Concept Of Human Development Research Articles

Using Feature Films to Teach Human Development Concepts

This article gives evidence of how and why feature films are effective instructional tools, particularly when teaching concepts of human development to college students. In addition to capturing student interest, use of films helps to dramatize and frame issues, generate discussion, and provide links with personal experience.

Shaping human development: Which way next?

The United Nations Development Programme's concept of human development, first presented in the 1990 Human Development Report (HDR), distilled the essence of the evolution in development thinking and effectively reoriented the debate by bringing people back into the centre of development. There has been much discussion of the HDRs in the literature and the reports have also evolved somewhat over the years. But the basic concept of human development seems to have become stagnant and the reports have not lived up to their own initial promises. We feel that if the reports are to maintain their position as frontrunners of the development debate, then they must explore further the relationship between the widening of human choices and the framework within which these choices are exercised, as alluded to in the first report itself. Furthermore, the reports should choose to focus explicitly on the role of the richest people and countries in promoting human development, the plight of the poorest people and countries, and on the growing disparities in today's world. The global perspective afforded by such a focus could be coupled to an exploration of the norms and values on which human development should be based. This should lead to an evolving and improved conception of human development that better reflects current global realities and future global aspirations.

Global megatrends and the community

An examination of the thesis of Asian megatrends as conceived of in the literature until recent times, is reviewed. Major ramifications within it, such as the role of Asian values, economic growth and development, a self‐reliant nationalism different from the West, and the rise of a human development concept, are critically examined. Yet the role of community as substantively defined in this paper, is found to have remained ignored in the study of major megatrends between the West and the East. This remiss in the study of human futures within a politico‐economic developmental context is argued to cause unsustainability of the megatrends paradigm. The projected decline of the Asian megatrends is shown to arise from its absence of an understanding of a ‘globally’ interactive, integrative and evolutionary process of understanding historical change. Within this new paradigm the epistemology of community is shown to play a much more substantive role than simply the pursuit of growth and development in the midst of capitalist globalism. Substantive methodological implications are shown to emanate from such a different view of studying megatrends in general. The concept of objective globalization is thereby derived.

The Life Course as Developmental Theory

The pioneering longitudinal studies of child development (all launched in the 1920s and 1930s) were extended well beyond childhood. Indeed, they eventually followed their young study members up to the middle years and later life. In doing so, they generated issues that could not be addressed satisfactorily by available theories. These include the recognition that individual lives are influenced by their ever-changing historical context, that the study of human lives calls for new ways of thinking about their pattern and dynamic, and that concepts of human development should apply to processes across the life span. Life course theory has evolved since the 1960s through programmatic efforts to address such issues.

Toward a Dialogic Conception of Human Development

Toward a Dialogic Conception of Human Development

Should I Go, or Should I Stay?: Adolescence, School Attainment, and Parent-Child Relations in Italian Immigrant Families of New Haven, 1900-1940

The first reaction [of the southern Italian immigrant parent] to the American school system was based on the immigrant's discovery of a group, which, though evidently adult in physical growth, was a child-group since it attended school and indulged in childish activities like playing ball. One of the quiet cultural transformations of the twentieth century in the United States has been the widespread consensus over the meaningfulness of age gradations among children and youths. Joseph Kett's important book on the history of the idea of adolescence examined the first significant triumph of experts in promoting the concept of human development in American institutional life. Who could have predicted at the dawn of the twentieth century the swift success of the “adolescent idea” and the subdivision of stages in growing up that has occurred since? Certainly the rise of the expert and the medicalization of “deviance” have contributed significantly to the broad acceptance of age gradations and the developmental perspective. But schooling, the most pervasive of all modern institutions has had the greatest influence on the willingness of Americans to think through novel categories of cognitive, emotional, and physiological growth and well-being in young people. While the passage and enforcement of compulsory schooling and a concomitant need to make distinctions among children's school performance (which led to age-grading) established the framework for thinking about pupils developmentally, it was the voluntary extension of schooling that proved the true measure of parents' willing adoption of the developmental view. The critical period of growth in schooling beyond the minimum required by law occurred between 1910 and 1940, when high school attendance grew dramatically. One factor in its expansion was the invention of the high school “drop out,” which both constituted and reflected the spread of the idea that high school was within the reach of every girl and boy and that every child, moreover, should want to attend high school.

Student Teachers’ Beliefs and a Changing Teacher Role

Summary This article discusses the encounters between the changing expectations on the teacher role, teacher education and Swedish student teachers’ beliefs about their role as teachers, with special emphasis on the socialisation process of the pupils and the teacher's possible influence on it. The discussion is based on two empirical studies among Swedish compulsory school student teachers (M. von Wright, (1996) Propedeusis? Om motet mellan lärarstuderande och lärarutbildningen, in: Grundskollärarutbüdningen 1995. En utvärdering. Högskoleverkets rapportserie 1996:1 R.; M. von Wright (1997) Socialisationsprocessen. Metaforer och synsätt hos blivande lärare. Licentiatuppsats. Lärarhögskolan i Stockholm). The results show that student teachers when they enter their education on the one hand tend to carry with them explicit expectations which strongly reflect the values of what is considered pedagogically correct. At the same time students express implicit beliefs and underlying conceptions of human development, which in many cases are incoherent. During teacher education the pedagogically correct beliefs might become replaced, but implicit beliefs as affinity to certain pedagogical discourses are not changed or brought to awareness unless they are seriously challenged and problematised. Yet these beliefs direct the students’ attention. Changing demands on the teacher role bring about expectations on a shift in thinking about teaching and learning. Teacher education and educators can play important roles in making the students aware of their everyday beliefs and eventually change them.

Fixation and regression in the psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality--a critical evaluation.

This essay evaluates the notions of fixation and regression in the psychoanalytic theoretical conceptualization of homosexuality. Charles Socarides has had a central role in formulating the most prominent and influential psychoanalytic metapsychological understanding of homosexuality in recent years and for that reason this essay focuses principally on him. The concepts of fixation and regression are central to his understanding and I argue that the evolution of these concepts in contemporary usage renders them irrelevant to formulating the current psychoanalytic understanding of homosexuality and that their continued use by analysts reflects a negative attitude toward homosexual behavior on the part of Socarides and many other analysts that stems from an extremely narrow and idealized conception of human development.

Theory and measurement of living levels: Some empirical results for the human development index

AbstractIn 1990 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published the human development index (HDI), a new measure that provides a means by which inter‐country and intertemporal comparisons of living levels can be undertaken. This paper has three objectives. Firstly, the various concepts and measures that can be used for inter‐country and intertemporal comparisons are described so as to put this new measure in perspective with respect to the existing literature. Secondly, the conceptual basis of the HDI is described and it is shown that the index actually calculated by UNDP is, in fact, only one of three possible measures of the general conception of human development stated by UNDP. Thirdly, empirical analysis of the two more important measures of the HDI indicates that there are some important differences between the measures. Absolute values and the ranking characteristics of the three measures of the HDI are examined. These differences may be quite important if the HDI is used as an explanatory variable in economic or social analyses.

Towards a Human Development Strategy

Paper prepared for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 1992. The purposes of this short monograph are, first, to introduce the general reader to the basic concepts of human development, seen as an all-embracing strategy of development, and, second, to devise guidelines for use by national policy makers, development specialists and international advisors in constructing development strategies which give high priority to human development. The intention is not to present a blueprint for human development that can be applied mechanically in every country but to raise the issues that must be addressed and to offer suggestions as to how these issues can be resolved. The point of departure for each country necessarily is distinct and reflects its history, culture, resource endowment and political institutions. Thus each country faces a unique set of problems, but also a unique set of opportunities and a unique set of feasible policies. There is more than one path to human development, and hence the need to consider alternative strategies, but any successful strategy will have to pay careful attention to the structure of incentives that guides economic activity, the allocation of public expenditure and the institutional arrangements that determine the distribution of wealth and income and the vulnerability of various sections of the population to events which can threaten their livelihood and perhaps even their life.

Psychological Maturity of Young, Divorcing People

The present investigation was done to assess the psychological maturity of divorcing couples. A special questionnaire was formulated, using the conception of human development proposed by Erikson and Levinson as well as Hevighurst's conception of developmental tasks. 94 students of the VI-th year of medicine (47 women and 47 men) participated in constructing the questionnaire. Then 15 women and 15 men, who were clients of the Consulting and Diagnostic Family Center, ages 23 to 32 years were tested. Analysis shows lower scores for women than for men, especially on subscales of personal and interpersonal relations and adaptation to the parent's role.

Beyond reductionism: The emerging holistic paradigm in education.

Abstract Modern educational theory and practice are grounded in an objec‐tivistic, reductionistic world view, particularly a “natural science” conception of human development. Holistic education is a radically non‐reductionistic approach based upon a person‐centered, ecological, global and spiritual world view. As such, the holistic paradigm is an alternative not only to the scientistic reductionism of the modern age, but also to the intellectual reductionism of postmodern thought. Holistic education is a humanistic as well as spiritual critique of the dominant culture.

The adolescent-to-adult transition: Discouragement among jobless black youth

Although many youth experience difficulty in the school-to-work transition, increasing numbers of black youth face more chronic difficulties that have far-reaching developmental implications. This chapter examines both objective and subjective aspects of chronic joblessness among black youth, with emphasis on gender differences in discouragement over job searches and related developmental issues. A life cycle approach to role strain and adaptation provides a coherent framework to guide theoretical inquiry into jobless black youth in America. Role-strain adaptation processes have special appeal because they provide a coherent conceptual base for studies on the nature, antecedents, and consequences of chronic difficulty in job search. Two basic notions in the proposed role-strain adaptation approach to joblessness among black youth are that discouragement in the job search and self-blame increase the risk of maladaptive responses to objective barriers and that objective and subjective cultural resources facilitate adaptive response patterns. The role-strain adaptation paradigm not only provides a parsimonious framework but also builds on a diverse theoretical and empirical literature (Barnett, Beiner, and Baruch, 1987; Bowman, 1989; Goode, 1960; Kahn and others, 1964; Merton, 1968; Pearlin, 1983; Sarbin and Allen, 1968). Role-strain adaptation models allow one to go beyond past studies on black youth, which have primarily been descriptive rather than theoretical and predictive. In addition to the foregoing benefits, a major virtue of the life cycle approach to job search strain processes is its explanatory power throughout the life span (Allen and Vande Vliert, 1981; Erikson, 1980; George, 1980; Levinson and others, 1978). A life cycle framework avoids common misconceptions that occur with a narrow focus on job search strain among black youth that fails to consider the continuity in chronic role-strain adaptation processes. In a broader life-span framework, the interrelated concepts of human development and cultural adaptation have unique explanatory power. Elsewhere (Bowman, 1989) I have noted that to develop means to grow out of, to evolve from--where experiences at one life stage not only follow but emerge directly from preceding life experiences. The related concept of adaptation involves a continuing process of incorporating past experiences into new patterns to strategically meet the challenge of changing life demands without undue compromise. For black youth faced with chronic joblessness, effective adaptation may require preserving core cultural patterns from prior generations, while also transforming such core patterns into new strategies to cope with job search barriers in postindustrial America.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Developmental assumptions in literary criticism and their implications for conceptions of continuity and change in literary creativity.

With 2 critical readings of William Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood," this article presents contrasting assumptions of the literary critic about the development of artistic creativity and relates them to the issue of continuity and change in literary expression over the life span. The unveiled assumptions parallel the "hard" (structuralist) and "soft" (life-span) conceptions of human development prevailing in contemporary psychology. A better understanding of creative development may be reached by superimposing the principles derived from the soft metatheoretical orientation on those of the hard theory.

World views and the concept of development: A reply to Lerner and Kauffman

I reply here to the argument of R. M. Lerner and M. B. Kauffman (1985, Developmental Review, 5, 309–333) that an adequate concept of human development is incompatible with a mechanist “world view” but rests instead on a principled integration of contextualist and organicist “world views.” I review how each of these metatheoretical positions is described by the philosopher who proposed them and conclude that the version of contextualism and organicism presented by Lerner and Kauffman is so diluted as to lose the essence of their original meaning. In consequence, the concept of development they propose, which includes the notion of integrative levels, causal variables that interact differently at different times in the course of ontogeny, and probabilistic outcomes is more compatible with the mechanistic metatheory they eschew than with the contextualist and organismic ones they ostensibly espouse.

Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analysis of Development: The Interbehavioral Perspective

The interbehavioral concept of human development is reviewed and proposals are offered for refining the cross-sectional stages (foundational, basic, and societal) and for specifying longitudinal analyses in terms of effective, language, cognitive, and affective interactions.

Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle

Drawing on literary and psychological sources, Carol Gilligan documents the way in which theories of the life cycle, by taking for their model the lives of men, have failed to account for the experience of women. Arguing that this bias has promoted a concern with autonomy and achievement at the expense of attachment and intimacy, she suggests that systematic attention to women's lives, in both theory and research, will allow an integration of these concerns into a more balanced conception of human development.

Lessing's Conception of Revelation as Education

Lessing's Conception of Revelation as Education HENRY E. ALLISON I The Education of the Human Race is generally regarded as the final and most authoritative expression of Lessing’s religious-philosophical position. Its central theme is the analogy between revelation and education. This analogy is used as a vehicle for presenting a progressive or developmental conception of religious truth and thereby for ostensibly answering the objections which were raised against the notion of revelation in general, and the Jewish and Christian revelations in particular, by Hermann Samuel Reimarus.1 Neither the analogy itself, nor the purpose for which it is apparently used, were original with Lessing. Probably the first thinker to make use of it was Clement of Alexandria, in his response to Gnostic criticisms of the Old Testa­ ment. The Gnostics, in striking anticipation of deists such as Reimarus, chal­ lenged the revealed character of the Old Testament on the grounds that it presented an overly anthropomorphic conception of God and failed to in­ clude a doctrine of immortality. Clement responded to this criticism by pre­ senting the Old Testament as a preparatory revelation, accomodated to the primitive level of development of the Hebrew people.2 A similar conception, together with a doctrine of stages of revelation, was developed by Origen, and is also to be found in Tertullian and Irenaeus.3 In more recent times, we find Locke using a similar analogy in order to counter the deistic objection that a God who makes salvation dependent upon the acceptance of an historical 183 184 / HENRY E. ALLISON revelation, which must of necessity remain either inaccessible or implausible to the vast majority of mankind, is an arbitrary and immoral tyrant. Locke responds to this by admitting that, since the truths which it contains are all accessible to reason, divine revelation is not absolutely necessary to salvation. He also claims, however, that revelation has an important pedagogical func­ tion, as without its assistance most men would never be able clearly to appre­ hend these truths.4 These thinkers all seem to have taken the analogy between revelation and education with full seriousness, viewing revelation in theistic fashion as the communication from God to man of a body of propositions and moral prin­ ciples. This naturally gives rise to the question whether Lessing likewise con­ strued the analogy in this sense, that is to say, whether he really accepted a theistic conception of revelation. The vast bulk of the Lessing literature of the present century has, of course, answered this question in the negative. Since the work of Frederick Loofs,5 the prevailing opinion has been that Lessing’s conception of revelation is merely an exoteric cloak for a theory of human development. This prevailing interpretation has, however, been acutely challenged by Helmut Thielicke.6 The latter views Lessing’s approach to the concept of revelation in light of the contemporary debate over the demythologization, and attributes to Lessing a view of revelation which is in many ways similar to Bultmann’s.7 Moreover, in reviewing the secondary literature, Thielicke makes the telling point that merely characterizing Less­ ing’s use of “revelation” as an exoteric expression for a conception of human development hardly resolves the problem. For even if this is accepted, the question still remains whether this process of ethical and religious develop­ ment, which for Lessing constitutes the education of the human race, requires an appeal to the idea that a transcendent deity entered into history.8 Thielicke believes that it does, and he endeavors to justify this by an analysis of The Education of the Human Race, together with some of Lessing’s other writings. Now, as I have argued elsewhere, a consideration of Lessing’s overall posi­ tion and strategy in the theological controversies stemming from the publica­ tion of the fragments from Reimarus cannot bear out any such interpre­ tation.9 His whole approach to the question of religious truth is grounded in his adaptation of the Leibnizian perspectivalism, which he held together with a basically Spinozistic conception of God. Accordingly, there is no place in his scheme for the traditional conception of revelation. The present study, however, shall deal solely with The Education...

Two Aspects of Experience in Ontogeny: Development and Learning

Publisher Summary This chapter uses some of Piaget's theoretical concepts of human development in relation to questions that have been repeatedly raised by investigators of animal behavior and development. Two works by Lorenz and a recent article of Lehrman are analyzed as they relate to the controversial nature-nurture problem. Differing underlying epistemological perspectives are noted: for the empiricism of experimentalists, knowledge derives primarily from the ontogenetic environment. Piaget's theory is interpreted as postulating two aspects of individual ontogenetic experience, a species experience (an interaction of species–specific structures with the common normal environment) and a particular experience (the application of available structures to particular environmental contingencies).

The role of rewards and reinforcements in early education programs: I external reinforcement in early education

Arguments are proposed for the use of external modes of reinforcement with young children. Such reinforcement is not antithetical to most conceptions of human development and learning and indeed can supplement and support learning and teaching strategies derived from diverse theories. External reinforcement aids the development of prelearning skills, the emergence of creativity, child analysis, and complex learning. It helps improve the affective climate and guides teacher behavior. External reinforcement paradigms are necessary, useful, but not sufficient for a complete instructional system.