The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development. Группа авторов
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can be traced to an intellectual awakening that originated during the 1800s and continued into the mid‐1900s (the emergent and middle periods; Collins, 2011). Interest in child socialization and development grew out of the enlightened humanitarian values and novel theoretical speculations that were expressed in the writings of philosophers, psychologists, educators, and physicians during the mid‐ to late 1800s. These innovative ideas challenged prevailing perspectives on a range of sociocultural and scientific issues including the origins of morality, the determinants of crime and juvenile delinquency, the causes of mental illness, and the value of education for children.
By the turn of 20th the century, these ideological forces inspired new ways of thinking about childrearing and development. Critical in this shift was the view that children’s development was driven not only by forces acting inside the child (e.g., the child’s nature), but also by forces outside the child, such as the socializing influences of families, peers, and cultures.
In the scientific community, the role of socialization and children’s social experience figured prominently in emerging theory and research on normal and abnormal development. Early examples include G. Stanley Hall’s (1844–1924) investigations of school children’s interests and experiences (White, 1994), John B. Watson’s (1878–1958) contention that learning drives development (Watson, 1913), and James Mark Baldwin’s (1861–1934) assertions that the child’s social environment, and the child’s reactions to this milieu, were essential and interrelated components of development (Cairns, 1994). During the early‐ to mid‐1900s, theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, George Herbert Mead, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky contended that, among other influences, children’s development was affected by their experiences with adult caregivers and peers.
Freud (1856–1939) stressed the importance of early experience and theorized that conflicts between the child’s biological drives and rearing experiences (i.e., progressively across distinct psychosexual stages) shaped personality development. He also saw early parent–child play as a context that influenced children’s sense of self and shaped their emotional ties with caregivers (via brief separations and feelings of loss; Emde, 1994). In proposing the concept of the “looking glass self,” Mead (1863–1931) asserted that the individual’s self‐concept was based on the reactions they received from others (Mead, 1913). Erikson (1902–1994), a student of Freud’s, recognized the importance of parents and peers in children’s identity formation by arguing that relations with socializers could enhance or undermine a child’s sense of interpersonal trust, self‐worth, and social competence (Erikson, 1950).
Piaget (1896–1980) articulated a constructivist perspective in which organismic growth coupled with formative experiences – particularly conflicts with peers and other socializers – propelled not only children’s intellectual development but also their moral development (Beilin, 1994). The Russian psychologist Vygotsky (1896–1934), a contemporary of Piaget’s who died much younger than him, emphasized the social context of learning (Vygotsky, 1978). His concept of the zone of proximal development proved especially influential and was taken up later by Bruner in his concept of scaffolding. Many other scientists contributed to this paradigmatic shift and readers are encouraged to consult more detailed accounts of the intellectual currents and contributors that foreshadowed the modern era (e.g., Collins, 2011; Parke et al., 1994; Sears, 1975).
These early forerunners and their intellectual and empirical contributions created a foundation for social development as a discipline. Considered next are the theoretical and empirical elaborations and innovations that were erected upon this foundation during the following half‐century, or the modern era.
Dominant Research Aims and Foci
Social developmental phenomena are complex and multiply determined and, as a result, empirically based knowledge has been built around circumscribed phenomena. Nevertheless, four overarching aims can be identified that capture the thrust and scope of empirical inquiry during the discipline’s recent history. In the sections that follow, each of these broader objectives is profiled and a few illustrative trends, findings, and citations are highlighted from research on early and middle childhood.
Aim 1: Elucidate childrearing and socialization processes and their contributions to child and adolescent development
Socialization has been defined as the process(es) through which youth are prepared to participate successfully in contexts, interactions, practices, and relationships that comprise their culture. Understanding how children are socialized to become successful members of their culture has been a priority in research on social development. Principal investigative venues have included primary socialization contexts such as the family, and secondary socialization contexts such as the neighborhood, peer group, school, and larger community.
The family context
Relationships within the family garnered considerable attention, particularly the child’s relationships with caregivers. At the forefront was research on attachment, driven principally by Bowlby’s theory and elaborations crafted by contemporary investigators (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008). Progress included the further explication of attachment processes (e.g., parents’ and child’s contributions), types of attachment relationships (e.g., secure vs. insecure typologies), and consequences of attachment. Longitudinal studies, for example, revealed that secure attachment anteceded a plethora of favorable socialization outcomes during childhood and adolescence, including social and emotional competencies, self‐esteem, and mental health (Groh et al., 2017).
Research on parenting styles begun in the 1960s (Baumrind, 1967) expanded thereafter and offered new insights about the determinants of parent’s approaches to childrearing, child outcomes, and cultural variations. To illustrate, findings shed light on the antecedents of particular childrearing styles, including parent and child determinants (e.g., parents’ personalities, education; children’s temperament, behavior; e.g., Kelley et al., 1992). Longitudinal studies further explicated child outcomes. In one such study, early authoritative parenting (i.e., with preschoolers) was compared to other rearing styles (e.g., authoritarian, permissive) and found to predict favorable adolescent outcomes (e.g., social competence; Baumrind et al., 2010). Other findings revealed that parenting styles were construed differently across ethnic groups and cultures and were associated with culture‐specific child outcomes (Pinquart & Kauser, 2018).
Parenting characteristics, behaviors, and interactions. Concern that parenting styles were not as robust as originally conceptualized (Maccoby, 2015) precipitated a movement away from static typologies toward models that emphasized dynamic features, such as parenting behaviors and interactions. Some researchers studied features that were implied within parenting typologies (e.g., warmth) whereas others focused on attributes drawn from other theoretical perspectives, including dyadic constructs (e.g., connectedness, synchrony, autonomy support). Both avenues proved productive. For example, components of authoritative parenting were found to predict children’s social competence from infancy into adolescence (Valiente et al. 2009). Conversely, authoritarian parenting was linked with children’s aggressive and disruptive behaviors (Pascual‐Sagastizabal et al., 2014). Likewise, studies of parent–child interactions revealed that dyadic features such as connectedness and synchrony were similarly or more strongly linked with child competence (Mize & Pettit, 1997).
Other trends included the study of child effects and bidirectional parent–child influences. Studies of child effects supported the notion that children’s actions evoke different forms of parenting (Newton et al., 2014) and that parenting influences are moderated by children’s temperaments (Kochanska & Kim, 2013). Research on bidirectional patterns of influence corroborated the premise that early child behaviors and emotions shape later parenting (e.g., punitiveness; warmth), and vice versa (Lengua & Kovacs, 2005).
Parental discipline and moral socialization were examined with multiple dimensions of children’s social development. Prominent objectives included evaluating parent–child interaction and disciplinary practices that were