Based on a summer institute of the Family Research Consortium, this book presents theory and research from leading scholars working on issues of risk and resilience in families. Focusing on the splits and bonds that shape children's development, this volume's primary goal is to stimulate theoretical and empirical advances in research on family processes. It will be valuable to developmental, social, and clinical psychologists, sociologists, and family studies specialists.

Based on a summer institute of the Family Research Consortium, this book presents theory and research from leading scholars working on issues of risk and resilience in families. Focusing on the splits and bonds that shape children's development, this volume's primary goal is to stimulate theoretical and empirical advances in research on family processes. It will be valuable to developmental, social, and clinical psychologists, sociologists, and family studies specialists.

The adolescent period has attracted much attention as an ideal period for investigating interactive models incorporating biological maturation with intra- and interpersonal development. The focus of this volume is on adolescent transitions in three domains: the peer system, the family system, and school and work contexts. Its goal is to highlight specific aspects of innovative research programs and initiatives, and look forward to future directions in the field. Because interest in adolescence has spanned the disciplines, this volume reflects a multidisciplinary perspective--presenting research and methods from life-span development, sociology, anthropology, and education to provide exemplars of the range of approaches used in understanding the processes and transitions of adolescent development. These exemplars encompass the breadth not only of the investigation of adolescence--from survey research on drug use to ethnographic studies of involvement in criminal activities--but also of individual differences in the experience of adolescent transitions--from the transition to college and work in White, middle-class youth to the work experiences of urban, African-American high school students.
The chapters collected here offer a rich sample of the diversity of research experience with an emphasis on in-depth investigation of adolescent transitions. The volume will serve as a resource to investigators across several disciplines as it identifies approaches and recent findings from alternate fields.

The Developmental Science of Adolescence: History Through Autobiography is the most authoritative account of the leading developmental scientists from around the world. Written by the scholars who shaped the history they are recounting, each chapter is an engaging and personal account of the past, present, and future direction of the field. No other reference work has this degree of authenticity in presenting the best developmental science of adolescence.

The book includes a Foreword by Saths Cooper, President of the International Union of Psychological Science and autobiographical chapters by the following leading developmental scientists:

Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Robert Wm. Blum, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, B. Bradford Brown, Marlis Buchmann, John Bynner, John Coleman, Rand D. Conger, James E. Cote, William Damon, Sanford M. Dornbusch, Nancy Eisenberg, Glen H. Elder, Jr., David P. Farrington, Helmut Fend, Andrew J. Fuligni, Frank F. Furstenberg, Beatrix A. Hamburg, Stephen F. Hamilton, Karen Hein, Klaus Hurrelmann, Richard Jessor, Daniel P. Keating, Reed W. Larson, Richard M. Lerner, Iris F. Litt, David Magnusson, Rolf Oerter, Daniel Offer, Augusto Palmonari, Anne C. Petersen, Lea Pulkkinen, Jean E. Rhodes, Linda M. Richter, Hans-Dieter Rosler, Michael Rutter, Ritch C. Savin-Williams, John Schulenberg, Lonnie R. Sherrod, Rainer K. Silbereisen, Judith G. Smetana, Margaret Beale Spencer, Laurence Steinberg, Elizabeth J. Susman, Richard E. Tremblay, Suman Verma, and Bruna Zani."

This single-volume resource provides detailed information on current large-scale and longitudinal research studies focusing on early childhood development - the situations and experiences of young American children. Twenty-eight studies are profiled, addressing such issues as early childhood interventions for children in poverty, neighborhood characteristics and residence patterns of children and their families, the role of fathers in families, school readiness and the transition to school, and maternal employment issues, including child care and welfare reform.

The poverty rate for children in the United States exceeds that of all other Western, industrialised nations except Australia. Moreover, poverty among children has increased substantially since 1970, affecting more than one-fifth of US children. These persistent high rates require new ideas in both research and public policy. Escape from Poverty presents such ideas. Four modes of possible change are addressed: mothers' employment, child care, father involvement, and access to health care. It examines the implications of these new policy-driven changes for children. The editors have developed an interdisciplinary perspective, involving demographers, developmental psychologists, economists, health experts, historians, and sociologists - a framework essential for addressing the complexities inherent in the links between the lives of poor adults and children in our society.

The poverty rate for children in the United States exceeds that of all other Western, industrialized nations except Australia. Moreover, poverty among children has increased substantially since 1970, affecting more than one-fifth of U.S. children. These persistent high rates require new ideas in both research and public policy. This volume presents such ideas. Four arenas of possible change are addressed: mothers' employment, child care, fathers' involvement, and access to health care. These four types of change have each been brought under the umbrella of the Family Support Act of 1988, after several years of debate over welfare reform. The goal of this landmark legislation is to enable poor families to escape poverty by requiring education, employment training opportunities for mothers, and improving child support by noncustodial fathers. Escape from Poverty is designed to examine the implications of these new policy-driven changes for children. The editors have developed an interdisciplinary perspective, involving demographers, developmental psychologists, economists, health experts, historians, and sociologists - a framework essential for addressing the complexities inherent in the links between the lives of poor adults and children in our society. This book will appeal to both researchers and policy makers.

Systematic observation is essential for educators to evaluate properly the effectiveness of curricula and to address the problems of individual students. This volume emphasizes early childhood settings, and focuses on those skills that enable the observer to make appropriate, valid inferences and to arrive at decisions based on objective observation data gathered in natural learning environments and diverse educational settings. The edition includes new focuses on: procedures for observing environmental factors that affect learning and behaviour; the importance of understanding the cultural and linguistic characteristics of children's learning environments; the key role of observation in the assessment process; the forms of observation, with illustrative examples; and the exploration of reliability, sampling behaviour, recording formats, summarizing observational outcomes and validity. Using photographs, sample worksheets, a simple format and straightforward language, the authors cite real-life examples from early childhood that can be applied to a variety of classroom experiences.

One in five American children now live in families with incomes below the povertyline, and their prospects are not bright. Low income is statistically linked with a variety of poor outcomes for children, from low birth weight and poor nutrition in infancy to increased chances of academic failure, emotional distress, and unwed childbirth in adolescence. To address these problems it is not enough to know that money makes a difference; we need to understand how. Consequences of Growing Up Poor is an extensive and illuminating examination of the paths through which economic deprivation damages children at all stages of their development. In Consequences of Growing Up Poor, developmental psychologists, economists, and sociologists revisit a large body of studies to answer specific questions about how low income puts children at risk intellectually, emotionally, and physically. Many of their investigations demonstrate that although income clearly creates disadvantages, it does so selectively and in a wide variety of ways. Low-income preschoolers exhibit poorer cognitive and verbal skills because they are generally exposed to fewer toys, books, and other stimulating experiences in the home. Poor parents also tend to rely on home-based child care, where the quality and amount of attention children receive is inferior to that of professional facilities. In later years, conflict between economically stressed parents increases anxiety and weakens self-esteem in their teenaged children.

Perhaps the most alarming phenomenon in American cities has been the transformation of many neighborhoods into isolated ghettos where poverty is the norm and violent crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock births, and soaring school dropout rates are rampant. Public concern over these destitute areas has focused on their most vulnerable inhabitants children and adolescents. How profoundly does neighborhood poverty endanger their well-being and development? Is the influence of neighborhood more powerful than that of the family? Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children approaches these questions with an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into the effect of community poverty on children's physical health, cognitive and verbal abilities, educational attainment, and social adjustment. This two-volume set offers the most current research and analysis from experts in the fields of child development, social psychology, sociology and economics. Drawing from national and city-based sources, Volume I reports the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between children and community. As the essays demonstrate, poverty entails a host of problems that affects the quality of educational, recreational, and child care services.Poor neighborhoods usually share other negative features particularly racial segregation and a preponderance of single mother families that may adversely affect children. Yet children are not equally susceptible to the pitfalls of deprived communities. Neighborhood has different effects depending on a child's age, race, and gender, while parenting techniques and a family's degree of community involvement also serve as mitigating factors."