Explores how the study of child development is inevitably bound up both in cultural ideas about the nature and needs of children, and in educational practices that arise from these ideas. There are additional contributions on social development in the classroom and playground.

Part One Concepts of childhood, concepts of parenthood; Chapter 1 Revolution in parenthood, Robert A. Levine, Merry I. White; Chapter 2 The American child and other cultural inventions, William Kessen; Chapter 3 Psychology and the cultural construction of ‘children's needs’, Martin Woodhead; Part two Frameworks for child care; Chapter 4 Working mothers and the care of young children, Barbara Tizard; Chapter 5 Infant day care: maligned or malignant?, K. Alison Clarke-Stewart; Chapter 6 The role of social networks in the care of young children, Malcolm Hill; Chapter 7 Coping with family transitions: winners, losers and survivors, E. Mavis Hetherington; Part three Expectations in early education; Chapter 8 The relationship of temperament to adjustment in British infant schools, Helen Altman Klein, Jeanne H. Ballantine; Chapter 9 The ability of young children to rank themselves for academic ability, Tony Crocker, Rosemary Cheeseman; Chapter 10 Early admission: early labelling, Colin Rogers; Chapter 11 Transactional models of early education effectiveness: what is the message for policy?, Martin Woodhead; Part four Pupil perspectives on classrooms and playgrounds; Chapter 12 Teachers: a child's eye view, Jacqueline Goodnow, Ailsa Burns; Chapter 13 Playground games and playtime: the children's view, Peter Blatchford, Rosemary Creeser, Ann Mooney; Chapter 14 Friends and fights, Bronwyn Davies; Part five Gender, ‘race’ and the experience of schooling; Chapter 15 Sex roles in the primary classroom, Paul Croll, Diana Moses; Chapter 16 Demolishing ‘The House that Jack Built’: anti-sexist initiatives in the primary school, Christine Skelton; Chapter 17 Pupils, ‘race’ and education in primary schools, Peter Woods, Elizabeth Grugeon; Chapter 18 Children's grasp of controversial issues, Geoffrey Short;