Review by Choice Review
Most commonly, developmental approaches to psychology provide a "one size fits all" idea of normative development. Because the vast majority of research comes from US researchers' study of American participants, theorists often unwittingly portray the average American's developmental path as the universal path. This volume examines developmental processes (e.g., memory), contexts (e.g., peer relationships), selves (e.g., identity), and phases (e.g., emerging adulthood) in the context of culture. Jensen (Clark Univ.) notes that because the US population constitutes only 5 percent of the world's souls, a monolithic assumption about development is most likely false and may lead to an incomplete grasp of development as it genuinely occurs--that is, embedded in culture, including family life, religion, ethnicity, and nationality. On the other hand, cultural psychology, taken at its most extreme, may generate "a theory for every culture"; such relativism is likely as unhelpful for deep understanding of people of the world as developmental psychology's universalism. This volume, as its title reveals, bridges the cultural and the developmental, offering important views of development in the context of culture, including findings from cultures as disparate as China, Africa, and India. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty, professional/practitioners. C. J. Jones California State University, Fresno
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
