Department of Youth Research

How do positive and negative developmental outcomes emerge in young people? Which biological, social, and cultural factors, besides psychological ones, result in the fact that they develop towards healthy, engaged, and satisfactory adults, or show behavioural problems and psychological malfunctioning in and beyond adolescence? How do social and cultural change resulting, for instance, from the mega-trends of globalization, migration, and digitalization, impact adolescents’ developmental pathways? How can we influence identified risk and protective factors for positive and negative outcomes by prevention and intervention measures, and, if such measures are effective, how can we implement them in a successful and sustained manner? What groups of adolescents or their developmental contexts thereby deserve particular attention and support?

The team of the Department of Youth Research addresses such questions in their research activities by following the tradition of developmental science and developmental psychopathology under a life span perspective and via the application of a biopsychosocial and cultural sensitive paradigm. Thereby, we are inspired by the premise of an explicit transfer and application of scientific knowledge into practice, especially in school, community and social policy. Finally, we aim at optimizing intervention measures based on a constant exchange with practice.

The age focus of the current studies lies on childhood, adolescence (esp. puberty), and early adulthood.

The Department of Youth Research leads and coordinates the B.A. of Psychology study program associated with the basic education of the students during their first two years of studies. Furthermore, we lead courses in developmental psychopathology for the M.Sc. program „Psychology with Focus on Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy“, and the further education program „Psychological Psychotherapy“ at the University of Jena. All courses apply modern, interactive teaching methods and some of them are offered in English language.