Child Development: A Thematic Approach

Bukatko/Daehler's Child Development: A Thematic Approach provides a comprehensive, topically organized, up-to-date picture of development from conception to adolescence. Most important, it draws students' attention to the themes that replay themselves throughout the course of development, fundamental issues that resurface continually and that provide coherence to sometimes seemingly disparate research. The themes can serve as frameworks to help students further understand and remember the multitude of facts about child development.

Bukatko/Daehler's fifth edition text draws on six themes: Nature and Nurture, Sociocultural Influence, Continuity/Discontinuity, Interaction among Domains, Individual Differences in Development, and Child Play's Role in Development. By drawing on these themes, the authors hope to stimulate readers to think about the process of development, or why it proceeds as it does.

Through new For Your Review and Chapter Recap, the authors also hope students will engage with the text and become more adept critical thinkers, who are more likely to appreciate the ramifications of theory and research for applied issues such as parenting practices, education, and social policy for children, which are ultimately concerns for us all.

Danuta (Diane) Bukatko (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst) is Professor of Psychology and currently holds the Joseph H. Maguire Professorship in Education at Holy Cross College. She has a long-standing interest in cognitive and gender-role development in children, as well as the teaching of psychology. Her current research focuses on children's understanding of gender and power.

Marvin W. Daehler is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is a Fellow in Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association as well as a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. He has been Associate Editor for the journal CHILD DEVELOPMENT and the MONOGRAPHS OF THE SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT, a reviewer for research articles submitted to numerous other developmental publications, and has served on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Education. He has also served as Associate Chair, Director of Graduate Studies, and Director of Undergraduate Studies for various periods while a member of the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts. His research activities, supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, have been concerned with understanding the development of basic representational abilities, memory, and transfer in problem solving in very young children.