Social Change And Human Development

Today′s world is characterized by a set of overarching trends that often come under the rubric of social change. In this innovative volume, Rainer K. Silbereisen and Xinyin Chen bring together, for the first time, international experts in the field to examine how changes in our social world impact on our individual development. Divided into four parts, the book explores the major socio-political and technological changes that have taken place around the world - from post- from the rapid upheavals in 1990s Europe to the gradual changes in parts of East Asia - and explains how these developments interplay with human development across the lifespan. Human Development and Social Change is a useful resource for students and researchers involved in all areas of human development, including developmental psychology, sociology and education.

This book makes the case for a critical turn in development thinking around universities and their contributions in making a more equal post-2015 world. It puts forward a normative approach based on human development and the capability approach, one which can gain a hearing from policy, scholarship, and practitioners dealing with practical issues of understanding policy, democratising research and knowledge, and fostering student learning - all key university functions. The book argues that such an approach can elucidate development debates drawing on local, national and international issues and examples to show why higher education matters for sustainable development goals both in educational and social terms. It advocates a new arena of engagement with universities as key sites of development and freedoms beyond human capital and challenges development omissions and gaps around university education. The book explores how the human development approach addresses the following core ideas: the meaning of well-being, the idea of agency, participation and democratic citizenship, how to address inequalities, the relation between local and global, and the idea of equitable partnerships. This book is addressed to researchers and postgraduate students in development studies, university education, the capability approach and human development community.

Reforming Social Policy: Changing Perspectives in Sustainable Human Development

Today's world is characterized by a set of overarching trends that often come under the rubric of social change. In this innovative volume, Rainer K. Silbereisen and Xinyin Chen bring together, for the first time, international experts in the field to examine how changes in our social world impact on our individual development. Divided into four parts, the book explores the major socio-political and technological changes that have taken place around the world - from post- from the rapid upheavals in 1990s Europe to the gradual changes in parts of East Asia - and explains how these developments interplay with human development across the lifespan. Human Development and Social Change is a useful resource for students and researchers involved in all areas of human development, including developmental psychology, sociology and education.

The author argues that current development thinking uses only a narrow range of approaches to change and the result is that most development strategies are limited; excessively reformist and insensitive to underlying power and inequality and largely ignore environmental issues that confront our societies and planet..

This book presents a revised version of modernisation theory.

As intercultural encounters between people in the modern world become more common, important questions have been raised about the nature of culture-specific differences and similarities. Focusing on the relationship between culture and human development, this timely book offers an interdisciplinary exploration of key developmental processes. It combines psychological and sociological approaches with cross-cultural research to examine phenomena such as the transfer of culture between generations and the universality of attachment theory. Drawing on detailed research from a range of cultural groups, leading international researchers consider the impact of social change and modernization on the development of the individual and at the societal level. Theoretical and methodological issues are presented in terms of how to apply the results of cross-cultural research as well as recent empirical research done in specialized areas of the field. Finally, short-term intercultural exchanges are examined and used to suggest some of the potential practical uses of cross-cultural research for the future. This book will be essential reading for anyone studying or researching in cultural psychology, cross-cultural psychology, acculturation or behavioral development. It will also prove an invaluable source of information for anyone interested in sociology and the social sciences in general.

Secular contemporary development discourse deals with the problems of societal development and transformation by prioritizing the human good in terms of vital and social values with the aim of providing the basic necessities of life through social institutions that work. While such an approach is profitable by promoting economic growth, it does not take note of other dynamics of social progress and development. Also, it fails to notice the consequences of development strategies on human flourishing, well-being, and happiness. Ogbonnayu argues for an integral approach to development by engaging in a fruitful dialogue between Bernard Lonergan's philosophical anthropology with contemporary development discourse, as represented in select theories of development, and in select principles of Catholic social teaching. It makes a case for social progress and transformation as emanating from human understanding. Also, it highlights the parts of Lonergan's theory that contribute to an understanding, specifically of his treatment of bias, and of the shorter and longer cycles of societal decline. In view of the reality of moral impotence and limitations, it considers the reversal of societal decline as possible through the supernatural solution of God's grace.