ABSTRACT
Vygotskians have argued forcefully for the social quality of children's activity as they develop. Michael Cole, of course, is only the most prominent developmentalist to show the fallacy of presuming that at the surface and even beneath the surface, children's development looks alike in different cultures. John Clausen's work on planful competence provides us with an example of the problems that crop up when developmental accounts neglect history, and pay some special attention to his neglect of change in gender role in the 20th century. Children develop in a briefer historical time frame that intersects with the developmental timetable of the individual. The life course represents a changing historical context for the individual and it is nested in the historical time and space of social institutions and societies. Work opportunities in the war industries of the Second World War drew thousands of Black and Hispanic families to the region, creating dramatically greater racial and cultural diversity.
