Representing Development: The social construction of models of change(Cultural Dynamics of Social Representation)

Representing Development presents the different social representations that have formed the idea of development in Western thinking over the past three centuries. Offering an acute perspective on the current state of developmental science and providing constructive insights into future pathways, the book draws together twelve contributors with a variety of multidisciplinary and international perspectives to focus upon development in fields including biology, psychology and sociology. Chapters and commentaries in this volume present a variety of perspectives surrounding social representation and development, addressing their contemporary enactments and reflecting on future theoretical and empirical directions. The first section of the book provides an historical account of early representations of development that, having come from life science, has shaped the way in which developmental science has approached development. Section two focuses upon the contemporary issues of developmental psychology, neuroscience and developmental science at large. The final section offers a series of commentaries pointing to the questions opened by the previous chapters, looking to outline the future lines of developmental thinking. This book will be of particular interest to child psychologists, educational psychologists and sociologists or historians of science, as well as academics and students interested in developmental and life sciences.

Table of Contents:
Introduction - Going Backwards to Move Forward: Understanding the shortcomings of Developmental Science Stefan Hampl, David Carré & Jaan Valsiner Part 1: Emerging Representations of Development Goethe and Werner: From Morphology to Orthogenetic Principle Ulrich Müller & Abigail Graves Making Sense of Self-Completing Wholes: Epistemological travels of Hans Driesch Jaan Valsiner The Need to Bridge Concepts of Development in the Life Sciences Vanessa Lux Part 2: Study of Development in its Move to the Twenty-first Century The Passion of Bob Cairns: Creating Developmental Science Jaan Valsiner The Loss of Piaget as a Symptom: The issue of development in contemporary cognitive psychology Eduardo Mart Neuroscience: Can it Become Developmental? Aaro Toomela Socio-developmental Aspects of Apprenticeship: The Case of Musical Tuition Pablo Rojas Part 3: Representing What is Yet to Happen: Ideas for New Pathways into Developmental Science On the "Ganzheit" and Stratification of the Mind: The Emergence of Heinz Werner’s Developmental Theory Commentary by Martin Wieser Reconsidering Equipotentiality: Agency and the Directions of Development Commentary by Vanessa Lux Observations on Karl and Charlotte Bühler’s Perspective of Development Commentary by Gerhard Benetka The Dangerous Look of Development and Developmental Science Commentary by Jeanette A. Lawrence & Agnes E. Dodds Knowledge in Mind: Piaget's Epistemology Commentary by Leslie Smith Time is of the Essence: From the Estimation of Single Points to the Description of Functions Commentary by Felipe Munoz-Rubke Reprise in Musical Tuition: Hints on the Helical Nature of Development Commentary by David Carré General Conclusion - Representing Development: Pasts, Presents, Futures David Carré, Jaan Valsiner & Stefan Hampl

About the Author :
David Carré is PhD research fellow at the Niels Bohr Professorship Centre for Cultural Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, Aalborg University, Denmark. Jaan Valsiner is Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark. Stefan Hampl is Vice Rector for Teaching and Deputy Head of the Faculty of Psychology, Sigmund Freud University, Austria.