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Child Development and the Development of Childhood

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The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies

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Abstract

Development is a core construct within Western societies. Gardeners nurture the development of plants, managers construct a development plan for their company, rich nations offer aid to developing countries, and so on. In each case, ‘development’ is about change; with a strong sense that these changes follow an ordered, rule-governed plan and that the outcome will be a more advanced, complex or sophisticated level of organization. In the same way, development of children has been generally understood to be about physical and psychological growth in the young of the species, as they transform from foetus, to infant, to child, to adolescent, to adult. Belief in development as progress has been an important subtext — for example expressed through images of the immature, dependent infant maturing to a state of rational, moral autonomy. As one child development textbook put it:

… these changes usually result in new improved ways of reacting — that is in behaviour that is healthier, more organised, more complex, more competent or more efficient. (Mussen et al., 1984, 7)

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  1. Martin Woodhead
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

    Jens Qvortrup (Professor of Sociology) (Professor of Sociology)

  2. Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

    William A. Corsaro (Robert H. Shaffer Endowed Chair in the Department of Sociology) (Robert H. Shaffer Endowed Chair in the Department of Sociology)

  3. University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

    Michael-Sebastian Honig (Professor of Social Work) (Professor of Social Work)

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© 2009 Martin Woodhead

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Woodhead, M. (2009). Child Development and the Development of Childhood. In: Qvortrup, J., Corsaro, W.A., Honig, MS. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Childhood Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-27468-6_4

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