Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context¹

ABSTRACT

This article synthesizes foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding how humans develop in context. Major constructs that define human development are integrated into a developmental system framework, this includes—epigenetics, neural malleability and plasticity, integrated complex skill development and learning, human variability, relationships and attachment, self-regulation, science of learning, and dynamics of stress, adversity and resilience. Specific attention is given to relational patterns, attunement, cognitive flexibility, executive function, working memory, sociocultural context, constructive development, self-organization, dynamic skill development, neural integration, relational pattern making, and adverse childhood experiences. A companion article focuses on individual-context relations, including the role of human relationships as key drivers of development, how social and cultural contexts support and/or undermine individual development, and the dynamic, idiographic developmental pathways that result from mutually influential individual-context relations across the life span. An understanding of the holistic, self-constructive character of development and interconnectedness between individuals and their physical, social, and cultural contexts offers a transformational opportunity to study and influence the children’s trajectories. Woven throughout is the convergence of the science of learning – constructive developmental web, foundational skills, mindsets (sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and growth mindset), prior knowledge and experience, motivational systems (intrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, and the Belief-Control-Expectancy Framework), metacognition, conditions for learning , cultural responsiveness and competence, and instructional and curricular design- and its importance in supporting in integrative framework for children’s development. This scientific understanding of development opens pathways for new, creative approaches that have the potential to solve seemingly intractable learning and social problems.

Acknowledgments

We thank our partners in this work: The Opportunity Institute, The Learning Policy Institute, and EducationCounsel. We also thank the following individuals for contributions to this article: J. Lawrence Aber, Arvin Bhana, Natacha Blain, Mette Böll, Marc Brackett, Catherine Brown, Nadine Burke Harris, Michele Cahill, Annemaree Carroll, Dante Cicchetti, Sarah Caverly, Micheline Chi, Greg Chung, Richard Clark, Patrick Cushen, Adele Diamond, Carol Dweck, Lisa Dickinson, Celene Domitrovich, Angela Duckworth, Helen Duffy, Camille Farrington, Ron Ferguson, Ellen Galinsky, Adam Gamoran, Robyn Gillies, Catherine Good, Mark Greenberg, Donna Harris-Aikens, Stephanie Jones, Paul LeBlanc, Carol Lee, Patricia Kuhl, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Felice Levine, Suniya Luthar, Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez, Ann Masten, Deborah Moroney, Elizabeth Nolan, Pedro Noguera, Edmund Oropez, Daphna Oyserman, Kent Pekel, Jim Pellegrino, Karen Pittman, Lisa Quay, Cynthia Robinson-Rivers, David Rose, Pankaj Sah, Bror Saxberg, Robert Selman, Peter Senge, Jim Shelton, Russ Shilling, Jack Shonkoff, Dan Siegel, Arietta Slade, Deborah Smolover, Brooke Stafford-Brizard, Laurence Steinberg, Jim Stigler, Diane Tavenner, Jessica Tsang, Melina Uncapher, Sheila Walker, Greg Walton, Roger Weissberg, Martin West, David Yeager, and Philip Zelazo.

Notes

²In this article, we define foundational skills according to the definition provided by Stafford-Brizard (2016). Identified through research in the fields of neuroscience and child development, such skills are those that all children need for healthy development and learning, including the bonds that children make with adults, which provide emotional security; the skills to cope with and manage stressful conditions; and the regulation of emotion and attention to effectively engage and accomplish goals. Research has demonstrated that chronic stress and adversity, often experienced by children growing up in poverty, significantly impacts the development of brain regions responsible for such skills. As a result, many children do not enter school with skills for controlling impulses, focusing attention, or organizing thinking in a goal-oriented fashion.

³This section draws from Fischer and Bidell (2006).

⁴Throughout this section, we define “content” in regard to facts, principles, and ideas. Following the tradition in cognitive developmental theory that knowledge involves (and is revealed by) internalized individual-context (e.g., Piaget, 1970) and externalized individual-context actions (e.g., Brandtstädter, 1998, 2006), we define “knowledge” as including the ability to use such content to decide and do complex tasks. Knowledge infuses learning and continuously reflects the coactions between the individual and his or her world.

⁵Aristotle discusses phronesis as “practical wisdom”—knowledge that guides a person to enact the right moral virtue, in the right amount, at the right time, and in the right place. Simply, phronesis is knowing what is best to do, and how to do it, in a specific setting.

⁶See, https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuides.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by grants awarded by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Raikes Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.