Young Minds in Social Worlds: Experience, Meaning, and Memory

Katherine Nelson

Published by Harvard University Press 2010

Young Minds in Social Worlds

Experience, Meaning, and Memory

Katherine Nelson

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674041400

Overview
Contents

About this book

Katherine Nelson re-centers developmental psychology with a revived emphasis on development and change, rather than foundations and continuity. Nelson argues that a child's entrance into the community of minds is a gradual process with enormous consequences for child development, and the adults that they become.

Reviews

Takes a pragmatic, experiential perspective on the process of early development to reveal how children obtain a sense of self and an understanding of the world around them through social interactions. Emphasizing that each child finds a different path through this developmental process, she argues that those studying children must assume a process orientation to address how the mind-culture symbiosis occurs for normally developing children...She makes a cogent case for adopting a developmental-systems approach in which systems, conceptualized as undergoing continuous dynamic change, need to maintain a coherence across change, a continuity of the whole over time, and a flexibility in the face of strong individual differences. This allows one to view children not as little scientists working to understand domain-specific issues but as emerging members of “communities of minds” striving to make sense of the world around them and to share that meaning with others.
-- R. B. Stewart Choice

Nelson's book is thought-provoking and likely to stimulate discussion. Although the focus of the book makes it most appropriate for researchers and graduate students in child development, it should also interest cognitive psychologists who are not experts in development.
-- Marie Balaban PsychCritiques

Katherine Nelson's Young Minds in Social Worlds is an immensely rich, fascinating, and exciting book that describes development from infancy as the evolution of a "private mind" that is different from every other private mind and that gradually unfolds as the child enters the meaning-sharing of a "community of minds" through the first five years of life...This book evokes feelings of exuberance and vitality in the reader...Anyone interested in the unfolding of the developmental processes will appreciate her writing and the rich information that she provides.
-- Ira Glovinsky Journal of Developmental Processes

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
1. Modern Metaphors of the Developing Child Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Perspectives on Meaning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
3. Being an Infant, Becoming a Child Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
4. Toddling toward Childhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
5. Experiential Semantics of FirstWords Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
6. Entering the SymbolicWorld Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
7. Finding Oneself in Time Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
8. Entering a Community of Minds Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
9. The Study of Developing Young Minds Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	269
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	305

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 330

eBook

Published: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 9780674041400