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Comprised of papers written by members of the Social Science Research Council Subcommittee on Child Development in Life-Span Perspective, this book provides a representation of the current status of the relation between child development and the life- span. It suggests the possible synthesis of these two fields from both conceptual and empirical evidence. Theories and methods concerning the social, psychological, and anatomical influences on children's cognitive development through adolescence are highlighted

Many adolescents in the United States are at risk from substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, academic underachievement, crime and violence. What can be done to tackle these growing problems? The author of this thought-provoking book suggests the need to focus on young people's development in relation to specific features of the individual's environmental 'context' such as family, neighbourhood and culture. By effecting changes in these contexts, in the form of community programmes, researchers can test for differences in children's behaviour and development.

Positive character involves a system of mutually beneficial relations between an individual and the context that coherently vary across ontogenetic time and enable the individual to engage the social world as a moral agent. We present ideas about the development of positive character attributes using three constructs associated with relational developmental systems (RDS) metatheory: the specificity of mutually beneficial individual context dynamics across time and place; holistic integration of dynamic processes of an individual with both the context and all cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes; and integration of the character system with other facets of the self-system. These features of RDS-based ideas coalesce on the embodiment of positive character development. We discuss the need for a more robust interrogation of embodied features of the character development system by suggesting that the coaction of morphological/physiological processes with cultural processes becomes part of a program of the integrated individual <=> contextual processes involved in the description, explanation, and optimization of the development of positive attributes of character. We discuss moments of programmatic research that should be involved in this interrogation, and we point to the potential contribution of theory-predicated research about the embodied development of positive attributes of character to enhancing the presence of moral agency and social justice in the world.

This article focuses on the interplay of research and practice (research⇔practice integration) in advancing international efforts to understand and enhance positive youth development (PYD). We discuss 3 facets of PYD research and application that have cross-cutting relevance to theory, to the use of theory for designing principles of PYD programs, and to evaluating whether specific instances of youth development programs have features that promote PYD. Using dynamic, relational developmental-systems-based concepts, we discuss the process of development involved in PYD, the use of the specificity principle to frame research and practice and, as a sample case illustrating how PYD research and practice can be advanced through the use of the specificity principle, we focus on one facet of PYD, that is, positive character, or character virtues. We point to important future directions for further illuminating the specificity of PYD process through assessing the developmental neurobiology of PYD, and we emphasize the important contributions that PYD research and practice integration can make worldwide to enhancing youth contributions to equity, social justice, and democracy.

There are significant nomothetic, differential, and idiographic domains of human development. We suggest the usefulness of efforts to understand human development in regard to specific facets of development—for instance, relationships within families with adolescent children—beginning with a focus on the specific, idiographic attributes of individuals. Using these relationships as a sample case, we provide a brief history of the study of the development of these relationships, and we explain the role of models derived from relational developmental systems metatheory in framing contemporary research about this development. We describe some of the nomothetic, differential, and idiographic features of adolescents and families, and we explain the methodological features of a truly developmental approach to measuring the development of mutually influential adolescent↔family relationships. Finally, we discuss the importance of including idiographic‐based information along with nomothetic or differential information in efforts to optimize adolescent–family relationships.

Much research on children in military families has taken a deficit approach—that is, it has portrayed these children as a population susceptible to psychological damage from the hardships of military life, such as frequent moves and separation from their parents during deployment. But M. Ann Easterbrooks, Kenneth Ginsburg, and Richard M. Lerner observe that most military children turn out just fine. They argue that, to better serve military children, we must understand the sources of strength that help them cope with adversity and thrive. In other words, we must understand their resilience.

The authors stress that resilience is not a personal trait but a product of the relationships between children and the people and resources around them. In this sense, military life, along with its hardships, offers many sources for resilience—for example, a strong sense of belonging to a supportive community with a shared mission and values. Similarly, children whose parents are deployed may build their self-confidence by taking on new responsibilities in the family, and moving offers opportunities for adventure and personal growth.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drew more and more service members into combat, the military and civilian groups alike rolled out dozens of programs aimed at boosting military children's resilience. Although the authors applaud this effort, they also note that few of these programs have been based on scientific evidence of what works, and few have been rigorously evaluated for their effectiveness. They call for a program of sustained research to boost our understanding of military children's resilience.

Studying human development involves describing, explaining, and optimizing intraindividual change and interindividual differences in such change and, as such, requires longitudinal research. The selection of the appropriate type of longitudinal design requires selecting the option that best addresses the theoretical questions asked about developmental process and the use of appropriate statistical procedures to best exploit data derived from theory-predicated longitudinal research. This paper focuses on several interrelated problematics involving the treatment of time and the timing of observations that developmental scientists face in creating theory-design fit and in charting in change-sensitive ways developmental processes across life. We discuss ways in which these problematics may be addressed to advance theory-predicated understanding of the role of time in processes of individual development.

This article focuses on the interplay of research and practice (researchpractice integration) in advancing international efforts to understand and enhance positive youth development (PYD). We discuss 3 facets of PYD research and application that have cross-cutting relevance to theory, to the use of theory for designing principles of PYD programs, and to evaluating whether specific instances of youth development programs have features that promote PYD. Using dynamic, relational developmental-systems-based concepts, we discuss the process of development involved in PYD, the use of the specificity principle to frame research and practice and, as a sample case illustrating how PYD research and practice can be advanced through the use of the specificity principle, we focus on one facet of PYD, that is, positive character, or character virtues. We point to important future directions for further illuminating the specificity of PYD process through assessing the developmental neurobiology of PYD, and we emphasize the important contributions that PYD research and practice integration can make worldwide to enhancing youth contributions to equity, social justice, and democracy. ; National 4-H Council Compassion International Templeton World Charity Foundation Templeton Religion Trust Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK - European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG Center for Research in Inclusive Education, Chile PIA ANID 160009 ; Versión publicada - versión final del editor