Environmental Change, Family Adaptations, and Child Development: Longitudinal Research in India

John and Beatrice Whiting provided both the research tools and the theoretical framework for the author's longitudinal study of children and their families in a rapidly changing town in India. This article describes some of the major findings of that research project, beginning with a 2-year study of young children from 1965 to 1967 and follow-up work with the same children and families through 1999. Results of the Six Culture Study and the larger sample of communities in Bea Whiting and Carolyn Edwards's Children of Different Worlds are used to put the author's research findings into a broader, cross-cultural framework.