Cultural Variation in Life Phases

The knowledge base in the study of human development is built primarily from work with children from the modern, global, post-industrial population. This population is unrepresentative in many respects, not least in that childhood and adolescence is dominated by the experience of formal schooling—an experience missing from the lives of most of the world’s children until very recently. This entry will examine child development from the perspective of pre-modern societies as described in the ethnographic, archaeological and historic records. Specifically, we will review material indicative of cultural or indigenous models of development, phases and phase transitions, in particular