Social and Emotional Development

William M. Bukowski is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University, Canada where he holds a University research chair. Broadly defined, his research interest is the features and effects of peer relations among school-age and early adolescent boys and girls. He is especially interested in: (a) the extent to which experiences with peers protect at-risk children from negative outcomes; and (b) the personal and contextual factors that underlie variability in the effects of the peer system. Brett Laursen is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University, USA. His main research interest is in the developmental processes related to interpersonal relationships during adolescence. He is especially interested in the positive and negative effects of conflict in adolescent relationships.Kenneth H. Rubin is the Director of the Center for Children, Relationships, and Culture at the University of Maryland, USA where he is a Professor in the Department of Human Development. He directs a large research programme on the antecedents and consequences of peer relations during childhood and early adolescence. He is among the most productive and widely cited developmental psychologists in the world.

• Three of the volumes will represent particular periods of the infancy-to-adolescence lifespan. The first will be devoted to research on infancy and early childhood, the second will include articles on development during the school-age years, and the third will focus on adolescence.For each of these age periods the volume editors plan to select the research that represents critical changes in the study of social and emotional development and that has most clearly revealed critical findings or advances in knowledge. Within each volume there will be a diverse set of journal articles that will cover development within the family with parents and siblings, outside the family with peers, in social contexts such as nurseries and schools, and the formation of one’s view of the social world.The fourth volume will collect material about ‘methods and models’. This will include the major theoretical papers that have shaped or redirected the study of social and emotional development. Fundamental papers on statistical techniques and research designs associated with the study of development or change will be included also. Whereas some of this research may have more to do with one period of childhood than another, they will be of interest and importance to a very broad audience. The material selected on methods and procedures will not be technical papers crammed with formulae and mathematical reasoning. Instead they will provide readers with a rich introduction to the purposes and basic methods of studying development.Material will be selected according to a combination of empirical considerations (e.g. citation frequency) and the judgement of the editors. Each volume will include papers related to the following topicsInterpersonal Relationships. The major topics will be family relations, friends and enemies; peer groups and peer-group status; and family relationships. These papers will include studies of the features and effects of interpersonal relationships. For example, many of the papers included in the infancy and early childhood volume will be about attachment; papers in the school-age volume will be about family environment and the antecedents and consequences of experiences with peers; the volume on adolescence is likely to include papers on romantic relationships and the processes associated with leaving home. Contextual Influences on Development. The major topics will include cultural variations in social development, school and childcare effects, SES; family structure; and culture and ethnic-group membership. Examples of articles will be papers on cultural variations in patterns of attachment, sex differences in achievement during the school-age period, and differences in adolescent conflict across ethnic groups.The Development of the Self. The major topics will include temperament and personality; self-esteem; gender and ethnic identity; achievement and future orientation; and sexual orientation. In the infancy volume the editors will include material on how children develop a sense of themselves as individuals. In the school-age volume there will be basic papers on the origins of self-esteem. In the volume on adolescence there will be papers on identity formation.Social Cognitive Development. The major topics will include perspective taking; emotional awareness; social exchange; pro-social and moral development; and social skills. Papers from the infancy period will include seminal reports of how children learn to take the perspective of another person. The school-age volume will include material on children’s understanding of achievement as well as basic papers on moral development. The adolescence volume will include research on changes in person perception.Atypical Adjustment. The major topics will be variations in attachment styles, the social origins of externalizing and internalizing problems; social withdrawal and isolation; and gene–environment interactions. The material gathered will be about the origins of individual differences in attachment that are antecedent to emotional difficulties, the role of aggression and victimization is the development of internalizing and externalizing problems, and recent studies of the role of genetic processes.