Читать книгу The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development - Группа авторов - Страница 14

Gary W. Ladd

The aim of this chapter is to consider how conceptual and investigative trends over the past half‐century (i.e., 1970s to 2020s; the “modern era”; Collins, 2011) shaped the theoretical and investigative agendas that drive contemporary research on social development. This historical analysis begins by briefly examining some of the ideological and empirical foundations of the modern era. It then proceeds to identify the dominant aims and foci of social development discipline during the past half‐century and trace the major research trends and substantive developments that transpired during that epoch. Of particular interest are research agendas that supersede individual substantive areas and thereby exemplify the overarching purposes of the larger scientific enterprise. Finally, this analysis traces some of the conceptual and empirical forces that transformed the discipline, including shifts in explanatory foci and frameworks, the influx of sociocultural issues and crises, and the introduction of novel research methods and analytic strategies.