Developmental Transitions: Exploring stability and change through the lifespan

Abstract

What kinds of changes occur across the lifespan? What role do our experiences, social and historical contexts and relationships with others play in shaping those changes? This book aims to explore these questions through the concept of transitions. In developmental psychology, transitions have often been treated as a series of steps or stages related to age-graded norms. But transition can also be viewed as a dynamic process of change as people face the challenges of living and participating in different contexts and situations. \n \nThis book brings together a series of chapters that encompasses a range of complex transitional forms that take the reader beyond a focus on childhood and adolescence, to look at the whole lifespan. In doing so, it brings together several themes or elements from across a range of topics on transitions. These topics include: \n \n• The different conceptualisations of transitions \n• Transitions that occur in the body \n• Health transitions \n• Transitions in friendships and romantic relationships \n• Parenthood and other family transitions \n• Educational transitions \n• Career transitions and employment \n• Transitions across contexts \n• Society and transitions \n \nDevelopmental transitions will be essential reading for all undergraduate and graduate students of developmental and cultural psychology. It will also be a valuable resource for academics and practitioner audiences interested in stability and change as it relates to identity, wellbeing, personal relationships, and historical and sociocultural contexts.