This important volume deals with the issue of how to make comparisons in the field of human development.

1. Introduction; Part I. Metatheoretical Approaches to Developmental Comparison: 2. Developmental comparison Lucien Winegar; 3. Developmental concepts across disciplines Michael J. Shanahan, Jaan Valsiner and Gilbert Gottlieb; 4. Ecological perspectives in human development: a comparison of Gibson and Bronfenbrenner Jonathan Tudge, Jacquelyn Gray and Diane Hogan; Part II. Paradigmatic Statements: 5. Nested comparisons in the study of historical change and individual adaptation Michael J. Shanahan and Glen H. Elder, Jr; 6. The value of comparisons in developmental psychology Debra Mekos and Patricia A. Clubb; 7. Implications from developmental cross-cultural research for the study of acculturation in Western civilizations Beth Costes, Rona McCall and Wolfgang Schneider; Part III. Comparisons at the Level of Data: 8. The co-development of identity, agency and lived worlds Dorothy C. Holland and Debra G. Skinner; 9. Sociocultural promotions constraining children's social activity: comparisons and variability in the development of 'friendships' Paul A. Winterhoff; 10. The everyday experiences of North American preschoolers in two cultural communities: a cross-disciplinary and cross-level analysis Jonathan Tudge and Sarah Putnam; Part IV. Commentaries: 11. Developmental science: a case of the bird flapping the wing, or the wing flapping the bird?: commentary on Winegar's chapter Jeanette A. Lawrence; 12. Conceptual transposition, parallelism and inter-disciplinary communication: commentary on Shanahan, Valsiner, and Gottlieb's chapter Jeanette A. Lawrence and Agnes E. Dodds; 13. The 'ecological' approach: when labels suggest similarities beyond basic concepts in psychology Angela Branco; 14. Problems of comparison: methodology, the art of story-telling, and implicit models Hideo Kojima; 15. The promise of comparative, longitudinal research for studies of productive-reproductive processes in children's lives William A. Corsaro; 16. Integrating psychology into social science: a commentary on Tudge and Putnam, and Holland and Skinner James Youniss.