My biographical sketch describes how I became a cultural/cross-cultural developmental scientist as a complete autodidact. During the late 1960s in Germany universities were in a massive process of change which only later resulted in formal institutional structures and curricula. Until then, there was complete freedom for pursuing interests and selecting topics. I was generally interested in other cultures and found opportunities to study children and families abroad. Connecting with evolutionary theory prompted me towards being a universalist. In another direction, meeting great minds in the fields of cultural and cross-cultural psychology helped me find my point of view as a developmental scientist studying children’s developmental pathways in different cultural environments. Together with wonderful colleagues, I studied systematic contextual variations in solving general developmental tasks. My overall conclusion is that culture needs to be consistently introduced into developmental science and all its applications (in policy and practical interventions).

Family, friends, partners, and pets can help young people with cognitive disability as they become adults. Some young people with cognitive disability had families who spoke up for them and helped them when times were hard. Some young people with cognitive disability had partners who helped them feel good about themselves. Friends could help young people with cognitive disability leave abusive situations. Professionals can do more to help young people with cognitive disability make friends and be part of their community.

How was the British imperial state transformed from an ancien régime in 1819 to a liberal one that depended upon a new science of government?

Social interaction with friends and family is pivotal for our cognitive development, mental health, and overall wellbeing. These connections shape our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world around us. Research consistently highlights the positive impact of social engagement on cognition and mental health, from stimulating problem-solving skills to combating loneliness and reducing stress. The brain regions activated during social interactions underscore the significance of social cognition, empathy, and emotional processing. Particularly during adolescence, positive friendships play a crucial role in emotional resilience and healthy development. Studies suggest an optimal number of close friends for mental health benefits, emphasizing quality over quantity in social relationships. Social support networks bolster resilience and aid in recovery from mental health disorders. Conversely, social isolation poses risks to brain health and mental wellbeing, highlighting the importance of maintaining social connections throughout life. Engaging in social activities, whether through clubs, volunteering, or hobbies, fosters social interaction and enhances overall wellbeing. In a world increasingly driven by technology, prioritizing face-to-face social interaction remains essential for brain health, cognition, and mental wellbeing.

Engagement theory recognises that a student’s engagement with education is impacted by factors external to schooling. It is argued that this relationship starts at birth and is continually influenced by family, community, media and individual characteristics in both positive and negative ways.

This chapter investigates the various external factors that influence student engagement. It explores an ecological approach to engagement focusing on personal, family, community and social factors. It reviews the impact of key indicators of health, wellbeing and development on student engagement and highlights what teachers can do to recognise these influences and accommodate them where possible.

This chapter explores the notion of ‘family’ from a philosophical perspective. EU family law recognises that there is such a thing as the family and that it merits special legal protection. Yet, different societies define what counts as a family, and its members, in different ways. The changes in family forms over the last hundred years have also led some to argue that ‘the family’ no longer exists, and, moreover, that it is not special. These arguments are criticised. It is argued that there can be a single concept of ‘the family’ under which different instances fall. The chapter also argues that giving a special legal status to the family requires being able satisfactorily to define what it is and offers a defence of a ‘functional’ definition. It then considers ways in which the family - as defined - might be thought uniquely valuable, critically reviewing appeals to the goods it provides and emphasising the key public good of families in rearing children. The probable impossibility of unifying EU family law does not mean that it is inconsistent to argue that a single concept of family encompasses many different national forms and that the family, in its diversity, continues to merit a special legal status.

Using the changing legal bases for divorce, this chapter first canvasses how the traditional dividing lines between the so-called ‘progressive North’, consisting of predominantly protestant jurisdictions, and the ‘conservative South’ with predominantly catholic populations have faded away in family law – only to be replaced by a new dividing line between Eastern and Western European jurisdictions regarding the recognition of same-sex relationships and same-sex families. It then discusses whether ‘the family’ is part of the ‘European Way of Life’, proclaimed by the European Commission as one of its policy and strategy aims. However, different understandings of what a ‘family’ is create tensions which manifest, in particular, when the Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights hand down decisions which mandate the recognition of family forms, creating elements of an institutional European Family Law. The chapter concludes by expressing the hope that in the long term the tensions between different conceptions of family can be resolved within the existing frameworks in Europe and that a family in one country will also be a family in all other European countries.

This chapter focuses on adolescents’ use of strategies to conceal information about their whereabouts, behaviors, and activities from parents. The chapter describes the concealing strategies assessed by researchers, adolescents’ relative use of strategies, and adolescents’ reasons for concealing information from parents. Concealment strategies range from partial disclosure to secrecy to lying. Most adolescents use partial and passive concealment strategies (e.g. omitting details) more often than active concealment strategies (e.g. lying). Adolescents conceal activities they believe to be personal and to avoid punishment. The chapter also summarizes research on potential implications of concealment for both the parent–adolescent relationship and the adolescent’s adjustment. Research evidence links the use of concealing strategies with poorer quality parent–adolescent relationships and with poorer behavioral and psychological adjustment. Recommended future directions include integrating research on concealment with the literatures on self-disclosure, lying, and secrecy outside the parent–child relationship, and further tests of the hypothesized benefits of concealment.

Take a broad look at American family and friendhip ntworks, examining marriage, child-rearing, and other family and personal relations among the consuls and members of the American community in the Mediterranean.

This chapter introduces my research questions, framework, and main findings. It begins with two striking vignettes to engage the readers and outline the significance of the two basic questions that motivate this book and intersect at children's social cognition: How do humans learn morality? How do we make sense of fieldnotes? The chapter situates the book in intellectual history, including the Wolfs’ original research, its connections to the Six Cultures Study, and its legacies. It then presents a new framework of cognitive anthropology distinctive from the behaviorist paradigm that motivated the original research. I situate the book in three broad streams of discussions: (1) theoretical conversations between anthropology and psychology on morality; (2) cross-cultural research on childhood learning; (3) studies of Chinese kinship, families, and childhood. I explain why it is important to study children to understand morality, human relatedness, and cultural transmission. I also make the case for reanalyzing historical fieldnotes. I then lay out a methodology that incorporates computational approaches into ethnography, summarize my main arguments, and outline the book structure.

Considering the sources and material evidence available from Rome, this chapter focuses on the evidence of women’s associations with these soldiers of the different units stationed in the capital. These women were often labeled as “wives” in written documentation. By analyzing the available evidence, predominantly on funerary monuments, the authors expand the discussion of the social expectations and realities of women associated with the military in the context of the Empire’s center. The evidence gives us a rich image of an aspect of society that has not yet been explored, while at the same time providing a new perspective on the life of Roman soldiers. The origin of the women and their social background is treated as a relevant factor for their integration in the military community and – as inhabitants of Rome – in the community of the city. In this context it is interesting to consider the origin of personal relationships. In some cases, it seems that women accompanied soldiers to Rome from a provincial location and other cases suggest the relationship began in the capital itself.

A substantial collection of sources indicates that women constituted a considerable part of the travelers in the first centuries of the Roman Empire, a period in which traveling became increasingly popular with various social classes. These travelers have left traces of their experiences en route in personal letters on papyri and ostraca, in graffiti and on votive inscriptions. Classical scholarship has long ignored these sources, even though they offer us a unique insight into female experiences and self-representation. Recent excavations on and near the trade routes in the Eastern and Western Desert of Egypt, along which units of the Roman army were positioned in military outposts, protecting and controlling the area, have uncovered letters in which women – most of them of lower rank – discussed their concerns about traveling from and to the military camps of their husbands, fathers, or brothers. When combined with other sources such as papyri and graffiti, these documents give insight into the mobility of the female relatives of soldiers in Roman Egypt. They tell us something about the reasons why they decided to undertake journeys, the distance they covered (some while being heavily pregnant), where they stayed, and the dangers they encountered during the trip.

Recent research is demonstrating that other women and children, besides those in senior officers’ families, lived inside Roman military bases during the Principate; however, such women are rarely discussed in written sources. Also, the archaeological remains of military bases essentially lack the types of evidence for sexed bodies and gendered practices that can be found in burial contexts and figurative representations. This chapter discusses how more material-cultural approaches to artifactual remains from such sites can be used to investigate gendered identities and lived socio-spatial practices, and to develop better understanding of the place of such women in these hypermasculine spaces. This chapter is concerned with developing approaches to the artifactual remains from these sites, and the potential range of people and activities they represent, to investigate the presence of women within the fortification walls of these bases, and the roles that they may have played here. It demonstrates how an integrated approach to “gendering” artifacts can be used to explore the probabilities, rather than the certainties, of artifacts as gender attributes and how analyses of artifact distribution patterns can be used to identify women who often are not identified through other media, and so seeks solutions to identifying gendered behaviors.

Traditional study of Roman military communities has ignored or erased women and their families from daily military life. Archaeological and documentary evidence reveal the inescapable fact that residents of extended military communities interacted inside and outside Roman forts through habitation, commercial endeavors, and social obligations. As a result of having been segregated by historians into external communities women have been acknowledged as existing, but otherwise ignored. Not only have their social and economic contributions been disregarded, but even their identities have been overlooked. This chapter reviews the basic reasons historians have removed women from our conception of life in military contexts and then discusses the evidence for the presence and contributions of military women. The chapter closes with discussion of how the volume is organized. As becomes clear, the presence of women, children, and families within the forts and in the extramural settlements of the Roman army is beyond doubt, thanks to the diligent and sometimes contentious work of scholars over the last thirty years.