Commentary on the Special Issue of ADS Muslim Youth in the West: “Collateral Damage” We Cannot Afford to Disregard

Abstract

At any given point in ontogenetic and historical time, neither individuals' attributes nor the features of their context alone are the leading predictors of their healthy development and adaptation. Instead, the relations between the individual and different levels of his/her ecology (such as family, peers, settings, cultural values, and media) are most important in understanding the character of human development and of the role of the ecology of human development in a person's life course (Lerner, Anderson, Balsano, Dowling, & Bobek, 2003). Environments that allow an imbalance between the individual and context by constraining and dictating the nature of individuals' interactions with the context tend to lead to developmentally inadequate person-context relations and, consequently, to dysfunctional relationships among citizens (Lerner, et al., 2003).