ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what is to be learned about human development by looking beyond Euro-American children and Western cultures and, further, what is to be learned about development within Western cultural contexts by considering the cross-cultural roots of minority child development. It argues that the challenge for developmental theory is to devise organizing frameworks that can account for developmental change, cultural diversity, and contextual variation in a model that presents development as multidetermined. The chapter addresses how culture can be invoked to demonstrate continuities in development; and alternatively, where societal context operates as a moderator variable, how culture influences behavioral expressions that might be interpreted as discontinuities of development. It allows consideration of cultural influences on development within and across differing societal contexts. The chapter presents the issue of flexibility shifts from normative milestones to considerations of the impact of moderator or mediator variables of timing and quality of experience during acquisition of the behavioral norms.
