The provision of clinical care and early intervention services for disadvantaged children and their families represents a universal problem which varies from country to country contingent on the political milieu of the time and place. However, the introduction of scholarship and research directed at public policy for the welfare of children can be influential at the government level, creating an impetus for change. The book under review explores the developmental psychology of children, with a focus on cognitive functions, in various locations in the United States in a recent historical context. Numerous themes and sub-themes are advanced in this collection of densely written essays.
The central theme is that healthy children everywhere undergo similar development and transformations in mental functions according to a sequence and timing determined by biological imperatives. However, the cultural milieu directs “emerging competencies to particular tasks in specific contexts” (page 23). The opening chapters of the book highlight this theme by citing research studies demonstrating, for example, recall competencies in children growing up in Kenya compared to New England, and second, the influence of parental attitudes in Asian and American rural and urban cultures on recall competencies in their children. The results of these studies suggest that the manner in which the parent asks (or demands) something of the child influences how well the child will recall earlier events. This opening chapter thus provides a stepping stone to the demonstration further in the book, with more support drawn from studies, showing that the educational progress of children correlates positively with an employment-based antipoverty program for parents. Subsequent chapters emphasize that only the provision of supplemental income for parents in less advantaged economic conditions improved the well-being of their children, and outlines the pathways by which experiences of parents outside the family, particularly employment opportunities, can advance behavioural competence and educational achievement in their children and grandchildren.
There is a sobering note in the evaluation of this research in the context of public policy. Although this type of research will always be an “orphan child at the table where policy is made” (page 132), it must continue so that hypotheses about effective investments in the lives of children are properly evaluated. This book does not include any evaluation of such programs as Head Start in the United States and Children First in Ontario. A subtheme in one section of this book is the vulnerability of development at transitional phases, such as at infancy and adolescence, when serious developmental crises can occur. The authors omit the occurrence of a first psychosis in the adolescent as an example of such a crisis.
Some striking studies on the effect of environmental changes in the development of children are described in the final section of this book. The first compares the gradual establishment of institutional education in three generations of a Mayan community, showing both sides of the coin of the impact of compulsory education on family life. Attending school when it is compulsory leaves the younger siblings at home and the parents and the younger siblings unattended and abandoned. This is the price for the acquisition of new language skills, greater mobility and economic advantages in the new generation who are now able to leave the world of their parents and grandparents behind.
The second study engages the reader in the startling observation of the effects of political changes in Germany on adolescent development. One consequence of German reunification has been the transformation of a relative absence of national identity among former East German families to a rising popularity of extreme National Socialist agendas among some in this generation. This is thought to explain the widespread aggressive, and at times violent, behaviours on the part of adolescent groups aimed at the new regime and at anyone felt to be on the side of the new liberal left. In this way the rise of Neo-Nazism is explained by political and cultural changes that are otherwise considered political progress.
This book presents a collection of highly informative research essays linking cultural influences and child development. This is of great importance to the policy maker and social scientist and of less interest to the mental health clinician who may not be as concerned about global issues. Yet perhaps we all should be.