The Promotion of Social Awareness

"In Selman's new work, Jean Piaget meets John Dewey. Thirty years of creative theorizing and research in developmental psychology is forged in the crucible of clinical practice and educational reform."
-J. LAWRENCE ABER, director, National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University

"In this wise and humane book, Robert Selman integrates the insights that he has gained during his thirty-year career as a distinguished clinical and developmental psychologist. Both the breadth and depth of Selman's vision are remarkable. He offers the reader valuable methods for promoting growth in teachers as well as children; and, just as importantly, he puts practical methods in the context of a systematic theoretical framework, drawn from the best psychological traditions, that enables the reader to think systematically about what children and their teachers need, and why. The book is charter for a truly developmental approach to addressing the social-emotional needs of today's young. Educators, researchers, and all those concerned with the future of our children will find The Promotion of Social Awareness enormously helpful."
-WILLIAM DAMON, professor of education and director, Center on Adolescence, Stanford University

"In The Promotion of Social Awareness, Robert Selman describes the history of his innovative and wide-ranging efforts to promote children's social competence. His multifaceted approach blends and respects both research and practice, showing how each benefits from the other. Beginning with developmental theory and clinical practice, Selman's vision expanded to encompass the use of children's literature to promote social competence, the investigation of teachers' beliefs and practices, and the creation of informative assessments. With his collaborators, he shows in rich detail how research and practice must navigate the broader social and political landscape and confront questions of value and culture. What a model for the committed psychologist!"
-HERBERT GINSBURG, Jacob H. Schiff Foundation Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

"For those who see great promise in developmental psychology for education, and more generally seek to strengthen practice through judicious application of theory, this is a stimulating and valuable book. Educators will surely benefit from making use of it."
-DR. DAVID A. HAMBURG, president emeritus, Carnegie Corporation of New York and visiting scholar, Department of Psychiatry, Cornell University Weill Medical College

Education specialists have written volumes on the best ways to help children learn to read and write, but who is helping them navigate the potentially treacherous waters of social interactions? While in school to study, children are also preoccupied with understanding the rules governing social relationships. Issues of trust and loyalty, rivalry and conflict, belonging and exclusion affect all school-aged children, but very few lesson plans include social development skills.

The Promotion of Social Awareness summarizes thirty years of research on the social development of children in elementary and middle school, and shows how this work has led to a series of programs that promote the social competence of children and adolescents. Rich with lessons drawn from real life, the book includes an in-depth account of the author's partnership with an innovative program designed to help educators promote a sound ethic of social relationships among children, a case study of a teacher particularly gifted at promoting such relationships, and the tale of how the author's theoretical framework fared cross-culturally when exported to Iceland.

The Promotion of Social Awareness documents Robert Selman's efforts both as a practitioner trying to help young people develop their interpersonal skills and as a researcher attempting to understand the factors that promote or hinder social development. Selman believes that getting along with others involves concrete and measurable social skills and actions that can be taught. The book underlines how the science of social development has given rise to initiatives and programs that can be used in educational settings to help children get along with each other, and may in the long run help prevent violence, drug abuse, and prejudice.

Unique in its marriage of theory and practice, The Promotion of Social Awareness will appeal to a wide readership, including developmental psychologists, educators, and parents.

ROBERT L. SELMAN is Roy E. Larsen Professor of Human Development and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and professor of psychology, Harvard Medical School.