In this chapter, we argue that deeper insight into the social nature of self-development can be gained by adopting a dual focus on social relationships and meaning making. A key challenge for future scholarship will be to investigate the role of semiotic mediation in self-construction during the early years of life.

New research reveals that media use may contribute to shaping not only adolescents' developing beliefs about gender, race, sexuality, and beauty ideals but also their brains and biology.

We propose that institutions can serve as a resource to promote civic identity in youth from low-wealth and other settings. We show how recent studies support this proposition and can constructively reorient developmental research and theory.

The areas considered in this chapter have to do with the aims of family socialization, the nature of influence, linking multiple sources of influence, and the range of families and contexts used as a basis for accounts of socialization. In each area, moving beyond restrictive assumptions opens up new ways of thinking and new research questions.

Although research on friendship reveals the significance of friendship for children, questions about friendship and development remain unanswered. It is argued that the study of friendship would benefit from a return to basic questions about what friendship is, how it is measured, and how it varies across people and contexts.

The executive attention network is involved in regulating emotions and cognitions, forming a neural basis for temperamental self-regulation. New brain imaging and molecular genetics methods can enhance our understanding of common mechanisms of self-regulation and individual differences in their expression.

Research suggests that the development of emotional regulation in early childhood is interrelated with emotional understanding and language skills. Heuristic models are proposed on how these factors influence children's emerging academic motivation and skills. (Contains 2 figures.)

Research patterns from the past three decades and several current directions of research are used to describe emerging trends in the study of cognitive development. These trends are discussed as moving the field into new areas, particularly biology, learning, and social context, and contributing to a more integrated understanding of psychological…

This chapter describes the history of the Eccles et al. Expectancy Value Model and research on the influence of social and psychological factors on gender and ethnic differences in math, science, and information technology choices. (Contains 1 figure.)

This study examined why female adolescents choose to opt out of the math pipeline during high school more often than males, which has implications for their long-term careers. (Contains 3 figures.)

For middle and high school girls in high-ability math classes, interest and self-concept made a difference for school grades, and for all adolescents, maternal expectations were influential in predicting math grades over time. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure, and 2 notes.)

This chapter explores the important social-psychological factors along individuals' developmental pathways that influence youths' computer-related occupational decisions. Findings suggest that these factors differentially influence information technology pursuits dependent on youths' race and gender. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This chapter provides a brief retrospective on the general topic and the empirical work presented in this volume, as well as a discussion of the practical implications of these findings for high schools, institutions of higher education, and the current workforce.

This chapter addresses how critical choices in the math and science pipeline can be traced back to adolescents' self-concepts of abilities and values at the beginning of high school. (Contains 3 figures.)

Examined how homeless African American women who have been professionally assessed and who self-report to be dependent on alcohol and other drugs make sense of their becoming chemically dependent. Found that interviewees perceived childhood physical, sexual, and psychological abuse and neglect to be among the antecedents to their chemical…