This third edition of the book offers a current and comprehensive presentation of the main theories of developmental psychology. The text places the major theories of development in historical and contemporary context, giving readers breadth as well as depth of understanding. New to the third edition: an exciting new chapter that integrates Vygotsky's theory, contextualism, ecological psychology, and cultural psychology; new material on Piaget in the last few years before his death; new views of strategies, capacity, and microgenetic changes; new discussion of issues of domain specificity in information-processing, biological, and Piagetian theories; extensive updating throughout.

The authors have grouped the theories into three classical "families" which differ in their views relative to the prime motives underlying human nature. They show how theories are specific examples of more general points of view called paradigms. The theories chosen to represent the three paradigms (the Endogenous Paradigm, Exogenous Paradigm, and the Constructivist Paradigm) were selected because they met four criteria: importance, as judged by academic and research psychologists fertility, as judged by the amount of research the theory has generated scope, as judged by the variety of phenomena the various theories explain family resemblance, as judged by how well each theory represents its paradigm The authors present the "paradigm case" in the lead chapter for each paradigm.  This paradigm case is the "best example" for the paradigm. The authors explain why paradigm cases are important, and give them more detailed treatment than other theories in the same paradigm.

Product Description: This text introduces students to a variety of developmental theories, demonstrating how they work and how they are used to describe human nature. Its intellectually accurate treatment of theories, framed by sound pedagogical support, make this a highly accessible text and a bridge for those wanting to continue their studies of developmental theory...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In this deeply probing, intellectually challenging work, Dr. JaanValsiner lays the groundwork for a dynamic new cultural-historicalapproach to developmental psychology. He begins by deconstructingtraditional developmental theory, exposing the conceptual confusionand epistemological blind spots that he believes continue toundermine the scientific validity of its methodologies...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: So many questions, such an imagination, endless speculation: the child seems to be a natural philosopher--until the ripe old age of eight or nine, when the spirit of inquiry mysteriously fades. What happened? Was it something we did--or didn't do? Was the child truly the philosophical being he once seemed? Gareth Matthews takes up these concerns in The Philosophy of Childhood, a searching account of children's philosophical potential and of childhood as an area of philosophical inquiry...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Something instructive occurred in the process of entitling the present collection. Both editor and publisher sought a simple and succinct rubric for the various pieces of work. But they rapidly and reluctantly reached the consensus that, by either intellectual or marketing criteria, the inser­ tion of the adjective "psychological" to qualify the noun "development" was a communicative necessity...read more

Product Description: Until recently, most books and articles on Piaget's theory, whether laudatory or critical, were written by psychologists or, more rarely, epistemologists, who had had no direct contact with the research that provided the basis for the theoretical constructs, nor with the ongoing work on the theory itself...read more