Infused with diversity: are we there yet?

"Child Development: Principles and perspectives" is positioned as an introductory textbook for undergraduate students in psychology, education, and related course programs. While it was not intended to be encyclopaedic in content, it covers a broad and typical range of topics traditionally seen in textbooks concerned with presenting a comprehensive overview of child development. Nonetheless, it differs from many comprehensive texts on development by attempting to present both content 'principles' and an examination of content using a particular educational strategy, perspective taking, or the consideration of 'perspectives'. Within the general field of developmental psychology there has been a fundamental questioning of knowledge and teaching, and a critique of the often-portrayed universality of developmental processes and stages. It has been argued that acknowledgement, at a fundamental level, of the need for contextualisation in the study of child development is required and that when development is viewed more as an interactional process (of biological, social, and cultural factors), different understandings and perspectives arise. This review considers the authors’ purpose for this text in the context of contemporary views and directions in teaching developmental psychology. An overview of the content and structure of the book is then provided, followed by a discussion of the extent to which the authors’ goals were achieved and concerns within the field of developmental psychology addressed.