Richard M. Lerner & Marc H. Bornstein 
Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, Volume 4, Ecological Settings and Processes 

The essential reference for human development theory, updated
and reconceptualized

The Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental
Science, a four-volume reference, is the field-defining work to
which all others are compared. First published in 1946, and now in
its Seventh Edition, the Handbook has long been considered
the definitive guide to the field of developmental science.

Volume 4: Ecological Settings and Processes in Developmental
Systems is centrally concerned with the people, conditions, and
events outside individuals that affect children and their
development. To understand children’s development it is both
necessary and desirable to embrace all of these social and physical
contexts. Guided by the relational developmental systems
metatheory, the chapters in the volume are ordered them in a manner
that begins with the near proximal contexts in which children find
themselves and moving through to distal contexts that influence
children in equally compelling, if less immediately manifest, ways.
The volume emphasizes that the child’s environment is complex,
multi-dimensional, and structurally organized into interlinked
contexts; children actively contribute to their development; the
child and the environment are inextricably linked, and
contributions of both child and environment are essential to
explain or understand development.

* Understand the role of parents, other family members, peers,
and other adults (teachers, coaches, mentors) in a child’s
development

* Discover the key neighborhood/community and institutional
settings of human development

* Examine the role of activities, work, and media in child and
adolescent development

* Learn about the role of medicine, law, government, war and
disaster, culture, and history in contributing to the processes of
human development

The scholarship within this volume and, as well, across the four
volumes of this edition, illustrate that developmental science is
in the midst of a very exciting period. There is a paradigm shift
that involves increasingly greater understanding of how to
describe, explain, and optimize the course of human life for
diverse individuals living within diverse contexts. This
Handbook is the definitive reference for educators,
policy-makers, researchers, students, and practitioners in human
development, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and
neuroscience.

Table of Content

Foreword to the Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, Seventh Edition vii

Preface xv

Volume 4 Preface xxiii

Contributors xxv

1 CHILDREN IN BIOECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES OF DEVELOPMENT 1
Marc H. Bornstein and Tama Leventhal

2 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN TIME AND PLACE 6
Glen H. Elder Jr., Michael J. Shanahan, and Julia A. Jennings

3 CHILDREN’S PARENTS 55
Marc H. Bornstein

4 CHILDREN IN DIVERSE FAMILIES 133
Lawrence Ganong, Marilyn Coleman, and Luke T. Russell

5 CHILDREN IN PEER GROUPS 175
Kenneth H. Rubin, William M. Bukowski, and Julie C. Bowker

6 EARLY CHILDCARE AND EDUCATION 223
Margaret Burchinal, Katherine Magnuson, Douglas Powell, and Sandra Soliday Hong

7 CHILDREN AT SCHOOL 268
Robert Crosnoe and Aprile D. Benner

8 CHILDREN’S ORGANIZED ACTIVITIES 305
Deborah Lowe Vandell, Reed W. Larson, Joseph L. Mahoney, and Tyler W. Watts

9 CHILDREN AT WORK 345
Jeremy Staff, Arnaldo Mont’Alvao, and Jeylan T. Mortimer

10 CHILDREN AND DIGITAL MEDIA 375
Sandra L. Calvert

11 CHILDREN IN DIVERSE SOCIAL CONTEXTS 416
Velma Mc Bride Murry, Nancy E. Hill, Dawn Witherspoon, Cady Berkel, and Deborah Bartz

12 CHILDREN’S HOUSING AND PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENTS 455
Robert H. Bradley

13 CHILDREN IN NEIGHBORHOODS 493
Tama Leventhal, Véronique Dupéré, and Elizabeth A. Shuey

14 CHILDREN AND SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS 534
Greg J. Duncan, Katherine Magnuson, and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal

15 CHILDREN IN MEDICAL SETTINGS 574
Barry Zuckerman and Robert D. Keder

16 CHILDREN AND THE LAW 616
Elizabeth Cauffman, Elizabeth Shulman, Jordan Bechtold, and Laurence Steinberg

17 CHILDREN AND GOVERNMENT 654
Kenneth A. Dodge and Ron Haskins

18 CHILDREN INWAR AND DISASTER 704
Ann S. Masten, Angela J. Narayan, Wendy K. Silverman, and Joy D. Osofsky

19 CHILDREN AND CULTURAL CONTEXT 746
Jacqueline J. Goodnow and Jeanette A. Lawrence

20 CHILDREN IN HISTORY 787
Peter N. Stearns

21 ASSESSING BIOECOLOGICAL INFLUENCES 811
Theodore D. Wachs

Author Index 847

Subject Index 887

About the author

Editor-in-Chief: Richard M. Lerner, Ph D is Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science at the Eliot-Pearson Department at Tufts University.? He is the author of many publications, including?Pathways to Positive Development about Diverse Youth?and?New Directions for Youth Development: Theory, Practice, and Research?(Jossey-Bass). Dr Lerner is also a past editor of the?Journal of Research on Adolescence?and?The Handbook of Life-Span Development?(Wiley).