The Cambridge Handbook of Environment in Human Development [Paperback]

This volume takes the child's environment (culture, education, family, peers and media) as an essential component of child development.Differences in culture, education, family life, peers, and media provide considerable diversity for the environments in which children grow up. While acknowledging the importance of environment, developmental psychologists have traditionally considered the environmental input secondary to individual progress. This volume discusses the environments surrounding children as an essential piece of development.Differences in culture, education, family life, peers, and media provide considerable diversity for the environments in which children grow up. While acknowledging the importance of environment, developmental psychologists have traditionally considered the environmental input secondary to individual progress. This volume discusses the environments surrounding children as an essential piece of development.Families, communities, and societies influence children's learning and development in many ways. This is the first handbook devoted to the understanding of the nature of environments in child development. Utilizing Urie Bronfenbrenner's idea of embedded environments, this volume looks at environments from the immediate environment of the family (including fathers, siblings, grandparents, and day-care personnel) to the larger environment including schools, neighborhoods, geographic regions, countries, and cultures. Understanding these embedded environments and the ways in which they interact is necessary to understand development.Introduction Linda Mayes and Michael Lewis; 1. Proximal to distal environments in child development: theoretical, structural, methodological, and empirical considerations Marc Bornstein; 2. Risk and adversity in developmental psychology Jelena Obradovic, Anne Shaffer and Anne Masten; 3. Maternal care as the central environmental variable Lynne Murray and Marc de Rosnay; 4. Novel assessment techniques aimed atlS!