers that foreground engaged and participatory action research methods as well as those that are purely theoretical or employ more quantitative, survey-based methods.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member). Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

Please contact Kristen Brida at [email protected] with any queries and discount codes regarding this Article Collection.

Please be sure to select the appropriate Article Collection from the drop-down menu in the submission system. Please select Sociology of Education from the list of available sections during submission. Failure to select the appropriate Article Collection or Section name can result in delays.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 30 June 2026.

Keywords

1. Place
2. Critical positive youth development
3. Land education
4. Critical pedagogies of place
5. Learning ecologies

About the Guest Advisors

Anne K. Armstrong is an Assistant Professor of Human Geography at Worcester State University in Worcester, MA, where she teaches courses in science education, human geography, environmental stewardship, and global environmental change. Currently, Anne's research focuses on attitudes toward native plants in Massachusetts and the outcomes of youth participation in urban environmental action.

Institutional page

Marijke Hecht is a learning scientist with interests in urban environmental education and learning ecosystems. She uses design-based research to explore questions of how experiences across home, school, and informal spaces (e.g., parks, museums) support environmental interest and identity development throughout the lifespan. Hecht is particularly interested in how relationships between human beings and more-than-human beings (e.g., plants, animals, water, etc.) impact learning. Research projects are typically developed collaboratively with youth, educators, and community partners through research-practice partnerships.

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Jesse Delia manages the High School’s Environmental Leadership Program, whose work is rooted in the principle that all students have the power to be leaders of social and environmental change. Jesse works with teachers to develop and facilitate project-based work into our curriculum, incorporating real world content from our farm, site, and city. She started at Common Ground in the Fall of 2012 as an environmental educator in children’s programs, and also previously worked as the Community Programs and Outreach Manager, offering weekend programs for children, families, and adults as well as outreach programs at libraries and community centers.

Institutional page

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

The Guest Advisors do not have any Conflicts of Interest to disclose.