Bridging Cultural and Developmental Approaches to Psychology
New Syntheses in Theory, Research, and Policy
Lene Arnett Jensen
Author Information
Lene Arnett Jensen is Associate Professor of Psychology at Clark University, USA, where she holds the Oliver and Dorothy Hayden Junior Faculty Fellowship. Her research addresses moral and civic development, and cultural identity formation in the context of globalization. A native of Denmark, Dr. Jensen has resided in a number of countries, including Belgium, India and France. She lives in Massachusetts, USA, with her husband and twin children.
Contributors:
Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University, USA. His main scholarly interests involve emerging adults (ages 18-29). His books include Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties (2004, Oxford University Press), and the two-volume International Encyclopedia of Adolescence (2007, Routledge). Dr. Arnett is also Editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research.
Oscar A. Baldelomar is a doctoral candidate in developmental psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. He conducts research on ethnic identity development in Costa Rica and the United States. He uses psychological and anthropological methodologies, and has created new measures of identity development in children and adolescents. His research has been published in Child Development.
Xinyin Chen is Professor of Psychology at University of Western Ontario, Canada. He has received a William T. Grant Scholars Award and several other awards. He is interested in children's socioemotional functioning and relationships, with a focus on cross-cultural issues. He has edited several books, including Peer Relationships in Cultural Context and Socioemotional Development in Cultural Context. Dr. Chen has also published over 100 articles and chapters about culture and development.
Patricio Cumsille is Associate Profesor of Psychology and Vice-Chair for Research and Graduate Studies in Psychology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His research addresses adolescent autonomy development and quantitative methods. Dr. Cumsille is Editor of Psykhe, a leading psychological journal in Latin America.
William Damon is Professor of Education and Director of the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University, USA. Dr. Damon has written about moral character and commitment at all ages of life. His books include The Moral Child (1990), Some Do Care (1992) (with Anne Colby), Greater Expectations (1995), The Youth Charter (1997), Good Work (2001) (with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), Noble Purpose (2003), The Moral Advantage (2004), and The Path to Purpose (2008).
Ranjana Dutta is Professor of Psychology at Saginaw Valley State University, USA. She holds a MS in child development and family studies from Maharaja Sayajirao University, India, and a Ph.D. in individual and family studies from Pennsylvania State University, USA. Dr. Dutta's scholarly interests include socialization in India and lifespan implications such as perceived control, goals, and wisdom.
Constance Flanagan is Professor of Youth Civic Development and Co-Director of the Civic and Community Engagement minor at Penn State University, USA. Her research concerns adolescents' theories of the 'social contract' and the role of mediating institutions as spaces where youth negotiate the social contract. Dr. Flanagan is co-editor of the new Wiley Handbook of Research and Policy on Youth Civic Engagement.
Jacqueline J. Goodnow is Research Professor at the Institute of Early Childhood at Macquarie University, Australia. She addresses how cultural contexts enriches our understanding of what development covers, and how individuals develop different skills and values. Dr. Goodnow's books include Cultural Practices as Contexts for Development (with Miller & Kessel, 1995, Jossey-Bass).
Michelle D. Leichtman is Associate Professor of Psychology and Lamberton Chair in the Study of Criminal Justice and Society at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, USA. Dr. Leichtman holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an MA and Ph.D. from Cornell University. She is a developmental psychologist who has published widely on issues surrounding children's memory development.
Jin Li is Associate Professor at Brown University, USA. Originally from China, she received her doctorate in human development from Harvard University. She studies how children of different cultures and ethnicities, particularly immigrant groups, develop learning beliefs and how they achieve. She also studies self-conscious emotions such as respect, pride, shame and guilt across cultures. She has received funding from a number of foundations and has published widely in professional journals and books.
M. Loreto Martínez is Associate Profesor of Psychology at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her research focuses on the development civic competencies and commitments in adolescence, in particular, as they relate to opportunities for social involvement in school, community, and youth organizations. Dr. Martinez is also conducting longitudinal research on adolescent autonomy in Chilean youth.
Jayanthi Mistry is Associate Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University, USA. Originally from India, she received her doctorate from Purdue University, and then completed a two year NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah. Her scholarship takes a socio-cultural approach, addressing the processes whereby children from ethnic minority and immigrant families develop and negotiate multiple cultural orientations and identities.
A. Bame Nsamenang is Associate Professor of Psychology and Learning Science at the University of Yaoundé 1 (ENS) and Director of Human Development Resource Centre in Bamenda, Cameroon. His research explores local understandings of child and youth development in African cultural circumstances. Dr. Nsamenang's publications include Human Development in Cultural Context: A Third World Perspective (1992, Sage), and Cultures of Human Development and Education: Challenge to Growing up in Africa (2004, Nova).
Jean Phinney is Emeritus Professor of Psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, and currently a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
For 20 years, her research has focused on identity formation, particularly ethnic and cultural identity among adolescents and emerging adults. Dr. Phinney developed the widely used Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure. Her books include Immigrant Youth in Cultural Transition (2006, with Berry, Sam & Vedder, Erlbaum).
Fred Rothbaum is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University, USA. He has published widely on socialization and cultural processes as they relate to children's perceived control, behavior problems, attachment,
and emotion regulation. Dr. Rothbaum is also President of the Child & Family WebGuide, a web
portal providing research to parents, professionals and students.
T. S. Saraswathi is retired Senior Professor in Human Development and Family Studies from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India. Dr. Saraswathi is co-editor of the Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology (1997, vol.2), The International Encyclopedia of Adolescence (2007), and World Youth: Adolescence in Eight Regions of the Globe (2003). She has also edited Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Human Development (2003) and Culture, Socialization, and Human Development (1999).
Alice Schlegel is Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Research Associate at the McClelland Institute for Children, Youth and Families at the University of Arizona, USA. Her fieldwork has addressed the Hopi in the U.S., and adolescent industrial apprenticeship and civic participation in Germany and Italy. Her numerous publications include the worldwide survey, Adolescence: An Anthropological Inquiry (1991, with Barry, Free Press).
Richard Shweder is a cultural anthropologist and the William Claude Reavis Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development at the University of Chicago, USA. His research addresses moral reasoning, emotional functioning, gender roles, and explanations of illness. Dr. Shweder's books include The Child (2009, University of Chicago Press), Why Do Men Barbecue? (2003, Harvard University Press), and Thinking Through Cultures (1991, Harvard University Press).
Jaan Valsiner is Professor of Psychology at Clark University, USA. He brings a developmental axiomatic base to cultural analyses of psychological phenomena. Dr. Valsiner is Founding Editor of the journal Culture & Psychology (1995, Sage), and Editor-in-Chief of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Sciences (Springer). His books include The Guided Mind (1998, Harvard University Press), Culture and Human Development (2000, Sage), and the Cambridge Handbook of Socio-Cultural Psychology (2007, with Rosa, Cambridge University Press).
Yan Z. Wang is Assistant Professor at the School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences at Northern Illinois University, USA. Dr. Wang received her M.A. from East China Normal University, and her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Her research addresses the influence of cultural frameworks on individual development and family dynamics. Dr. Wang has published on methodological issues in culture studies, dinnertime family interactions, and immigrant parenting.
