These companion volumes bring together research and theoretical work that addresses the relations between social context and the development of children. They allow for the in-depth discussion of a number of vital metatheoretical, theoretical, and methodological issues that have emerged as a result of increased investigation in these areas. For example: Which methodological and statistical procedures are appropriate and applicable to studies of social context and processes of development? Should the nature of social context be reconceptualized as something more than different levels of some social independent variable? Are theories of development that do not consider social context incomplete? Will the increasingly finer definitions of social context lead to extreme situationism and contextualism? As developmental theory and investigation continues to address relationships between social and cognitive development, it becomes increasingly important that issues concerning social context be elaborated and discussed.
