Human development the contextualistic world view (part iv)

Theories of Human Development

Integrative Perspectives

THE CONTEXTUALISTIC WORLDVIEW – Part IV

Dale Goldhaer

1. Purpose of the study of such events is to discover what the events themselves say about the web of interactions that create and maintain the events and about the role of the individual within the matrix of relationships

2. The search for objective reality is an illusion3. No universal patterns of development4. No intention to generalize, abstract, or to propose

universal arguments5. No directional concept of development6. Different behaviors in different settings

Contextualism…

1. Life span cohort models of development2. Vygotsky and the Social-Cultural Perspective3. Post-modern perspectives

Three Perspectives

pp. 2

Life span cohort models of development

Glen Elder

1. Emergence of models traced to 3 related developments: (a) the changing demographics of old age, (b) the aging of the participants in the longitudinal studies begun in 1920s and 1930s, and ( c)the growing interest in multidisciplinary research

2. Three interrelated basic assumptions that underlie life span cohort models: Development as an open process Development as a situated process Development as a successive sequence

Life Span Cohort Models

Elder’s Life Course Paradigm – Four Themes

1

23

4

Vygotsky and the Sociocultural perspective

Theoretical Argument

1.Ontogenetic Evolution: Child to Adult• To understand the developmental status of an

individual first requires an understanding of the developmental history of that individual

• 4 step developmental sequence: Natural or primitive stage, naïve psychology, external signs, and ingrowth stage

2.Cultural Evolution: Primitive to Cultured• To understand the developmental history of that

individual first requires an understanding of the historical evolution of that individual’s culture

3.Phylogenetic Evolution: Ape to Human• To understand the historical evolution of that

individual’s culture first requires the phylogenetic evolution of that individual’s species

Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934)

Major Theme in Vgotsky’s Theory

Barbara Rogoff’s Theoretical Perspectove• Development is the progress children make

as they attempt to acquire culturally defined ideals of mature thought and action

• The culture structures the individual even as the individual’s actions redefine the culture

• Three levels of the sociocultural context:1. Apprenticeship – Level of the

community2. Guided Participation – Level of

individual interactions3. Process of Appropriation – Level of the

cultural system

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) developed the ecological systems theory to explain how everything in a child and the child's environment affects how a child grows and develops. He labeled different aspects or levels of the environment that influence children's development, including the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem. The microsystem is the small, immediate environment the child lives in.

Postmodern Perspectives

Gilligan's Stages of the Ethic of Care

Approximate Age Range

Stage Goal

not listed PreconventionalGoal is individual survival

Transition is from selfishness -- to -- responsibility to others

not listed ConventionalSelf sacrifice is goodness

Transition is from goodness -- to -- truth that she is a person too

maybe never Postconventional

Principle of nonviolence: do not hurt others or self