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the building of stronger contexts, or what developmentalists call more effect- ive scaffolding (Nakkula & Toshalis, 2006 Vygotsky, 1978). The distinction between possibility and opportunity development, however, is not only a matter of internal growth versus external support. People internalize support, including the early care of parents and other caregivers youth internalize supportive aspects of relationships with peers and caring adults. As such, external supports become part of peo- ple’s internal working models of human relationships that is, external care becomes part of one’s internal experience of oneself. Something similar can be said of concrete support structures such as access to education and meaningful work, or contexts of safety and security in one’s school and neighborhood. These phenomena, too, become internalized and help shape individual expectations, including hopes and fears. In other words, the external world becomes part of one’s internal realities through the translation of support and barriers into psychological experiences of per- spectives, ideas, and visceral feelings of what is possible. Because possibility and opportunity development bear such strong interconnections, we sometimes use them interchangeably. In fact, there are times when the two constructs seem equally appropriate in capturing a moment. When students feel more secure about their prospects because of improvements in their schools, for instance, is this an example of pos- sibility development or opportunity development? Their sense of oppor- tunity has been enhanced by the school improvements—they see the opportunity for better education and a better life, but they may also feel a broader sense of possibility development because the world now seems open and accessible in a different way. We would call this possibility development. Perhaps it is best to view the two constructs in terms of a Venn diagram or overlapping circles. Pure opportunity development is purely external support pure possibility development is firmly internal- ized or established psychological experience the overlap captures the work of internalizing current opportunity structures, which then com- bine with one’s sense of possibility. Inventing the Future: From Prevention to Invention My work in the area of possibility development began in the mid-1990s when I helped develop a federally funded prevention program aimed at reducing high school dropout rates and the contributions to them, such as school disengagement, excessive substance use, and fighting and other forms of aggressive behavior. I quickly became aware that the youth with Conceptual Introduction 5