Right in Front of Us: Taking Everyday Life Seriously in the Study of Human Development

Abstract

The need to pay attention to context has been a prominent theme in research on human development. Nevertheless, the empirical reality of the immediate context within which individuals develop has been largely ignored in research on human development. Therefore, my “one wish” is that the field begin to take seriously the processes that operate in the everyday social world. Doing so will help clarify three key principles: advance understanding: 1) diversity in developmental outcomes is largely socially organized; 2) “bi-directional” individual-context interactions are generally asymmetrical; 3) individuals are producers not only of themselves but also of the social world. While it shapes the development of individuals, the social world is also a human creation. These insights can assist developmental research in efforts to broaden its concern to focus on issues of social justice and the analysis of science itself as part of the social world, with cultural, political and ideological dimensions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Elaine Dannefer, Jessica Kelley-Moore, Paul Stein, and the editors of this special issue for comments on an earlier draft of this article, and Wenxuan Huang, Luma Al Masarweh and Sarah Shick for research and bibliographic assistance.