Development In Context

In this volume leading developmentalists address the question of how children's thinking develops in context by drawing on the theories of Vygotsky, Gibson, and Piaget. Analyses of the ecology and the dynamics of behavior have become popular, emphasizing the particulars of people acting in specific environments and the many complex factors of human body and mind that contribute to action and thought. This volume brings together many of the current efforts to deal with development in this richly ecological, dynamic way. The research reported demonstrates that recent years have produced major shifts in approach. Activities are studied as they naturally occur in everyday contexts. Children's active construction of the world around them is treated as fundamentally social in nature, occurring in families, with peers, and in cultures. Behavior is studied not as something disembodied but within a rich matrix of body, emotion, belief, value, and physical world. Behavior is analyzed as changing dynamically, not only over seconds and minutes, but over hours, days, and years.

Lifespan Development in Context corresponds to the organization of most lifespan development and developmental psychology textbooks, beginning with issues involving birth and infancy, continuing with childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and concluding with issues concerning dying and death. Each chapter contains 4-6 personal narratives, and each narrative covers a different concept, issue, or topic within a given age period.

Theory of Mind Development in Context is the first book of its kind to explore how children’s environments shape their theory of mind and, in turn, their ability to interact effectively with others. Based on world-leading research, and inspired by the ground-breaking work of Candida Peterson, the original collected chapters demonstrate that children’s understanding of other people is shaped by their everyday environment. Specifically, the chapters illustrate how theory of mind development varies with broad cultural context, socioeconomic status, institutional versus home rearing, family size, parental communication style, and aspects of schooling. The volume also features research showing that, by virtue of their condition, children who are deaf or who have an autism spectrum disorder function in environments that differ from those of typical children and this in turn influences their theory of mind. Although much important research has emphasized the role of nature in theory of mind development, this book highlights that children’s understanding of other people is nurtured through their everyday experiences and interactions. This perspective is essential for students, researchers, and practitioners to gain a complete understanding of how this fundamental skill develops in humans. The book is invaluable for academic researchers and advanced students in developmental psychology, education, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and the social sciences, as well as practicing psychologists, counselors, and psychiatrists, particularly those who deal with disorders involving social and/or communicative deficits.

Like children themselves, development is dynamic. In the chronologically organized Child and Adolescent Development in Context, award-winning author Tara L. Kuther frames development research in real-life contexts, including gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and more. Kuther presents highly relatable examples, vivid cross-cultural stories, and case studies of real individuals, consistently prompting students to reflect on chapter content with What do you think? questions. The book emphasizes three core themes: the centrality of context, the importance of research, and the applied value of developmental science; students will come away with an understanding of these themes that they will immediately be able to apply to their own lives and future careers. This title is accompanied by a complete teaching and learning package. Digital Option / Courseware SAGE Vantage is an intuitive digital platform that delivers this text’s content and course materials in a learning experience that offers auto-graded assignments and interactive multimedia tools, all carefully designed to ignite student engagement and drive critical thinking. Built with you and your students in mind, it offers simple course set-up and enables students to better prepare for class. Assignable Video with Assessment Assignable video (available with SAGE Vantage) is tied to learning objectives and curated exclusively for this text to bring concepts to life. “/li> LMS Cartridge (formerly known as SAGE Coursepacks): Import this title’s instructor resources into your school’s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Don’t use an LMS? You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site. Teach a course on infants and children? Kuther′s Infants and Children in Context covers ages 0-12 and is available now.

Most contributions to this volume originated as papers given at an inter national conference on Integrative Perspectives on Youth Development held in Berlin (West) in May, 1983. This conference was part of a 6-year longi tudinal research program on the causes of substance use among adolescents in Berlin, which is now in its fourth year. The conference title deliberately did not refer to substance use. However, its relevance to an explanation of drug-related problem behavior was made evident to everyone invited to the conference. The search for integrative perspectives in youth development originated in a dilemma that became obvious during the planning of intensive research on concomitants of substance use. In the methodology for research on youth development, there were two lines of thought that seemed completely unre lated to each other: One line of thought was oriented toward the person, leaving situational aspects aside, while the other concentrated on ecological or situational determinants and thus neglected the aspects of development and internal processes. The integration of both these directions seemed to be an unusually promising approach for any project that aimed to understand changes in the individual within a rapidly changing urban setting. The best way to come closer to a resolution of that dilemma seemed to be an intensive exchange between the American and European scientific communities on this issue.

Traditionally, developmental psychology has its focus on individuals. Developmentalists aim to describe regularities in individuals' change and development across time, to explain the processes and mechanisms that are involved in producing change and regularity, and eventually, to design strategies for optimization and modification of developmental pathways. Although the role of contexts has always been of central concern for these purposes, it is nevertheless quite surprising to note that compared to the effort devoted to individuals, relatively little attention has been paid to the study of the nature and organization of their contexts. This volume is an exploration of the idea that how we describe and explain human development will be closely tied to our understanding of what contexts are, how individuals and contexts become influential for one another, what contexts do to and with individuals, and how contexts and their influences change themselves across time. A major theme is whether the traditional dichotomy between individuals and their contexts may be artificial, perhaps culturally biased, and after psychologists have adhered to it for about a century, may have become an impediment to increasing our understanding of developmental processes. With this volume, the editors contribute a serious consideration of development and systematic change to emerging models of person-context relations, and provide suggestions about how it may be possible to incorporate these notions in developmental research and theorizing.

The purpose of this book is to explore meaningful integrations of developmental processes and functioning with conceptualizations of "context" -- a term traditionally denoting physical settings, social arenas, or perceptual or social backdrops in relation to a focal point. However, the study of context has taken a considerably more unique and vibrant form in recent years -- the term is becoming more than a substitute for background independent variables. Rather, the contributions of context to behavior, thought, feelings -- and vice versa -- are becoming central issues in many research domains. This text is a collection of empirical and theoretical accounts for understanding context; its focus is on integrating the study of context with the science of developmental psychology. Although the authors work in many different areas of the field, and with different populations, they all converge on a central methodological/conceptual theme of contextualism, which is presented as the dynamic integration of intraindividual factors with environmental and social/environmental factors.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.