A textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses in Play; also appropriate as a supplement for Child Development and Early Childhood Education courses. With significantly expanded discussions on key topics, this text ties play directly to child development. Addressing the full spectrum of play-related topics, including age-group chapters, its coverage is quite comprehensive and blends research, theory, and practical applications. Play and Child Development, Fourth Edition, is arranged to guide students through topics leading to a comprehensive understanding of play intended to help prepare them for guiding children's play in a number of contexts: preschools, elementary schools, park systems, and research programs. The text is developmentally-based, providing basic information about historical, theoretical, and practical approaches to promoting development through integrated play and learning approaches across various age or developmental levels. The book analyzes play theories and play therapy; presents a history of play; and discusses current play trends. It explores ways to create safe play environments for all children, and how to weave play into school curricula. Finally, the authors examine the role of adults in leading and encouraging children's natural tendencies toward learning by playing. Special coverage includes a full chapter on play and children with disabilities, and the value of field trips in supporting learning.

Stress, Trauma, and Wellbeing in the Legal System presents theory, research, and scholarship from a variety of social scientific disciplines and offers suggestions for those interested in exploring and improving the wellbeing of those who are voluntarily or involuntarily drawn into the legal system.

Timely and authoritative, this unique handbook explores the breadth of current knowledge on temperament, from foundational theory and research to clinical applications. Leaders in the field examine basic temperament traits, assessment methods, and what brain imaging and molecular genetics reveal about temperament's biological underpinnings. The book considers the pivotal role of temperament in parent–child interactions, attachment, peer relationships, and the development of adolescent and adult personality and psychopathology. Innovative psychological and educational interventions that take temperament into account are reviewed. Integrative in scope, the volume features extensive cross-referencing among chapters and a forward-looking summary chapter.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Examines how personality traits shape the behavior of US Supreme Court justices, proposing a new theory of judicial behavior.

"Education is generally seen as enhancing people's lives. However, previous research has reported an inverse relationship between education and happiness or satisfaction with life: as education level goes up, happiness goes down. Using data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), this report examines the relationship between education and happiness. The impact of factors such as family circumstances and personality traits are also considered. The report finds that undertaking vocational qualifications such as an apprenticeship has a positive impact on happiness both during the training period and after completion. For university graduates, however, happiness declines following completion of their study." - NCVER website.

A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Richard A. Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases. When conventional legal materials enable judges to ascertain the true facts of a case and apply clear pre-existing legal rules to them, Posner argues, they do so straightforwardly; that is the domain of legalist reasoning. However, in non-routine cases, the conventional materials run out and judges are on their own, navigating uncharted seas with equipment consisting of experience, emotions, and often unconscious beliefs. In doing so, they take on a legislative role, though one that is confined by internal and external constraints, such as professional ethics, opinions of respected colleagues, and limitations imposed by other branches of government on freewheeling judicial discretion. Occasional legislators, judges are motivated by political considerations in a broad and sometimes a narrow sense of that term. In that open area, most American judges are legal pragmatists. Legal pragmatism is forward-looking and policy-based. It focuses on the consequences of a decision in both the short and the long term, rather than on its antecedent logic. Legal pragmatism so understood is really just a form of ordinary practical reasoning, rather than some special kind of legal reasoning. Supreme Court justices are uniquely free from the constraints on ordinary judges and uniquely tempted to engage in legislative forms of adjudication. More than any other court, the Supreme Court is best understood as a political court.