Introduction

All the authors in this section have a common interest in pathways research and in its implications for prevention policy and practice, but there are widely divergent interpretations of what a ‘pathway’ is and differing views on the kind of theoretical lens through which the concept should be viewed. Probably all authors, regardless of their theoretical stance, would agree with Jeanette Lawrence when she states in Chapter 2 (p. 30): ‘The pathway is a useful metaphor for prevention strategists, because it assists social scientists to organise information about individual lives into coherent and interpretable patterns.’ However, not all would accept the term ‘developmental pathway’ despite the non-deterministic, whole-of-life and socially embedded notion of pathways that Lawrence (consistent with thinking in contemporary developmental psychology) outlines in her chapter. Indeed the terms ‘development’ and ‘developmental’ are highly controversial in some quarters (e.g. Hil 1999).