About the Book
Probing the effects of the social environment upon human development, this volume asks how we can best support the health and well-being of infants and children in an era of rapid economic and technological change. The book presents cogent findings on human development as both an individual and a population phenomenon. Topics covered include links between socioeconomic status, achievement, and health; the impact of early experience upon brain and behavioral development; and how schools and communities can develop new kinds of learning environments to enhance adaptation and foster intellectual growth. Synthesizing developmental, biological, and social perspectives, this volume will appeal to a broad interdisciplinary audience.
Table of Contents:
I. Developmental Health
1. Modernity's Paradox, Keating and Hertzman
2. Population Health and Human Development, Hertzman
3. Health, Well-Being, and Coping Skills, Power and Hertzman
4. When Children's Social Development Fails, Tremblay
5. Quality and Inequality in Children's Literacy: The Effects of Families, Schools, and Communities, Willms
6. Are Socioeconomic Gradients for Children Similar to Those for Adults? Achievement and Health of Children in the United States, Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, and Rebello Britto
7. Socioeconomic Gradients in Mathematical Ability and Their Responsiveness to Intervention during Early Childhood, Case and Griffin
II. Fundamental Processes: Biology and Development
8. Mechanisms of Brain Development: Sculpting by the Physical and Social Environment, Cynader and Frost
9. Developmental Trajectories, Early Experiences, and Community Consequences: Lessons from Studies with Rhesus Monkeys, Suomi
10. Psychosocial Processes and Psychneuroimmunology within a Lifespan Perspective, Coe
11. The Organization of Regulatory Systems from Infancy to Early Childhood: Habits of Mind in Competence and Coping, Keating and Miller
III. Human Development and the Learning Society
12. The Learning Society: A Human Development Agenda, Keating
13. Social Software for a Learning Society: Relating School and Work, Rohlen
14. Schools as Knowledge-Building Organizations, Scardamalia and Bereiter
IV. The Ecology of Child Development: Lessons for a Learning Society
15. Lowering the Burden of Suffering: Monitoring the Benefits of Clinical, Targeted, and Universal Approaches, Offord, Kraemer, Kazdin, Jensen, Harrington, and Gardner
16. The Community as a Participative Learning Environment: The Case of Centraide of Greater Montreal 1, 2, 3, GO Project, Bouchard
17. It Takes a Village..., and New Roads to Get There, Pence
18. Developmental Health as the Wealth of Nations, Keating
About the Author :
Daniel P. Keating, PhD, Department of Human Development and
Applied Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Review :
This book is perfect for my new advanced undergraduate seminar on contemporary social problems. It goes well beyond other texts that trace the connections between systemic social issues and human developmental processes: social, biological, and educational mechanisms are clearly delineated and substantiated with data from many sources. The volume is timely, important, and provides crucial information that increases our understanding of where we are (and why), and where we need to go. It can be used as a text for courses in human development, sociology, urban studies, and economics. The interdisciplinary focus is certainly welcome and needed to elucidate the complexity of these issues. --Cynthia Garcia Coll, PhD, Professor of Education, Psychology, and Pediatrics, Chair, Education Department, Brown University
Historically unprecedented challenges to healthy development exist today across the lifespan, in industrialized and nonindustrialized nations alike. In this timely and unique book, a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars proposes a new model for understanding the character and bases of healthy human development. They also point the way toward social policies and programs that will promote positive outcomes for the diverse children of our modern world. Scholars and teachers within the fields of education, psychology, public health, and public policy will be attracted to the compelling vision for healthy development presented in this book. Throughout, scientific findings and applications are precisely, convincingly, and powerfully presented. --Richard M. Lerner, PhD, Boston College, Center for Child, Family and Community Partnerships, Chestnut Hill, MA
This is an enormously useful volume for those wanting to know not only the 'whats' but also the 'hows' of developmental health. There is nothing else like it. It contains a true wealth of insights and data about the ways that social and biological forces conspire to produce developmental differences. I found myself making copious notes in the margins. This book should be required reading for anyone teaching an upper-level or graduate course in developmental psychology and public policy. Readers will appreciate the care the authors take to render abstract biological concepts understandable. --Stephen J. Ceci, PhD, The Helen L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology, Department of Human Development, Cornell University
-
