The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development (Smith/The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development) || Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Research in Social Development

✍ Scribed by Smith, Peter K.; Hart, Craig H.

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 559 KB
• Edition: 2
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 1405196793
• DOI: 10.1002/9781444390933.ch1

✦ Synopsis

Research in social development began more than a century ago. Its roots are much older, springing from enduring philosophical traditions, as well as from theory and research in other sciences such as biology and pedagogical studies (e.g., Dewey, 1899 ;Hall, 1904 ). Only in the most general way, however, can these distal infl uences be discerned in the directions and concerns of social development research today. Much more visible are the intellectual currents within the social sciences themselves and themes arising from pressing social problems. The goal of this chapter is to detect those currents in this vital and increasingly diverse research enterprise.

The traditional purview of research in social development is " changes over time in the child ' s understanding of, attitudes toward, and actions with others " (Hartup & Laursen, 1991 , p. 253). Although interest in these phenomena was apparent from the earliest research on psychological development, no history of social development as a coherent fi eld of inquiry has previously appeared. Rather, existing historical accounts have addressed particular research topics (e.g.