ABSTRACT
In her book, Smidt examines what is meant by child development and stresses the importance of history and culture in fostering understanding. She looks at childhood as a concept and develops a workable image of the child in the twenty-first century, as well as touching on the notion of good parenting.The extract below is set within a more general critique of the impact of brain research and ‘attempts to coerce parents and teachers to change aspects of the ways in which they interact with or teach children’ (p. 120).
