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In this article, we articulate an innovative framework, <i>manywheres</i>, and argue that it can advance the work of fostering youth-led change and progressive world-making. We first root psychological and development science in an applied framework of developing more just, harmonious, and tolerant social worlds. Then, we introduce <i>manywheres</i>, a guiding framework of propositions of attending to the complexity and nuance of meaning-making across individuals without becoming lost in nihilism, relativism, or ethnocentric views of social justice. This leads to the construction of a more holistic developmental lens considering the age-related, contextual, and internal factors that shape meaning-making individual trajectories and societal outcomes. <i>Manywheres</i> can thus structure thinking and research with an end goal of understanding the diversity of young people's engagement, activism, and disconnection. We end with mapping a research agenda applying these ideals, incorporating the methodological approaches that can be taken, concrete examples, and implications that can be applied to salient social issues.

A review essay on books by (1) Lisa Anderson, Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Columbia U Press, 2003); (2) David L. Featherman & Maris A. Vinovskis (Eds), Social Science and Policy-Making: A Search for Relevance in the Twentieth Century (Ann Arbor: U Michigan Press, 2001); (3) Peter Szanton, Not Well Advised: The City as Client -- An Illuminating Analysis of Urban Governments and Their Consultants (San Jose, CA: Authors Choice Press, 2001).