Social development: history, theory, and research

For many years students who took courses in social development had no text available for their use. Those of us who instructed them had to rely on assigning journal articles to be read and providing an overview and syn thesis of the area in our lectures. In the last few years, the situation has changed markedly. There are now several very good textbooks that fill the void, reflecting an increasing interest in this area of research and theory. Here is one more. There are many ways to tell a story. Our book, we think, tells it dif ferently enough to have made it worth the writing. As we began to talk, some time ago, about undertaking this project, we found we had a mutual interest in trying to present the study of social development from a histori cal point of view. The field has changed dramatically from its inception, and we have both been in it long enough to have witnessed first-hand a number of these changes. Modifications of theoretical orientations and the de velopment of increasingly sophisticated and rigorous methodology have brought with them the stimulation of controversy and growth, as social developmental psychologists argued about the best ways of going about their business. Certainly the same things have happened in other areas of psychology, but the arguments seem to have been particularly vigorous in our own domain.