Child and Adolescent Life Stories

The uniqueness of Child and Adolescent Life Stories lies in the multiple perspectives drawn from youth their parents and their teachers. These perspectives provide a range of lenses through which a student or beginning teacher may view child and adolescent development. The complex processes of development occur within a social context and therefore a professional teacher administrator or school psychologist will need to be able to view developmental stages from youths perspectives as well as from their various social settings.The twelve cases in this book were compiled from interviews and observations done with youth their parents and their teachers. The cases were then written from multiple perspectives allowing the reader an opportunity to understand the influence of family school and society on the youths development. Each case tells a youths life story including the events and relationships that have influenced the child and his or her cognitive social and emotional development. The youth in these cases represent a cross section of ages and socio-economic levels and exhibit diversity in their ethnic backgrounds religious/spiritual beliefs gender family structures and disabilities. The cases are intended to elicit discussion on a wide range of issues in development. To this end this book explores many critical (and sometimes controversial) topics such as teen pregnancy sexual orientation disabilities child abuse domestic violence death of a parent and more. This will allow instructors the greatest possible flexibility in supplementing their courses with life histories and cases. These cases are the perfect illustration of the complexity of a full life history.Key FeaturesEach case includes discussion questions and research and classroom activities allowing students to further examine the issues presented in the caseMatrix organizes cases by subjects socio-economic level ethnic background gender etc. allowing instructors and readers to pinpoint the most relevant cases for their studyConnecting Across Cases feature poses questions that encourage students to consider developmental issues in two or more casesCases cover the full range of development from ages 4 to 18 which mirrors the range covered in most child and adolescent development courses and textsThis collection of stories provides some of the rich descriptive detail needed to put the complex process of development into perspective.Miles Irving Georgia State UniversityThis is an excellent endeavorwell conceptualized and well executed. I would most definitely like to use this text in my undergraduate development classes.Judith Rhoden University of North Carolina CharlotteThese case studies allow the reader a glimpse at the individual family and community dynamics that go into making each child who he or she is. This text will make a wonderful supplement for courses dealing with child development educational psychology families communities and parenting.Deanna Nekovei Texas A&M UniversityThis book is a welcome addition to the literature. As a reader one gets the sense that these cases are real. The authors do a great job of providing enough detailed information without overloading the reader. Such details allow the reader an opportunity to apply theory to real life examples. And as a course instructor these cases will provide me an opportunity to assess whether my students have a firm grasp of the concepts.Karen M. Dutt-Doner Niagara University