The proliferation of a wide variety of family forms has challenged the centrality and necessity of the traditional nuclear family as a context for successful socialization. Views of the importance of the gender of parents, sexual orientation of parents, biological relatedness of family members, and new routes to parenthood are challenged. Increases in divorce, the rise in the number of stepfamilies, cohabitating couples, single parents, and adoption raise further questions about the links between both the number of parents and the biological ties among family members. The gender, sexual orientation, or biological relatedness of the agent of delivery of the critical ingredients for socialization (i.e., stimulation, nurturance ,guidance, limit setting) or the family form in which these processes are enacted are less important than the processes themselves. Second, an interdependent model of family functioning is proposed, which reflects the increasing degree of outsourcing of tasks and responsibilities. To maximize assistance available to a full range of family forms, it is critical that policy makers recognize the diversity of family forms and develop suitable policies.

The goal of this chapter is to address how urban dynamics at the neighborhood level are linked to children’s development. We first review trends in the spatial concentration of poverty and inequality in the United States in recent decades. Then, we turn to theoretical models describing how local communities, with a focus on urban settings, influence children’s development. We then cover methodological issues and focus on one critical issue, selection bias, and then briefly review study designs as related to this challenge. Finally, we provide an overview of empirical studies linking neighborhood, socioeconomic conditions, and children’s development, notably their educational, behavioral, and socioemotional outcomes.

Philosophers through the ages have stressed time as a critical variable in life, and developmentalists today pretend to a lifespan framework. Paradoxically, many construals of time are still neglected in developmental science. This chapter focuses on time and fleshes out three developmental perspectives on time: the chronosystem from the bioecological systems framework, transaction, and specificity.

Bioecological systems theory characterizes development as a joint function of process, person, context, and time. The principle of transaction in development asserts that characteristics of individuals shape their experiences, and reciprocally experiences shape the characteristics of individuals, through time. Finally, the specificity principle contends that understanding lifespan development depends critically on what is studied in whom, how, and when. Time fits integrally into each prevailing developmental perspective.

In this chapter, we argue that the timing of societal events in an individual’s life plays a major role in shaping that life through interacting developmental processes at multiple levels. We focus on classic research by Elder showing how two such events in historical proximity dramatically altered the lives of California children who were born at opposite ends of the 1920s, 1920–21 and 1928–29, the Great Depression of the 1930s followed by World War II (1941–45) and the Korean War (1950–53). We employ insights from both Elder’s cohort historical life course approach and developmental science including recent work on developmental neuroscience to understand the life-long impact of exposure to events that occur at different times in life, and the mechanisms through which these exposures may influence development, as well as experiences that may provide turning points in development.

In this opening chapter we provide a chronology of the relatively recent recognition that an understanding of children’s lives across time requires that context in terms of historical time and place also needs to consider culture . Early efforts often failed to recognize this fundamental premise and instead studied children out of context.

The emergence of the life course perspective with its recognition of the centrality of changing historical contexts as necessary for an adequate understanding of children’s development was a major step forward in theorizing about children’s development. Moreover, in the past several decades, the life course perspective has also evolved and now recognizes the role of both individual and collective agency in shaping both individual outcomes and those at other levels of analysis. Moreover, as prior work has long recognized, it is increasingly accepted that secular changes co-occur and often come as a package.

For example, war, famine, migration, and economic hardship generally operate together. We also underscore the increasing appreciation of cross-disciplinary dialogue as necessary for understanding issues such as children’s genetic influences and how they are constrained in their expression by historical and environmental factors.

In this opening chapter we provide a chronology of the relatively recent recognition that an understanding of children’s lives across time requires that context in terms of historical time and place also needs to consider culture . Early efforts often failed to recognize this fundamental premise and instead studied children out of context.

The emergence of the life course perspective with its recognition of the centrality of changing historical contexts as necessary for an adequate understanding of children’s development was a major step forward in theorizing about children’s development. Moreover, in the past several decades, the life course perspective has also evolved and now recognizes the role of both individual and collective agency in shaping both individual outcomes and those at other levels of analysis. Moreover, as prior work has long recognized, it is increasingly accepted that secular changes co-occur and often come as a package.

For example, war, famine, migration, and economic hardship generally operate together. We also underscore the increasing appreciation of cross-disciplinary dialogue as necessary for understanding issues such as children’s genetic influences and how they are constrained in their expression by historical and environmental factors.