New energy, new evidence, and an emerging consensus on how learning happens have created a remarkable opportunity to galvanize widespread adoption of a whole child approach. However, messages about how learning happens are often obscured by confusion over terminology, weakening the field's overall ability to tell a compelling story about social,…

Developmental research has long sought to understand children's social ideas, and particularly how those ideas influence their judgments and behaviors toward other people. We examine the idea of "common humanity," a social idea that has been investigated historically and philosophically, to re-consider what is already known about…

There are seven major sets of differences between young children of different economic backgrounds. The middle class child, compared to the lower class child, generally exhibits: (1) better language comprehension and expression, (2) richer schema development, involving mental preparation for the unusual, (3) stronger attachment to the mother,…

This work by a social psychologist is concerned with the consequences of the values, attitudes, and behavior of teachers and more advantaged peers for the educational experience of disadvantaged youngsters in heterogeneous schools. The academic, social, and emotional factors in these schools are interdependent and equally important for the…

This paper looks at the relationship between parents' social networks and aspects of child development. It has often been suggested that parents' links with kin, neighbors, friends, and local and non-local organizations are likely to have many effects on their children's development. These effects, however, have never been systematically…