Social and Cognitive Development in the Context of Individual Social, and Cultural Processes

Several recent analyses have focused on how social and cultural factors shape development, but less well understood are the individual constructive processes involved in this interplay. This volume showcases varied theoretical and empirical approaches to how individual, social and cultural factors shape development, and suggests new directions for future scholarship.

Recently, a proliferation of theoretical and empirical scholarship has emerged on how social and cultural factors shape development. This work has provided important information about the multiple goals and pathways of development throughout the world, yet many issues still remain open for continued analysis and refinement. This book addresses how individual, social and cultural factors intersect during development by bringing together an international group of scholars with diverse theoretical perspectives who conduct research in varied cultural contexts. The first section of the book focuses on how wider contexts of development are structured through interactions among individual, social and cultural processes. Specific chapters in this section focus on how the wider cultural context is constituted and enacted by individuals, including children and their caregivers, as they engage in social interactions. This section also includes analyses of how social contexts are dynamically constructed and negotiated as children actively participate in concrete social interactions. The second section of the book focuses on how social interactions and cultural values shape specific aspects of development, including the development of object manipulation, future orientations and self-conceptions. The book ends with an integrative analysis of how infant experiences form the foundations of adult relational self-conceptions. Janette B. Benson, Department of Psychology, University of Denver, USA; Nancy Budwig, Department of Psychology, Clark University, USA; Michael Chandler, Psychology Department, University of Brit