Like children themselves, development is dynamic. In the chronologically organized Infants and Children: Lives in Context, award-winning author Tara L. Kuther frames development research in real-life contexts, including gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and more. Kuther presents highly relatable examples, vivid cross-cultural stories, and Lives in Context video case studies of real individuals, consistently prompting students to reflect on chapter content with What do you think? questions. The book emphasizes three core themes: the centrality of context, the importance of research, and the applied value of developmental science; students will come away with an understanding of these themes that they will immediately be able to apply to their own lives and future careers. INSTRUCTORS: Infants and Children: Lives in Context is accompanied by a complete teaching and learning package Contact your rep to request a demo. SAGE vantage Digital Option SAGE vantage is an intuitive digital platform that delivers this text's content in a learning experience carefully designed to ignite student engagement and drive critical thinking. Built with you and your students in mind, it offers easy course set-up and enables students to better prepare for class. Contact your rep to learn more. SAGE Premium Video Included in SAGE vantage Lives in Context videos bring concepts to life by building on the contextual examples that the author includes in the text. Watch a sample. SAGE coursepacks SAGE coursepacks makes it easy to import our quality instructor and student resource content into your school's learning management system (LMS). Intuitive and simple to use, SAGE coursepacks allows you to customize course content to meet your students' needs. SAGE edge This open access site offers students a robust online environment with an impressive array of learning resources. Also of Interest: Case Studies in Lifespan Development by Stephanie M. Wright presents a series of 12 case studies shaped by the contributions of real students to build immersive examples that readers can relate to and enjoy. Bundle Case Studies in Lifespan Development with Infants and Children: Lives in Context for only $5 more

The editors of this book have brought together contributors from many parts of the world. As such, the book offers a truly diverse, international flavour reflecting a broad range of research on babies and toddlers. Examining examples from both Eastern and Western cultures, the book’s overarching focus is on relationships, yielding a coherence beneficial to early childhood researchers and educators alike. Employing visual methodologies to help bring the chapters to life, the varied research studies presented concern babies’ and toddlers’ relationships and cultural contexts. Taken together, they offer a unique opportunity to conceptualise the use of a wholeness approach for studying babies and toddlers – our youngest citizens.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Kids in Context is an excellent presentation of qualitative research and theories of childhood.

This book invites those caring for infants to join as companions on an incredible journey. Each chapter taps a distinct area of research to shed light on babies’ biological expectations for care and their amazing competence as active participants in that care. Exploring each domain of development, with policy and practice recommendations, the authors offer important insights into: How prenates “read” and adapt to characteristics of their environment.How fetus and mother respond in sync to a cascade of hormones that facilitate healthy birth, breastfeeding, bonding, and immune system development.How infants search for proximity to caring, responsive others as a means of regulating physiological systems and making friends.How infants gather statistics on language through interactions with companions. How infants learn as they investigate objects and people within everyday play and interactions. “I have never experienced a book that more clearly and purposefully communicates the day-by-day development of infants and the essential role adults play in the optimization of that development.” —From the Foreword by J. Ronald Lally, WestEd Center for Child & Family Studies, author of For Our Babies “Infant development comes alive in this book.” —From the Afterword by Ed Tronick, Distinguished University Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston “A must-read for anyone interested in young children. This will be a valuable resource for academics, clinicians, and caregivers.” —Bruce D. Perry, ChildTrauma Academy “This extraordinary collection of stories invites us to explore and reflect on what it’s like to be a baby, new to the world and full of curiosity.” —Elizabeth Jones, faculty emerita, Pacific Oaks College

This multidisciplinary volume features many of the world's leading experts of infant development, who synthesize their research on infant learning and behaviour, while integrating perspectives across neuroscience, socio-cultural context, and policy. It offers an unparalleled overview of infant development across foundational areas such as prenatal development, brain development, epigenetics, physical growth, nutrition, cognition, language, attachment, and risk. The chapters present theoretical and empirical depth and rigor across specific domains of development, while highlighting reciprocal connections among brain, behavior, and social-cultural context. The handbook simultaneously educates, enriches, and encourages. It educates through detailed reviews of innovative methods and empirical foundations and enriches by considering the contexts of brain, culture, and policy. This cutting-edge volume establishes an agenda for future research and policy, and highlights research findings and application for advanced students, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers with interests in understanding and promoting infant development.