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Print Price: $50.00

Format:
Hardback
352 pp.
6.125" x 9.25"

ISBN-13:
9780195383430

Publication date:
September 2010

Imprint: OUP US

Bridging Cultural and Developmental Approaches to Psychology

New Syntheses in Theory, Research, and Policy

Lene Arnett Jensen

This cutting-edge book brings together eminent experts who propose ways to bridge cultural and developmental approaches to human psychology. The experts heed the call of cultural psychology to study different peoples around the world and to recognize that culture profoundly impacts how we think, feel, and act. At the same time, they also take seriously the developmental science perspective that humans everywhere share common life stage tasks and ways of learning. Doing what has not previously been done, the experts integrate key insights and findings from cultural and developmental research. The result is a book brimming with new and creative syntheses for theory, research, and policy.

This book is in step with a world where culturally diverse peoples interact with one another more than ever due to migration, worldwide media, and international trade and travel. With these interactions come changes to cultures and the psychological development of their members, and the implications for scholarship and policy are thoughtfully examined here.

The book covers a wide range of related topics. It addresses the intersection of development and culture for psychological processes such as learning and memory, for key contexts of development such as family and civil society, for conceptions of self and identity, and for how the life course is partitioned including a focus on childhood and emerging adulthood.

With its inclusion of diverse life phases, diverse topics, and experts from diverse disciplines and cultures, this volume speaks to a broad range of developmental and cultural issues. The synthesis of cultural and developmental approaches should be exciting and eye-opening to anyone with an interest in human psychology in today's global world.

Readership : The book is salient to a wide range of scholars, including scholars in developmental and cultural psychology, but also in other areas of psychology (such as clinical and social psychology) where attention to culture is increasing), anthropology, communication, education, linguistics, and social work. Some neuroscientists even do cultural work and might well find the synthesis between culture and universal developmental findings of relevance to their work. The book will be of interest to scholars across cultures, precisely because it addresses both cultural distinctiveness and developmental commonality. Approximately 60% of the authors are of non-American backgrounds. The authors come from every continent. The book is also be appropriate for a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses addressing developmental and cultural issues. It could be used as a main text, or as a reading companion to textbooks. In psychology and related fields, courses that address cultural issues are increasing notably in popularity.

William Damon: Foreword
Lene Arnett Jensen: Introduction: Changing Our Research for a Changing World
Contributor List
Part I: Developmental Processes and Culture
1. Lene Arnett Jensen: The Cultural-Developmental Theory of Moral Psychology: A New Synthesis
2. Jin Li: Cultural Frames of Children's Learning Beliefs
3. Michelle Leichtman: A Global Window on Memory Development
Part II: Developmental Contexts and Culture
4. Jacqueline J. Goodnow: Merging Cultural and Psychological Accounts of Family Contexts
5. Xinyin Chen: Peer Relationships, Culture, and Human Development
6. Constance Flanagan, M. Loreto Martínez, & Patricio Cumsille: Civil Societies as Cultural and Developmental Contexts for Civic Identity Formation
7. Alice Schlegel: Adolescent Ties to Adult Communities: The Intersection of Culture and Development
Part III: Developmental Selves and Culture
8. Jean S. Phinney & Oscar A. Baldelomar: Identity Development in Multiple Cultural Contexts
9. Fred Rothbaum & Yan Z. Wang: Cultural and Developmental Pathways to Acceptance of Self and Acceptance of the World
10. Jaan Valsiner: The Development of Individual Purposes: Creating Actuality Through Novelty
Part IV: Developmental Phases and Culture
11. A. Bame Nsamenang: The Culturalization of Developmental Trajectories: A Perspective on African Childhoods and Adolescences
12. Jeffrey Arnett: Emerging Adulthood(s): The Cultural Psychology of a New Life Stage
13. Saraswathi Tharakad, Jayanthi Mistry & Ranjana Dutta: Reconceptualizing Lifespan Development Through a Hindu Perspective
Richard Shweder: Commentary

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Lene Arnett Jensen is Associate Professor of Psychology at Clark University, USA, where she holds the Oliver and Dorothy Hayden Junior Faculty Fellowship. Her research addresses moral and civic development, and cultural identity formation in the context of globalization. A native of Denmark, Dr. Jensen has resided in a number of countries, including Belgium, India and France. She lives in Massachusetts, USA, with her husband and twin children.

The Role of Play in Human Development - Anthony D. Pellegrini
Intergroup Attitudes and Relations in Childhood Through Adulthood - Edited by Sheri R. Levy and Melanie Killen

Special Features

Cutting-edge synthesis of cultural and developmental approaches to human psychology.
Discussion of policy implications.
Authors from diverse fields, including anthropology, clinical psychology, developmental science, education, and family studies.
Authors from every continent (about 60% of the authors are of cultural backgrounds that are not American).