Jaan Valsiner is Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. He is the founding editor (1995) of the Sage journal, Culture & Psychology. And of The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology (2012). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Sciences (Springer, from 2007). In 1995 he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize in Germany for his interdisciplinary work on human development, and Senior Fulbright Lecturing Award in Brazil 1995-1997. He has been a visiting professor in Brazil, Japan, Australia, Estonia. Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
This major new textbook by Jaan Valsiner focuses on the interface between cultural psychology and developmental psychology. Intended for students from undergraduate level upwards, the book provides a wide-ranging overview of the cultural perspective on human development, with illustrations from pre-natal development to adulthood.A key feature is the broad coverage of theoretical and methodological issues which have relevance to this truly interdisciplinary field of enquiry encompassing developmental psychology, cultural anthropology and comparative sociology. The text is organized into five coherent parts: Part 1: Developmental theory and methodology; Part 2: Analysis of environments for human development Part 3: Cultural organization of pregnancy and infancy; Part 4: Early childhood development; and Part 5: Entering the world of activities - culturally ruled.
