Briefly summarizes Vygotsky's life, the appeal and subsequent abandonment of his ideas in the 1960s, and renewal of interest in the 1970s and 1980s (often at the expense of Piaget). Praises van der Veer and Valsinger's book as a realistic picture of Vygotsky's background, life, and work, of the scientific and political context in Russia and of his…

Notes that Charles Darwin's observations on babies are not examples of data collected to test hypotheses. Draws from Bakhtin to argue that they extend and vary existing modes of discourse, primarily debates about the place of instinct in language acquisition, traceable to his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. Concludes that the significance of Darwin's…

Traces the influence of visionary and perceptual schemas in discussions of child art in psychology, education, and art history. Considers recent accounts of artistic achievements of autistic children and views that young children can draw in perspective. Argues that Luquet has been misinterpreted; he was beginning to define a new theoretical space…

Considers the importance of scholarly discourse on art and human development and maintains that basic questions need exploration: (1) what is developing psychologically? (2) what are the indicators of development? (3) what indicates development has been constrained in some way? and (4) where does art theory belong in scholarly discourse on child…

This paper represents a call for the rehabilitation and liberalization of the term learning. Preliminary steps for a revived theory of development and learning are described, including a consideration of such topics as compatibility or naturalness, accessibility and flexibility of learning, and processes of induction. Specific recommendations for…

Attempts to clarify the concept of a whole, distinguishes different types of holism (methodological and metaphysical), and explicates what is believed to be the real underlying issues separating holism and atomism. (MP)

Briefly discusses and evaluates new developments in research which integrate environmental psychology and developmental psychology. (Author/SS)

Discusses the development of thinking from a sociocultural perspective, focusing on how Super and Harkness' (1986) concept of "developmental niche" may be used as a framework for organizing cognitive developmental research in relation to culture. Argues for the utility of this approach in furthering understanding of the precise linkages between…

Outlines what the terms "learning" and "development" meant in the theoretical framework on one important developmental psychologist--Vygotsky. Discusses his concepts of decontextualization and contextualization, which have implications for a possible developmental account of heterogeneity in human mental functioning. (ET)

Looks at the social-historical context of developmental and other social science research in the United States. Focuses on the impact of Freud's and Piaget's theories. Discusses the current research trend to turn to the ideas in humanities and literary studies that have remained concerned with human development in social-historical reality. (ET)

Examines relationships between the fields of behavior analysis and developmental psychology, surveying the influence of behavior-analytic research within developmental psychology and investigating the integration of the two approaches with respect to metatheory and methodology. (Author/MP)

Notes contemporary models of human development have expanded to address a wider set of issues underlying personal change. Discusses the social cognitive model of self-regulatory development. Emphasizes the crucial development of self-regulatory competence: the point at which the processes of development become fully and reciprocally interactive…

Argues that the limited resources with which organisms start their development make possible certain kinds of learning which otherwise would be highly problematical. Discusses limitations of the cognitive structure of the organism, learning, and its problems in connectionism. Maintains that the knowledge gained from efforts to overcome problems…

Discusses four schools of thought in cultural psychology: (1) the "mind and culture" school, which treated culture and cognition as separate; (2) the "mind in culture" school, which sees cognition and culture as interacting in practices; (3) the "culture in mind" school, which sees cultural categories as intrinsic to…

Discusses research in creativity with particular emphasis on the problems encountered in assessing creativity from a life-span developmental framework. Alternative developmental models and measures are discussed as future research recommendations for the assessment of life-span creativity. (Author/RH)