Child Development: Theories and Critical Perspectives
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CHILD DEVELOPMENT: THEORIES AND CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES Child Development: Theories and Critical Perspectives provides an engaging and perceptive overview of both well-established and recent theories in child and adolescent psychology. This unique summary of traditional scientific perspectives alongside critical postmodern thinking will provide readers with a sense of the historical development of different schools of thought. The authors also place theories of child development in philosophical and cultural contexts, explore links between them, and consider the implications of theory for practice in the light of the latest thinking and developments in implementation and translational science. Early chapters cover mainstream theories such as those of Jean Piaget, B.F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, Eleanor Maccoby and Lev Vygotsky, while later chapters present interesting lesser-known theorists such as Sergei Rubinstein, and more recent influential theorists such as Esther Thelen. The book also addresses lifespan perspectives and systems theory, and describes the latest thinking in areas ranging from evolutionary theory and epigenetics, to feminism, the voice of the child and Indigenous theories. The new edition has been extensively revised to include considerable recent advances in the field. As with the previous edition, the book has been written with the student in mind, and includes a number of useful pedagogical features including a glossary, discussion questions, activities and websites of interest. Child Development: Theories and Critical Perspectives will be essential reading for students on advanced courses in developmental psychology, education, social work and social policy, and the lucid style will also make it accessible to readers with little or no background in psychology. Rosalyn H. Shute is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, and Federation University, Ballarat, Australia. Her research expertise lies broadly in clinical child psychology and paediatric psychology/child health and wellbeing, and she is an experienced teacher of developmental psychology and clinical child/paediatric psychology. Phillip T. Slee is a Professor in Human Development in the School of Education at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. He is a trained teacher and registered psychologist. His main areas of interest include childhood bullying/aggression, conduct disorders, stress and teacher education, and he has a particular interest in the practical and policy implications of his research. International Texts in Developmental Psychology Series editor: Peter K. Smith, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. This volume is one of a rapidly developing series in International Texts in Develop- mental Psychology, published by Routledge. The books in this series are selected to be state-of-the-art, high level introductions to major topic areas in develop- mental psychology. The series conceives of developmental psychology in broad terms and covers such areas as social development, cognitive development, develop- mental neuropsychology and neuroscience, language development, learning difficulties, developmental psychopathology and applied issues. Each volume is written by a specialist (or specialists), combining empirical data and a synthesis of recent global research to deliver cutting-edge science in a format accessible to students and researchers alike. The books may be used as textbooks that match on to upper level developmental psychology modules, but many will also have cross-disciplinary appeal. Each volume in the series is published in hardback, paperback and eBook formats. More information about the series is available on the official website at: http://www.psypress.com/books/series/DEVP, including details of all the titles published to date. Published Titles The Child at School: Interactions with Peers and Teachers, 2nd edition By Peter Blatchford, Anthony D. Pellegrini, Ed Baines Aging and Development: Social and Emotional Perspectives, 2nd edition By Peter Coleman, Ann O’Hanlon Childhood Friendships and Peer Relations: Friends and Enemies, 2nd edition By Barry Schneider Children’s Literacy Development: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Learning to Read and Write, 2nd edition By Catherine McBride-Chang Child Development: Theories and Critical Perspectives, 2nd edition By Rosalyn H. Shute and Phillip T. Slee CHILD DEVELOPMENT: THEORIES AND CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES Second edition Rosalyn H. Shute and Phillip T. Slee First published 2015 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Rosalyn H. Shute and Phillip T. Slee The right of Rosalyn H. Shute and Phillip T. Slee to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Hodder Education 2003 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-84872-451-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-84872-452-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-76798-7 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton CONTENTS List of figures, tables and boxes vii Preface ix 1 Ways of knowing about development 1 2 From Darwin to DNA: biologically based theories of development 28 3 A rainbow is more than the sum of its colours: beginnings of organicism 52 4 The child as philosopher 68 5 From Oedipus to attachment: the Freudian legacy 89 6 Mechanism: the whole is equal to the sum of its parts 107 7 Dialecticism: the child developing in a social world 126 8 The historic event: contextualism 142 9 Sociocultural influences on development 157 10 Systems theories 176 vi Contents 11 Listening to different voices 1: feminism and developmental psychology 192 12 Listening to different voices 2: the voices of children 212 13 Putting it all together: towards theoretical integration 224 14 The theory-practice nexus 246 Student resources 269 Some historical milestones relevant for developmental psychology 269 Discussion questions, activities and selected websites 272 Glossary 280 Index 284 FIGURES, TABLES AND BOXES Figures 1.1 ‘Images’ of children as influenced by history, culture and the philosophy of science 17 3.1 The visual illusion of the Ames room 55 6.1 A simplified model of information processing 121 9.1 Maori model of human development 170 14.1 A quality assurance process 257 14.2 The seven-step model of KidsMatter quality assurance 261 Tables 2.1 Evolutionary developmental theory: evolved domains of mind 36 8.1 Erikson’s psychosocial stages 152 14.1 Attributes of Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge production 250 Boxes 1.1 Children and punishment 8 1.2 Can babies learn language before birth? 13 1.3 Children and moral panic 20 2.1 The Elephant’s Child 33 2.2 The Grandmother Hypothesis 35 2.3 Perry’s theory of early trauma and brain development 42 2.4 ADHD: two views of the social context of biological explanations 47 3.1 The child’s search for meaning in stories 56 3.2 Adolescent storm and stress – myth or fact? 59 viii Figures, tables and boxes 4.1 Hole-in-the-wall computers: children teaching themselves 71 4.2 Bullying and theory of mind (ToM) 77 4.3 Risky Internet use by young adolescents: cognitive and psychosocial explanations 83 5.1 Catherine Helen Spence (1825–1910), attachment pioneer 95 5.2 Did Bowlby’s ideas anticipate Vygotskian theory? 97 6.1 The mother of Mencius: a story in the Confucian tradition 112 6.2 Watson takes aim at Freud and introspectionism 113 6.3 Parenting Skinner style 116 7.1 Vygotsky and the relationship between thought, word and action 130 7.2 Scaffolding and ‘educational’ software for pre-schoolers 133 8.1 Parental beliefs about child development: the root metaphor of contextualism 143 8.2 Can teachers figure out the functions of problematic classroom behaviour? 146 8.3 Emerging adulthood 153 9.1 Learning from elders 159 9.2 Is a ‘pure’ Indigenous psychology possible? A Latin American example 167 9.3 The five ‘worlds’ of Aboriginal adolescents: culture and cognition creating each other 169 10.1 The application of systems thinking to school bullying 181 10.2 Twenty-first-century challenges for developmental psychology 188 11.1 Did the Space Race influence developmental psychology? 197 11.2 The prenatal brain and neurosexism 198 12.1 A note of caution about children as co-researchers 218 12.2 ‘Malala Yousafzai’s well sick, innit?’ 219 12.3 A child researcher’s reflections 220 13.1 Aesop’s fable of mutual interdependence 225 13.2 How should we respond to non-traditional theoretical approaches? 240 13.3 Holism in Indian thought 241 14.1 Applying psychology in the Majority World 248 14.2 Theory into practice: children’s social skills 252 PREFACE Our intention in this second edition of our 2003 book is to advance thinking about theories of children’s psychological development still further. Some theorists take a lifespan perspective, others a shorter-term one, while still others maintain that we are too concerned with children’s ‘becoming’, to the neglect of their ‘being’. Although theories are the main focus, their contribution to policy and practice is certainly not neglected. As well as being academic psychologists, we have strong professional interests. Phillip, a registered psychologist with a background in teaching, educates student teachers and has produced internationally utilized materials to address school bullying and young people’s mental health.