Young Minds in Social Worlds

by Nelson, Katherine

• ISBN13: 9780674034860
• ISBN10: 0674034864
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

Katherine Nelson re-centers developmental psychology with a revived emphasis on development and change, rather than foundations and continuity. She argues that children be seen not as scientists but as members of a community of minds, striving not only to make sense, but also to share meanings with others.A child is always part of a social world, yet the child's experience is private. So, Nelson argues, we must study children in the context of the relationships, interactive language, and culture of their everyday lives.Nelson draws philosophically from pragmatism and phenomenology, and empirically from a range of developmental research. Skeptical of work that focuses on presumed innate abilities and the close fit of child and adult forms of cognition, her dynamic framework takes into account whole systems developing over time, presenting a coherent account of social, cognitive, and linguistic development in the first five years of life.Nelson argues that a child's entrance into the community of minds is a slow, gradual process with enormous consequences for child development, and the adults that they become. Original, deeply scholarly, and trenchant, Young Minds in Social Worlds will inspire a new generation of developmental psychologists.

Author Biography

Katherine Nelson is Distinguished Professor of Psychology Emerita at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the editor of Narratives from the Crib (Harvard).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Modern Metaphors of the Developing Child	p. 1
Perspectives on Meaning	p. 29
Being an Infant, Becoming a Child	p. 58
Toddling toward Childhood	p. 87
Experiential Semantics of First Words	p. 117
Entering the Symbolic World	p. 149
Finding oneself in Time	p. 179
Entering a Community of Minds	p. 209
The Study of Developing Young Minds	p. 239
Notes	p. 269
References	p. 277
Acknowledgments	p. 301
Index	p. 305
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