Child Psychology in Retrospect and Prospect : in Celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the institute of Child Development

This is a special volume b/c it is an anniversary ed and will have some of the best names in the field contributing. It will emphasize history of the field as well as the current status and should generate much interest.

This 32nd volume of the Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology celebrates the 75th anniversary of the University of Minnesota''s Institute of Child Development. All eight essays are devoted to developmental science, its history, and current status. Taken together, the chapters in this book show how the history of science connects past and future, how it gives the individual investigator an identity and sense of purpose, how contemporary studies occur within larger traditions, and how institutions like the Institute of Child Development, constitute cultural traditions of their own.

Collectively, these essays show that the past explains a great deal--whether we want to know about the processes through which the child acquires symbolic thought or whether we want to know how and why, during the last century, a few enduring centers were established for the scientific study of children and adolescents. Reading these essays, one obtains a sense of how the past becomes evidence, how it forms models for the way we think, and how intellectual challenges arise.