Review Details
This is a comprehensive and discursive book on child development, adolescence included. Comprising sixteen chapters and two essays it presents a holistic picture, bringing in perspectives from multiple disciplines like child development, psychology, sociology and education.
‘Basic Concepts and Ideas in Human Development and Diversity’ by Ranganathan presents the over-all framework of human development and gives perspective of three theorists, Piaget, Vygotsky and Kohlberg. Thus, this paper sets the tone for the chapters that follow.
The sixteen chapters can be seen as three distinct themes. Theme one is Early Childhood Care and Development, with two papers—‘Developmental Patterns in Early Childhood’, and ‘Early Childhood Care and Education: Policy, Practices and Innovations’ which complement each other; Geeta Rai presents the principles and milestones of child development in early years and Suhasini Kanwar presents the policy and practice, together they give a comprehensive perspective of the area of Early Childhood Care and Education. Gender perspective and its inter-generational impact because of early pregnancy, toxic stress and severe malnutrition of women could have been included in the argument.
