[The book] has been specifically designed to bring the work of developmental psychologists together with that of historians of childhood, psychological anthropologists, sociologists, psycholinguists, and experts in other fields, to examine the diversity of children's development in the complex, changing social contexts in which it occurs. In the [book's] chapters ... we will be studying children as they change within these developing contexts. Through this study we will be led to a deeper understanding of the many forces that bring about change-change in individuals, in families, in societies, and in humankind. -Introd.