To a greater extent than any other species, human beings create the environments that, in turn, shape their own development. This book endeavors to demonstrate that human beings can also develop those environments to optimize their most constructive genetic potentials. What makes human beings human, therefore, is both the potential to shape their world in intricate physical, social, technological, and cultural ways and the possibility that these actions will nurture positive development. The collection of articles traces and summarizes the editor's thoughts on the bioecological theory of human development and recommends avenues for future research, documenting the domain of inquiry that has emerged gradually over many years. The book is targeted to developmental psychologists, educators, and public policy individuals involved with families and education, and is also a text for courses in Psychology, Family Studies and Human Development, Human Ecology, Education, and Public Policy. Nineteen articles are grouped into two sections. Section I, On the Nature of Bioecological Theory and Research, includes: (1) The Bioecological Theory of Human Development; (2) Social Ecology over Time and Space; (3) Social Status, Structure, and Development in the Classroom Group; (4) Social Ecology of Human Development; (5) Lewinian Space and Ecological Substance; (6) A Future Perspective; (7) Toward a Critical History of Development: A Propaedeutic Discussion; (8) Interacting Systems in Human Development. Research Paradigms: Present and Future; (9) Developing Ecology; (10) Ecological Systems Theory; and (11) Heredity, Environment and the Question "How." A First Approximation. Section II, Using the Ecology of Human Development to Enhance the Human Condition, includes: (12) Growing Chaos in the Lives of Children and Families: How Can We Turn It Around?; (13) The Split Level American Family; (14) Minority Report of Forum 15- 1970 White House Conference on Children; (15) Two Worlds of Childhood: U.S. and U.S.S.R.; (16) Is 80% of Intelligence Genetically Determined?; (17) The Future of Childhood; (18) Strengthening Family Systems; and (19) Child Care in the Anglo-Saxon Mode. The book includes a foreword (Richard M. Lerner) and afterword (Stephen F. Hamilton and Stephen J. Ceci).