18.11: What is the meta-theory that guides our class and our book?

One of the goals of this book is to lay out the advantages of developmental systems perspectives on human development. The authors were trained in a variety of systems and contextualist perspectives, including the transactional-dialectic perspective and the lifespan orientation—a view that fought its way through dominant perspectives in child psychology (e.g., development ends at age 18), starting in the 1970s and becoming a well-regarded meta-theory today. (Note that your instructors chose your book, so their meta-theory is influencing the meta-theoretical filter through which you are learning about development.) In subsequent chapters, we touch on several developmental systems perspectives that incorporate organismic and contextual elements, such as the bio-ecological model, transactional-dialectic models, relational perspectives, and dynamic systems.

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