Books in the Child Development in Cultural Context Series series

Although New England boarding schools have been educating America''s elite for four generations, they, along with their privileged students, rarely have been the subject of study. Living in a senior boys'' dorm at a co-ed school, Sarah Chase was able to witness the inner workings of student culture and the dynamics of their peer groups. In an environment of ivy-covered buildings, institutional goals of excellence and aspirations to Ivy League colleges, the boys andgirls acted extremely masculine or feminine. While girls typically worked themselves into a state of sleep deprivation and despair during exam period, the boys remained seemingly unconcerned and relaxed. As much as the girls felt pressure to be "cute" and "perfect," the boys felt pressure to be "badass" and the "best at everything." Tellingly, the boys thought that "it would suck" to be a girl, while over one third of the girls wanted to be male if given the chance. From her vantage point of sitting in the back of the football and field hockey buses, attending prom and senior pranks, and listening to how students described their academic and social pressures, competition, rumors, backstabbing, sex, and partying, Chase discovered that these boys and girls shared similar values, needs and desires despite their highly gendered behavior. The large class, ethnic and individual differences in how the students perform their genders reveal the importance ofculture in development and the power of individual agency. This book examines the price of privilege and uncovers how student culture reflects and perpetuates society and institutional power structures and gender ideologies.

Immigrant Stories portrays the contexts and academic trajectories of development of three unique immigrant groups: Cambodian, Dominican and Portuguese. The children of immigrant families - or second generation youth - are the fastest growing population of school children in the US. However, very little is known about these children's academic and psychological development during middle childhood. We examine the previously under-explored intricacies ofchildren's emerging cultural attitudes and identities, academic engagement, and academic achievement. These processes are studied alongside a myriad of factors in the family and school environment that combine to shape children's academic psychological functioning during this important period. Through a three-year longitudinal study, including interviews with teachers, parents and children, this book presents a fascinating look at the community, school, and family contexts of child development among second-generation children. Both pre-immigration and post-immigration characteristics are explored as critical factors for understanding children of immigrants' development. In the current climate of US immigration policy debate, we offer research findings that may inform educators andadministrators about the sources of community strengths and challenges facing our newest immigrant generations.

Destiny and Development is an engaging narrative of one remarkable person's life and the life of her community that blends psychology, anthropology, and history to reveal the integral role that culture plays in human development.

Adults were once children, yet a generational gap can present itself when grown-ups seek to know children's lives, in research.In A Younger Voice discloses how qualitative research, tailored to be child-centered, can shrink the gap of generational unintelligibility.

Guided by developmental cultural psychology, this volume focuses on understandings and responses to disability and stigmatization from the perspectives of educators practicing in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Synthesizing research that spanned over a decade, this volume seeks to understand disabilities in different developmental and cultural contexts.