Preface

Summary

This volume represents the culmination of a long journey that began in the fall of 1983 with a working group on child development at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). The group proposed a view of children and child development that extends across the life span and the settings of a rapidly changing world. At the time, contemporary studies of children were beginning to show more appreciation for a life-span view of child development, but little progress had been achieved in studying children in historical time. The senior editor of the current volume proposed a project that would bring developmental studies and social history together in the study of children. This book is a result of that venture.

The study of children in historical time and place identifies an important and neglected perspective in the ecology of human development. Psychologists assess the nature of the social world in terms of the child or individual. They ask, What social influences are relevant to specific developmental processes, such as children's thinking or perceiving, and to developmental outcomes, such as achievement or aggression? By comparison, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists are more likely to view the social environment as a research problem in its own right. From this perspective, they would trace the behavioral influences of a specific time and perhaps place, such as the impact of the Great Depression on a small community, to the experiences of children within particular families and neighborhoods.