Development of the Young Child

0.5-1 Course Unit

This course will blend an explanatory and descriptive account of behavioral evolution over the early years of life. After a review of "grand" developmental theory and the major themes of child change (from images to representation; from dependence to independence; from instinctual to social beings), this course will survey the child's passage from infancy through the early school years. While the emphasis will be on the nature of the child--what she/he sees, feels, thinks, fantasizes, wants and loves--these realities will be understood in terms of developmental theory. At each stage, the course will review the development of cognition, personal identity, socialization, and morality in pluralistic contexts. Fall 0.5-1 Course Unit