The impulse to investigate the natural world is deeply rooted in our earliest childhood experiences. This notion has long guided researchers to uncover the cognitive mechanisms underlying the development of scientific reasoning in children. Until recently, however, research in cognitive development and education followed largely independent tracks. A major exception to this trend is represented in the multifaceted work of David Klahr. His lifelong effort to integrate a detailed understanding of children's reasoning and skill acquisition with the role of education in influencing and facilitating scientific exploration has been essential to the growth of these fields. In this volume, a diverse group of stellar contributors follow Dr. Klahr's example in examining the practical implications of our insights into cognitive development for children in the classroom. The authors discuss such wide-ranging ideas as the evolution of "folk science" in young children and the mechanisms that underlie mathematical understanding, as well as mental models used by children in classroom activities. The volume's lessons will have profound implications for STEM education, and for the next generation of scientists.

Child and Youth Agency in Science Fiction: Travel, Technology, Time intersects considerations about children’s and youth’s agency with the popular culture genre of science fiction. As scholars in childhood studies and beyond seek to expand understandings of agency in children’s lives, this collection places science fiction at the heart of this endeavor. Retellings of the past, narratives of the present, and new landscapes of the future, each explored in science fiction, allow for creative reimaginings of the capabilities, movements, and agency of youth. Core themes of generation, embodiment, family, identity, belonging, gender, and friendship traverse across the chapters and inform the contributors’ readings of various film, literature, television, and virtual media sources. Here, children and youth are heterogeneous, and agency as a central analytical concept is interrogated through interdisciplinary, intersectional, intergenerational, and posthuman analyses. The contributors argue that there is vast power in science fiction representations of children’s agency to challenge accepted notions of neoliberal agency, enhance understandings of agency in childhood studies, and further contextualize agency in the lives, voices, and cultures of youth.

An examination of the datafication of family life--in particular, the construction of our children into data subjects. Our families are being turned into data, as the digital traces we leave are shared, sold, and commodified. Children are datafied even before birth, with pregnancy apps and social media postings, and then tracked through babyhood with learning apps, smart home devices, and medical records. If we want to understand the emergence of the datafied citizen, Veronica Barassi argues, we should look at the first generation of datafied natives: our children. In Child Data Citizen, she examines the construction of children into data subjects, describing how their personal information is collected, archived, sold, and aggregated into unique profiles that can follow them across a lifetime.

Internationally renowned medical scientist, frequent media contributor, and autism dad Dr. Peter J. Hotez explains why vaccines do not cause autism. In 1994, Peter J. Hotez's nineteen-month-old daughter, Rachel, was diagnosed with autism. Dr. Hotez, a pediatrician-scientist who develops vaccines for neglected tropical diseases affecting the world's poorest people, became troubled by the decades-long rise of the influential anti-vaccine community and its inescapable narrative around childhood vaccines and autism. In Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism, Hotez draws on his experiences as a pediatrician, vaccine scientist, and father of an autistic child. Outlining the arguments on both sides of the debate, he examines the science that refutes the concerns of the anti-vaccine movement, debunks current conspiracy theories alleging a cover-up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and critiques the scientific community's failure to effectively communicate the facts about vaccines and autism to the general public, all while sharing his very personal story of raising a now-adult daughter with autism. A uniquely authoritative account, this important book persuasively provides evidence for the genetic basis of autism and illustrates how the neurodevelopmental pathways of autism are under way before birth. Dr. Hotez reminds readers of the many victories of vaccines over disease while warning about the growing dangers of the anti-vaccine movement, especially in the United States and Europe. Now, with the anti-vaccine movement reenergized in our COVID-19 era, this book is especially timely. Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism is a must-read for parent groups, child advocates, teachers, health-care providers, government policymakers, health and science policy experts, and anyone caring for a family member or friend with autism. "When Peter Hotez—an erudite, highly trained scientist who is a true hero for his work in saving the world's poor and downtrodden—shares his knowledge and clinical insights along with his parental experience, when his beliefs in the value of what he does are put to the test of a life guiding his own child's challenges, then you must pay attention. You should. This book brings to an end the link between autism and vaccination."—from the foreword by Arthur L. Caplan, NYU School of Medicine

A Marginal Revolution Book of the Year After tracking the lives of thousands of people from birth to midlife, four of the world’s preeminent psychologists reveal what they have learned about how humans develop. Does temperament in childhood predict adult personality? What role do parents play in shaping how a child matures? Is day care bad—or good—for children? Does adolescent delinquency forecast a life of crime? Do genes influence success in life? Is health in adulthood shaped by childhood experiences? In search of answers to these and similar questions, four leading psychologists have spent their careers studying thousands of people, observing them as they’ve grown up and grown older. The result is unprecedented insight into what makes each of us who we are. In The Origins of You, Jay Belsky, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffitt, and Richie Poulton share what they have learned about childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, about genes and parenting, and about vulnerability, resilience, and success. The evidence shows that human development is not subject to ironclad laws but instead is a matter of possibilities and probabilities—multiple forces that together determine the direction a life will take. A child’s early years do predict who they will become later in life, but they do so imperfectly. For example, genes and troubled families both play a role in violent male behavior, and, though health and heredity sometimes go hand in hand, childhood adversity and severe bullying in adolescence can affect even physical well-being in midlife. Painstaking and revelatory, the discoveries in The Origins of You promise to help schools, parents, and all people foster well-being and ameliorate or prevent developmental problems.

WINNER OF THE 2023 NSW PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS ‘PATRICIA WRIGHTSON PRIZE FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE’ SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS ‘INDIGENOUS WRITERS' PRIZE’ WINNER OF THE 2022 ABIA ‘BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN’ SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 CBCA 'EVE POWNALL' AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 QUEENSLAND LITERARY AWARDS 'CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD' The First Scientists is the highly anticipated, illustrated science book from Corey Tutt of DeadlyScience. With kids aged 7 to 12 years in mind, this book will nourish readers’ love of science and develop their respect for Indigenous knowledge at the same time. Have you ever wondered what the stars can tell us? Did you know the seasons can be predicted just by looking at subtle changes in nature? Maybe you have wondered about the origins of glue or if forensic science is possible without a crime scene investigation. Australia's First peoples have the longest continuing culture on Earth and their innovation will amaze you as you leaf through the pages of this book, learning fascinating facts and discovering the answers to life's questions. In consultation with communities, Corey tells us of many deadly feats – from bush medicine to bush trackers – that are today considered 'science', and introduces us to many amazing scientists, both past and present. The breadth of ‘sciences’ is incredible with six main chapters covering astronomy, engineering, forensic science, chemistry, land management and ecology. The first scientists passed on the lessons of the land, sea and sky to the future scientists of today through stories, song and dance, and many of these lessons are now shared in this book. Vibrant illustrations by Blak Douglas bring the subjects to life, so you’ll never think about science as just people in lab coats ever again!

The essential reference for human development theory, updated and reconceptualized The Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, a four-volume reference, is the field-defining work to which all others are compared. First published in 1946, and now in its Seventh Edition, the Handbook has long been considered the definitive guide to the field of developmental science. Volume 2: Cognitive Processes describes cognitive development as a relational phenomenon that can be studied only as part of a larger whole of the person and context relational system that sustains it. In this volume, specific domains of cognitive development are contextualized with respect to biological processes and sociocultural contexts. Furthermore, key themes and issues (e.g., the importance of symbolic systems and social understanding) are threaded across multiple chapters, although every each chapter is focused on a different domain within cognitive development. Thus, both within and across chapters, the complexity and interconnectivity of cognitive development are well illuminated. Learn about the inextricable intertwining of perceptual development, motor development, emotional development, and brain development Understand the complexity of cognitive development without misleading simplification, reducing cognitive development to its biological substrates, or viewing it as a passive socialization process Discover how each portion of the developmental process contributes to subsequent cognitive development Examine the multiple processes – such as categorizing, reasoning, thinking, decision making and judgment – that comprise cognition The scholarship within this volume and, as well, across the four volumes of this edition, illustrate that developmental science is in the midst of a very exciting period. There is a paradigm shift that involves increasingly greater understanding of how to describe, explain, and optimize the course of human life for diverse individuals living within diverse contexts. This Handbook is the definitive reference for educators, policy-makers, researchers, students, and practitioners in human development, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and neuroscience.