Dimensions of Human Behavior: The Changing Life Course

How do people change from conception to death? What patterns can we recognize in human behavior related to biological age, psychological age, and social age norms? Why do people react to the same stressful situation in different ways? How can social workers help reduce risk and increase protective factors during various life stages? The Third Edition of this powerful text aims to examine the human life course in nine age-graded periods, which include: 1) conception, pregnancy, and childbirth 2) infancy and toddlerhood 3) early childhood 4) middle childhood 5) adolescence 6) young adulthood 7) middle adulthood 8) late adulthood and 9) very late adulthood. By examining each of these periods, the life course perspective can be understood as ever changing and marked by predictable and unpredictable twists and turns, which ultimately contribute to a unique life journey.

New to the Third Edition:  

• Examines our increasing global interdependence: The human life course is examined and contrasted nationally and internationally.
• Increased focus on Neuroscience: Book is brought up to date on the latest scientific advances in neuroscience as it relates to human development.
• Emphasizes group-based diversity: More content has been added on the effects of gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, and disability throughout the life course.
• Recognizes changing family dynamics: Greater attention has been given to the role of fathers.
• Engages the reader through a variety of illustrative features: New case studies, exhibits, photos throughout, and Web resources have been added to provide the most up-to-date information.

High-Quality Ancillaries!  

• Student Study Website: Help your students succeed with this new companion student study site at http://www.sagepub.com/clc3study/. Students can review chapter highlights and summaries, take practice quizzes, and study via student flash cards on the Web.   
• Expanded Instructor′s Resource CD: New to this edition, instructors can create tests using a new electronic test bank. In addition, this resource cd contains powerpoint slides, teaching tips, suggested classroom activities and more and is available to qualified adopters.

Intended Audience  
This text was developed for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on Human Behavior in the Social Environment in departments of social work and psychology. Together with its companion volume, Dimensions of Human Behavior: Person and Environment, students will receive the most comprehensive coverage available on Human Behavior. The Changing Life Course is the companion volume to Person and Environment (ISBN: 978-1-4129-4125-9). The two volumes are also available at a discounted price as a bundle (ISBN: 978-1-4129-4128-0).

Elizabeth D. Hutchison received her MSW from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and her PhD from the University at Albany, State University of New York. She was on the faculty in the social work department at Elms College from 1980 to 1987 and was chair of the department from 1982 to 1987. She was on the faculty in the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1987 to 2009, where she taught courses in human behavior and the social environment, social work and social justice, and child and family policy; she also served as field practicum liaison. She has been a social worker in health, mental health, aging, and child and family welfare settings and engaged in volunteer work with incarcerated women and environmental justice for farm workers in the Coachella Valley of California. She is committed to providing social workers with comprehensive, current, and useful frameworks for thinking about human behavior. Her other research interests focus on child and family welfare. She lives in Reno, Nevada, where she enjoys hiking around Lake Tahoe and being a hands-on grandmother to two humans and one dog. She collaborates with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada on local social, racial, economic, and environmental justice issues.