Social and Cognitive Development in the Context of Individual, Social, and Cultural Processes

In recent years a proliferation of theoretical and empirical scholarship has emerged on how social and cultural factors shape development. This work has provided important information about the multiple goals and pathways of development throughout the world, yet many issues still remain open for continued analysis and refinement. This book addresses how individual, social, and cultural factors intersect during development by bringing together contributions from an international group of scholars with diverse theoretical perspectives who conduct research in varied cultural contexts. The book is divided into three sections: Contexts of Development, Developing through Culturally Shaped Social Interactions, and Some Final Thoughts: Infancy as the Foundation for Intersecting Individual, Social and Cultural Processes. The first section focuses on how wider contexts of development are structured through interactions among individual, social and cultural processes. Specific chapters in this section consider how the wider cultural context is constituted and enacted by individuals, including children and their caregivers, as they engage in social interactions. The second section focuses on how social interactions and cultural values shape specific aspects of development, including the development of object manipulation, future orientations and self-conceptions. The book ends with an integrative analysis of how infant experiences form the foundation of adult relational self-conceptions.

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