This textbook offers a unique insight into the theoretical and applied aspects of human development in relation to the cultural traditions of non-Western countries. Presented in a modular form, this comprehensive and thematic approach to lifespan development will help students develop an understanding of human development in varied Indian social contexts. Covering all stages of development including the development of self and personality, social understanding, human strengths, sustainable development, lifelong learning, and many more, the book highlights current research in these areas as well as provides learning objectives, points for reflection, web links, and a glossary. This book is an essential reading for undergraduate students of psychology, human development, and allied fields, as well as for postgraduates with an interest in studying human development in a non-Western context.

The final volume in this significant series, this publication mirrors the broad scientific attention given to ideas and issues associated with the life-span perspective: constancy and change in human development; opportunities for and constraints on plasticity in structure and function across life; the potential for intervention across the entire life course (and thus for the creation of an applied developmental science); individual differences (diversity) in life paths, in contexts (or the ecology) of human development, and in changing relations between people and contexts; interconnections and discontinuities across age levels and developmental periods; and the importance of integrating biological, psychological, social, cultural, and historical levels of organization in order to understand human development.

Here is a book that challenges the very basis of the way psychologists have studied child development. According to Urie Bronfenbrenner, one of the world's foremost developmental psychologists, laboratory studies of the child's behavior sacrifice too much in order to gain experimental control and analytic rigor. Laboratory observations, he argues, too often lead to "the science of the strange behavior of children in strange situations with strange adults for the briefest possible periods of time." To understand the way children actually develop, Bronfenbrenner believes that it will be necessary to observe their behavior in natural settings, while they are interacting with familiar adults over prolonged periods of time. This book offers an important blueprint for constructing such a new and ecologically valid psychology of development. The blueprint includes a complete conceptual framework for analysing the layers of the environment that have a formative influence on the child. This framework is applied to a variety of settings in which children commonly develop, ranging from the pediatric ward to daycare, school, and various family configurations. The result is a rich set of hypotheses about the developmental consequences of various types of environments. Where current research bears on these hypotheses, Bronfenbrenner marshals the data to show how an ecological theory can be tested. Where no relevant data exist, he suggests new and interesting ecological experiments that might be undertaken to resolve current unknowns. Bronfenbrenner's groundbreaking program for reform in developmental psychology is certain to be controversial. His argument flies in the face of standard psychological procedures and challenges psychology to become more relevant to the ways in which children actually develop. It is a challenge psychology can ill-afford to ignore.

This book address fundamental questions of human development, revisiting old questions and applying original empirical findings.

The Encyclopedia of Adolescence breaks new ground as an important central resource for the study of adolescence. Comprehensive in breath and textbook in depth, the Encyclopedia of Adolescence – with entries presented in easy-to-access A to Z format – serves as a reference repository of knowledge in the field as well as a frequently updated conduit of new knowledge long before such information trickles down from research to standard textbooks. By making full use of Springer’s print and online flexibility, the Encyclopedia is at the forefront of efforts to advance the field by pushing and creating new boundaries and areas of study that further our understanding of adolescents and their place in society. Substantively, the Encyclopedia draws from four major areas of research relating to adolescence. The first broad area includes research relating to "Self, Identity and Development in Adolescence". This area covers research relating to identity, from early adolescence through emerging adulthood; basic aspects of development (e.g., biological, cognitive, social); and foundational developmental theories. In addition, this area focuses on various types of identity: gender, sexual, civic, moral, political, racial, spiritual, religious, and so forth. The second broad area centers on "Adolescents’ Social and Personal Relationships". This area of research examines the nature and influence of a variety of important relationships, including family, peer, friends, sexual and romantic as well as significant nonparental adults. The third area examines "Adolescents in Social Institutions". This area of research centers on the influence and nature of important institutions that serve as the socializing contexts for adolescents. These major institutions include schools, religious groups, justice systems, medical fields, cultural contexts, media, legal systems, economic structures, and youth organizations. "Adolescent Mental Health" constitutes the last major area of research. This broad area of research focuses on the wide variety of human thoughts, actions, and behaviors relating to mental health, from psychopathology to thriving. Major topic examples include deviance, violence, crime, pathology (DSM), normalcy, risk, victimization, disabilities, flow, and positive youth development.

Applying an evolutionary framework to advance the understanding of child development, this volume brings together leading figures to contribute chapters in their areas of expertise. Researcher- and student-friendly chapters adhere to a common format.

Despite the fact that most people become parents and everyone who has ever lived has had parents, parenting remains a mystifying subject about which almost everyone has opinions, but about which few people agree. Striking permutations on the theme of parenting are emerging--single parenthood, blended families, lesbian and gay parents, and teen versus fifties first-time moms and dads. Divided into four volumes, the Handbook of Parenting is concerned with different types of parents, basic characteristics of parenting, forces that shape parenting, problems faced by parents, and the practical sides of parenting. Contributors have worked in different ways toward understanding all of these diverse aspects of parenting and look to the most recent research and thinking in the field to shed light on many topics every parent has wondered about. Because development is too subtle, dynamic, and intricate to admit that parental caregiving alone determines the course and outcome of ontogeny, volume 1 concerns how children influence parenting. Volume 2 relates parenting to its biological roots and sets parenting in its ecological framework. Volume 3 distinguishes among the cast of characters responsible for parenting and is revealing of the psychological make-ups and social interests of those individuals. Volume 4 describes problems of parenting as well as the promotion of positive parenting practices. Written to be read and absorbed in a single sitting, each chapter addresses a different but central topic in parenting, and is rooted in current thinking and theory as well as classic and modern research on that topic. All chapters follow a standard organization including an introduction to the chapter as a whole followed by historical considerations of the topic, a discussion of central issues and theory, a review of classic and modern research, forecasts of future directions for theory and research, and a conclusion. In addition to considering their own convictions and research, the chapter contributors present and broadly interpret all major points of view and central lines of inquiry.