For more than a decade, many researchers and practitioners have endorsed a "positive youth development" approach, which views adolescents as active contributors to their own development and as assets to their communities. As part of this shift, youth are increasingly being invited to engage in community governance. In youth organizations, schools, community organizations, and public policy arenas, youth are making strong contributions to advisory boards and planning councils, and are integrally involved in key day-to-day functions such as program design, budgeting, outreach, public relations, training, and evaluation. State and local policy-makers are also beginning to endorse the engagement of youth in community governance. This policy endorsement, however, has largely occurred independent of scholarship on adolescent development. In this "Social Policy Report," the authors' aim is to help bridge this gap. They discuss the cultural context for youth engagement, theoretical rationales and innovative models, empirical evidence, and priorities for policy and research. Commentaries included in this issue include: (1) Creating Structural Change to Support Youth Engagement (Wendy Wheeler); (2) Age Segregation and the Rights of Children (Felton Earls); and (3) Making the Point: The Future of Research on Youth Participation (Richard M. Lerner and Sarah M. Hertzog).