Although very young children are unable to formulate a personal narrative of the life course, their everyday lives are steeped in narratives. Drawing on ethnographic studies in diverse sociocultural worlds, we argue that the early years of life form a vital preamble to the personal narrative. In this phase of life, the universal predisposition to…

In adolescence, remembering the personal past and understanding what kind of person one is intertwine to form a story of one's life as the most extant, informative, and flexible form of self-representation. In adolescence, the striving for self-coherence translates into a quest for global coherence of the life story. We suggest that…

This chapter develops three points of elaboration and theoretical expansion upon Cohler's (1982) treatise on personal narrative and life course. First, we highlight Cohler's emphasis on an interpretive, idiographic approach to the study of lives and reveal the radicalism of this approach, particularly in its ability to interrogate the…

In a remarkably prescient chapter, Bertram Cohler (1982) reimagined the problems and the potentialities of psychological development across the life course as a distinctively human challenge in life narration. This chapter situates Cohler's original vision within the intellectual and scientific matrix of the late 1970s, wherein psychologists…

This chapter examines differential circumstances whereby aging individuals construct their selves as a narrative or, alternatively, seem to prefer other routes to manifest their identity. The preliminary exploration of questions about the characteristics of those aged who prefer to tell and those who do not, as well as the salutary role of…

The primary aims of this concluding chapter are to identify common themes across the preceding chapters, to provide an integrative synthesis of these themes, and to draw out the implications of Bertram Cohler's work for narrative psychology and for the field of developmental psychology more generally. As with the previous chapters, the…

Early research on child development in Africa was dominated by expatriates and was primarily addressed to the topics of testing the cross-cultural validity of theories developed "in the West," and the search for universals. After a brief review of the outcome of that research, we propose two additional types of motivation that seem…

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to millions of HIV-affected children. These children are likely to experience multiple developmental delays. In this chapter, I present data highlighting compromised neurobehavioral, mental health, and scholastic outcomes for children affected by HIV. Furthermore, I discuss biomedical factors (e.g., disease severity and…

Western conceptions of child development and the models of early education they engender predominantly shape services for young children in the first eight years of life all over Africa. This chapter brings a reconceptualist perspective to the critique of Kenya's continuing failure to ground early childhood programs and services in local…

Sub-Saharan Africa has predominantly rural populations unable to offer children sustainable access to early literacy and childhood care and education. Children's literacy development starts very early in life through participation and experiences in the home and preschool. My research in rural Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania shows that…

Early childhood education has received unprecedented attention among African policymakers in recent years, recognizing that the early years form an important foundation upon which later development is anchored and noting evidence that various Early Childhood Development (ECD) indicators are predictive of future academic success. Central to the…

We reflect on ways in which research presented in earlier chapters responds to challenges of generating an African child development field and identify additional issues calling for the field's attention. The chapters collectively display a variety of African contexts and reflexive evidence of the authors' African cultural roots.…

More than five decades after Brown v. Board of Education and four decades after the Civil Rights era, racial prejudice remains a national problem cutting across social class and culture. Although schools may seem ideal places to teach children about tolerance and harmony, there is little consensus on how to best reduce negative sentiments and…

We review what is known about Head Start's impacts on children and argue that the program is likely to generate benefits to participants and society as a whole that are larger than program costs. Our conclusions differ from those in some previous reviews because we use a more appropriate standard to judge program effectiveness (benefit-cost…

Hurricane Katrina resulted in a disaster of proportions not previously known in the United States. The traumatic experiences of children and families during Hurricane Katrina, the flooding that resulted from the breach of the levees, the evacuation, and the aftermath are unprecedented. In responding to the enormous mental health needs of children…