Summary
Contents
This book has already proved itself as a course adoption leader in Childhood Studies. All of the strengths of the First Edition have been retained. The book is comprehensive and judged with the needs of students in mind. It is a model of clarity and precision and has been acknowledged as such in reviews and course feedback. The new edition thoroughly revises old entries and adds new ones. The book is the most accessible, relevant student introduction to this expanding, interdisciplinary field. It is an indispensable teaching text and an ideal prompt for researchers.
Developmentalism
Developmentalism
The perspective, central to both developmental psychology and the biological model of childhood, that the nature and behaviour of children, and of childhood itself, are shaped primarily by their physical, psychological and emotional development and that therefore their development into adults is incomplete to varying extents, depending upon their age and stage in development.
The social constructionist paradigm, which is foundational to childhood studies, provides the foundations for a critique of developmental psychology and the deterministic epistemology to which it belongs. The paradigm is rooted in the challenge made by sociology that asserts the importance of childhood as a social rather than simply a biological, and therefore developmental, construct. Its major contribution to our thinking about childhood has been to assert the diversity of childhoods ...
