Intersectionality and Context Across the Lifespan

Book excerpt: Intersectionality and Context across the Lifespan: Readings for Human Development helps students increase their understanding of the diverse factors that affect development at various life stages. Readers learn how culture, gender, ability, religion, sexual identity, nationality and immigration status, socioeconomic status, and other factors work together to continually influence our individual identities and worldviews throughout our lives. The anthology progresses in step with the lifespan, presenting global and contextual perspectives from conception to end of life. Each chapter presents critical readings about a variety of individual and family development issues that affect the lifespan. Throughout, readers are encouraged and challenged to appreciate the diversity across and within cultures. The text examines the ways in which systems of privilege, power, and oppression shape developmental trajectories while also introducing students to critical social theories. Intersectionality and Context across the Lifespan is part of the Cognella Series on Families and Social Justice, a collection of textbooks that support core curriculum within family-related disciplines with emphasis on issues related to social justice, diversity, and equity.