The Science of Learning and Development

This essential text unpacks major transformations in the study of learning and human development and provides evidence for how science can inform innovation in the design of settings, policies, practice, and research to enhance the life path, opportunity and prosperity of every child. The ideas presented provide researchers and educators with a rationale for focusing on the specific pathways and developmental patterns that may lead a specific child, with a specific family, school, and community, to prosper in school and in life.

Expanding key published articles and expert commentary, the book explores a profound evolution in thinking that integrates findings from psychology with biology through sociology, education, law, and history with an emphasis on institutionalized inequities and disparate outcomes and how to address them. It points toward possible solutions through an understanding of and addressing the dynamic relations between a child and the contexts within which he or she lives, offering all researchers of human development and education a new way to understand and promote healthy development and learning for diverse, specific youth regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or history of adversity, challenge, or trauma.

The book brings together scholars and practitioners from the biological/medical sciences, the social and behavioral sciences, educational science, and fields of law and social and educational policy. It provides an invaluable and unique resource for understanding the bases and status of the new science, and presents a roadmap for progress that will frame progress for at least the next decade and perhaps beyond.

Pamela Cantor, MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist specializing in trauma and the founder of Turnaround for Children, an organization grounded in science that builds the capacities of educators to buffer the negative impacts of trauma and intentionally promote healthy whole-child development and learning for every student. She is a governing partner of the Science of Learning and Development Alliance, which is elevating a diverse body of scientific literature to support the transformation of the systems that educate and develop children.

David Osher, PhD, is Vice President and Institute Fellow at the American Institutes for Research, where he does research and supports practice, domestically and globally. He has led research, knowledge syntheses and technical assistance, and published on school climate and the conditions for learning; social and emotional learning; supportive, community-building approaches to school discipline and safety; cultural competence and responsiveness; family support and engagement, implementation science; and the science of learning and development. His recent publications include Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools and Keeping Students Safe and Helping Them Thrive: A Collaborative Handbook on School Safety, Mental Health, and Wellness.