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In this book, the contributors challenge dominant discourses and practices in the fields of early childhood and middle grades education that are based on the last century´s grand developmental theories.

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General Introduction: Developmentalism and the Need for Critical Conversations Within and Across the Fields; K.Lee & M.D.Vagle PART I: ARE THEY READY YET?; K.Lee What´s More Important: Numbers or Shoes?: Readiness, Curriculum and Nonsense in a Rural Preschool; A.N.Parks & S.Bridges-Rhoads Who is Normal? Who is Abnormal?: Rethinking Child Development from a Cultural Psychological Perspective; K.Lee Being Present in the Middle School Years; H.G.Conklin Am I a Novice Teacher?: The Voices of Induction Teachers in a Preschool; S.K.Park & A.N.Parks Responsivity Rather than Readiness; E.Graue PART II: RESPONSIVE TO WHAT?; M.D.Vagle Pursuing an Answerable Education for Young Adolescents; M.D.Vagle Black Adolescent Identity, Double-Consciousness, and a Socio-Historically Constructed Adolescence; L.Harrison Fourteen is the New Thirty: Adolescent Girls, their Bodies, and Sexuality; H.E.Hughes The SMART Board as an Adolescent Classroom Technology; S.Bridges-Rhoads PART II RESPONSE; E.R.Brown PART III: CONVERSATIONS ACROSS FIELDS; K.Lee & M.D.Vagle A Schismatic Family and a Gated Community?; M.D.Vagle & A.Parks Walking the Borderland; K.Lee & H.Conklin

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´The contributors challenge the concepts of adolescence derived from G. Stanley Hall, as well as Piaget´s stage theory. The essays range from the descriptive to the theoretical, but all of them question accepted ways of looking at children and stimulate the reader. [...] Highly recommended.´ - S. Sugarman, Choice

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KYUNGHWA LEE is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Elementary and Social Studies Education at The University of Georgia, USA.

MARK D. VAGLE is Assistant Professor of Middle Grades Education in the Department of Elementary and Social Studies Education at The University of Georgia, USA.

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