The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development. Группа авторов. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Группа авторов
Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited
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Жанр произведения: Общая психология
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9781119678991
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grow up in a complex system of relationships that are affected by influences found in different levels of the surrounding environment. As illuminated in other Parts of this Handbook, social developmental characteristics are molded as children’s biologically influenced dispositions join with environmental forces in ways that affect how children perceive their immediate social environment and respond to it. This Part focuses more on the environmental side of the equation, emphasizing the physical environment, the effects of war and famine, and the impact of the climate crisis and the Covid‐19 pandemic. However, it starts with an overview of the general ecological perspective.

      Rachel Maunder introduces some main theorists of the ecological perspective on development, including Gibson, who argued that the environment offers opportunities or “affordances” for behavior, and Elder, whose life course theory considers historical context and social timing within developmental trajectories, exemplified by the famous three‐generational study of the impact on children who lived through the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s. The preeminent theorist is Bronfenbrenner, who proposed concentric circles of influence, moving out from microsystems (the home, family, peer group, and school), the mesosystem (relationships between microsystems such as the home–school relationship), the exosystem (indirect effects on the child such as parental employment), and the macrosystem (societal factors such as cultural beliefs, laws, and politics). A later addition was the chronosystem (the influence of time on development). Maunder looks in detail at two areas. One is parenting and attachment; there are important historical changes and cultural differences that impact on this relationship (see also Chapter 6). Another is school bullying, where the wider community context and social and religious norms and policies can impact on discriminatory and bullying behaviors, especially against minority groups (see also Chapter 32). She ends by considering research implications, and those for professional practice.

      It is more often (although not entirely) outside the developed countries, that children experience severely distressing societal‐level phenomena such as conflict, war, and famine. Charles N. Oberg, H. R. Hodges, and Ann S. Masten point out how conflict and famine are often interrelated; an example at the time of writing is the Yemen. These can clearly impact children directly, and also through, for example loss of parents and caregivers and increased levels of stress. Famine can severely stunt physical growth, including the brain (cf. Chapter 3). These adverse effects can be cumulative. Besides the risks in these situations, the authors also discuss resilience factors, such as good attachment relationships, good self‐regulation skills, and a sense of belonging to a community. They conclude with a series of important recommendations on how to promote health and resilience during conflict and famine; these include well‐informed and culturally sensitive ways of prioritizing children’s needs in conflict and famine situations, creating child‐friendly spaces, and supporting families.

      Concerns about human effects on the global climate, sometimes referred to as global warming but more generally inducing climate instability, has been increasing over decades but has reached a new level of urgency in recent years, as in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Ann Sanson, Karina V. Padilla Malca, and Judith Van Hoorn overview what we know about the impact of the climate crisis on children’s social development. Severe climate changes can of course lead to famine and conflicts, as described in Chapter 10. Besides the direct effects and via caregivers, these can impact on schooling and social networks. These can especially impact on girls, and on minority groups. The authors discuss research on what children know about climate change, their feelings about it, and how they try to cope with this. This chapter too concludes with practical implications of the research, including building children’s capacity to cope, promoting love of nature, understanding of climate change, and encouraging self‐efficacy, collective efficacy and agency (as for example in the school strike protests organized by children and young people themselves).

       Rachel Maunder

      This chapter will introduce the central components of ecological perspectives, and how they can be used to understand children’s social development. The roots of ecological approaches will be examined, along with some key perspectives that frequent literature in the field. Two areas of social development (parenting and attachment, and bullying) will be used to demonstrate how ecological positions can be applied. Implications for both research and intervention will be explored, along with challenges in the field.

      The term “ecology” refers to a branch of science where organisms are studied in relation to their environment. Organisms interact with their physical surroundings and other living things creating a dynamic ecosystem, and the growth and sustainability of living things are maintained by their participation in these relational systems (Heft, 2013). Although ecology stems from biology, the term and its meaning are used and applied across various disciplines.