Laura Berk’s Development Through the Lifespan is relied upon in classrooms worldwide for its clear, engaging writing style, exceptional multicultural and cross-cultural focus, cutting-edge consideration of the interrelationships between heredity and environment, rich examples, and long-standing commitment to presenting the most up-to-date scholarship. This new edition continues to offer students research-based practical applications that they can relate to their personal and professional lives.
Laura Berk, renowned professor and researcher, has revised the text with new pedagogy, a heightened emphasis on the interplay between heredity and environment, and an enhanced focus on many social policy issues, while emphasizing the lifespan perspective throughout. The latest theories and findings in the field are made accessible to students in a manageable and relevant way. Berk’s signature storytelling style invites students to actively learn beside the text’s “characters.” Students are provided with an especially clear and coherent understanding of the sequence and underlying processes of human development, emphasizing the interrelatedness of all domains—physical, cognitive, emotional, social—throughout the text narrative and in special features.
Berk also helps students connect their learning to their personal and professional areas of interest. Her voice comes through when speaking directly about issues students will face in their future pursuits as parents, educators, health care providers, social workers, and researchers. As members of a global and diverse human community, students are called to intelligently approach the responsibility of understanding and responding to the needs and concerns of both young and old.
While carefully considering the complexities of human development, Berk presents classic and emerging theories in an especially clear, engaging writing style, with a multitude of research-based, real-world, cross-cultural, and multicultural examples. Strengthening the connections among developmental domains and of theory and research with applications, this edition's extensive revision brings forth the most recent scholarship, representing the changing field of human development.