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.
What is the unique mission of developmental psychology? How has it evolved historically? What are its current challenges? The chapters in this collection present the view that research, history and policy are essential and interlocking components of a mature developmental psychology. Patterns of human development differ markedly across historical epochs, cultures and social circumstances. Major societal changes examined by contributing authors - the advent of universal compulsory schooling, the adoption of a one-child policy in China, US policy shifts in healthcare, welfare and childcare - present 'natural experiments' in social design. Authors challenge the idea of a clear distinction between basic and applied developmental research. In sharp contrast with the view that science is value-neutral, developmental psychologists have from the outset pursued the betterment of children and families through educational, childcare and health initiatives. An historical perspective reveals the beneficial, if sometimes contentious, interplay between empirical research and social programs and policies.
In recent times there has been growing interest in positive psychology as evidenced by the swell in positive psychology graduate programs, undergraduate courses, journals related to the topic, popular book titles on the topic and scholarly publications. Within the positive psychology community there has been an increased emphasis on the socially beneficial side of positive psychological science. At the First World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association there was a major push to look at positive psychology as a social change mechanism. This volume will bring together thoughts of leaders in positive psychology from 8 countries to capitalize on the push toward social change and flourishing. By releasing this title at a critical time Springer has the opportunity to help frame the agenda for positive psychology as a force for social change. This seminal work is meant for anyone interested in happiness, strengths, flourishing or positive institutions It introduces Positive Psychology as an unapplied science that can be used to create positive social transformation and enabling institutions. This is a must-have title for academics, especially psychologists, sociologists, economists, and professionals working in the field of Positive Psychology and Well-Being.
In this comprehensive overview, readers will gain a better understanding of the various theories, perspectives, and research that characterize contemporary themes in child development. The book uses a contextual approach to examine the biological, cognitive, social, and emotional foundations of child development. Special attention is paid throughout to the contexts in which development occurs, including families and the larger culture, and how these intersect with our changing society.
This book attempts to show how motives, emotions, psychological defenses, and unconscious mental processes affects social change. Using the constructs of psychology, sociology and anthropology, the author builds a conceptual bridge between the individual and small groups, and social processes. Several significant dimensions of social change are analyzed, including the emergences of new insights on the part of the individual, changes in social roles and social controls, organizational change, and new trends in art and religion.
This book brings together social sciencists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics, language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social transitions to capitalism, among others contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal change.
Principles of Social Change is written for those who are impassioned and driven by social justice issues in their communities and seek practical solutions to successfully address them. Leonard A. Jason, a leading community psychologist, demonstrates how social change can be accomplished and fostered by observing five key principles.
Greene's approach places primary importance on temporality itself and on the competing discourses on time, age and development which play an active role in the construction of the lives of girls and women. Essential but often neglected insights from the more compelling developmental and feminist theories are woven together within a theoretical framework that emphasizes temporaltiy, emergence, and human agency. The result is a liberating theory of women's psychological development as constantly emerging and changing in time rather that as static and fixed by their nature, socio-cultural context and personal history.
What is childhood and why, and how, did psychology come to be the arbiter of 'correct'or 'normal' development? How do actual lived childhoods connect with theories about child development? In this completely revised and updated edition, Deconstructing Developmental Psychology interrogates the assumptions and practices surrounding the psychology of child development, providing a critical evaluation of the role and contribution of developmental psychology within social practice. In the decade since the first edition was published, there have been many major changes. The role accorded childcare experts and the power of the 'psy complex' have, if anything, intensified. This book addresses how shifts in advanced capitalism have produced new understandings of children, and a new (and more punitive) range of institutional responses to children. It engages with the paradoxes of childhood in an era when young adults are increasingly economically dependent on their families, and in a political context of heightened insecurity. The new edition includes an updated review of developments in psychological theory (in attachment, evolutionary psychology, theory of mind, cultural-historical approaches), as well as updating and reflecting upon the changed focus on fathers and fathering. It offers new perspectives on the connections between Piaget and Vygotsky and now connects much more closely with discussions from the sociology of childhood and critical educational research. Coverage has been expanded to include more material on child rights debates, and a new chapter addresses practice dilemmas around child protection, which engages even more with the "raced" and gendered effects of current policies involving children. This engaging and accessible text provides key resources to inform better professional practice in social work, education and health contexts. It offers critical insights into the politics and procedures that have shaped developmental psychological knowledge. It will be essential reading for anyone working with children, or concerned with policies around children and families. It was also be of interest to students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across a range of professional and practitioner groups, as well as parents and policy makers.
