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Themes of lifespan development
Elder (1994) proposes four interdependent themes that demonstrate how the lifespan developmental perspective and contextualism differ from organicism and mechanism, as follows:
- interplay of human lives and historical times
- timing of lives
- linking of lives
- human agency
These themes place human development in time and place, emphasize the roles that cultural values and beliefs play in individual development, and highlight how context and individual assign meaning to events (Goldhaber, 2000).